Company patents
PFU LIMITED
PFU LIMITED's patent strategy reveals a surprising and strong focus on traditional manufacturing, with 'Material Handling (Sheets, Webs)' dominating 57.1% of its portfolio, despite a recent decline of 35.3% in 2026 so far. While 'Computer Vision' and 'Image Processing' are emerging areas, showing rapid growth of +150.0% and +300.0% respectively in 2026, the company appears to be shifting away from 'Printers & Typewriters', which saw a 100.0% decline in patenting activity in 2026.
Patent Trend by Technology Area
Yearly patent publications since 2023
Product themes
Product-level themes inferred from filings since 2023, with category chips showing where each theme appears. Select a theme to filter the patents below.
240 US filings (since 2023) · 7 categories · 11 themes
Mechanisms and control systems for reliably feeding, conveying, and separating print media, including managing media roll changes, adjusting airflow, and adapting to different media characteristics.
Mechanisms and sensors for accurately conveying, positioning, loading, and managing various types of recording media (e.g., paper, fabric, labels) through a printing apparatus, and detecting their presence, type, or potential collision.
Technologies for maintaining the correct path and alignment of webs or individual sheets during conveyance, including mechanisms for steering, correcting positional deviations, and managing static electricity.
Systems that employ imaging and image processing to automatically detect defects, verify states, or ensure quality control in manufactured goods, printed materials, or industrial processes.
Systems that perform operations like cutting, folding, binding, or applying liquids to sheets or webs, often integrated within larger production lines such as printing or image forming apparatuses.
Apparatus and methods for automatically winding or unwinding continuous materials such as webs, cables, conduits, or yarns onto or from spools, reels, or bobbins, including aspects like layering, coreless winding, and material supply.
Methods and apparatus for improving the visual fidelity, resolution, or compression efficiency of video signals, often through advanced processing, up-scaling, or neural network-based filters.
Methods and systems for uniquely identifying individual units of material (e.g., yarn spindles, winding spools, bobbins) and monitoring their performance or status within a material handling process, often using sensors and coding.
Technologies for precisely controlling the timing and volume of liquid droplet ejection, and for real-time or post-ejection monitoring of droplet trajectory, velocity, and nozzle health to maintain print accuracy and quality.
Systems and methods for precisely measuring, monitoring, and regulating the longitudinal tension in continuous webs of material during roll-to-roll processes to prevent defects, reduce waste, and ensure consistent product quality.
Systems that combine data from multiple camera sensors or capture multiple images from different perspectives or qualities, often involving image processing techniques like synthesis to create enhanced or comprehensive views.
Patents
Showing 1-10 of 366