trinamiX GmbH

Company overview. trinamiX GmbH is a German sensing-technology developer headquartered in Ludwigshafen (Industriestr. 35), founded in 2015 as a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF SE, the publicly traded chemical group (BASF press release). It employs roughly 200 people worldwide and holds more than 800 granted and pending patents. Revenue is not separately disclosed; BASF in January 2026 said it is reviewing strategic options for trinamiX, including a possible sale of business areas, because the unit sits outside BASF's core business.

Products / operations. trinamiX develops biometric-imaging and mobile near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy solutions for consumer-electronics, automotive, and industrial customers. Its core offering is Face Authentication, a liveness-detection system that verifies human skin (via its "Beam Profile Analysis") and can be mounted invisibly behind smartphone OLED displays or in vehicle B-pillars and dashboards; automotive integrations were developed with partners Continental and Antolin. Its Consumer Spectroscopy line is a miniaturized NIR sensor for smartphones and wearables that measures biomarkers (e.g., skin moisture, blood alcohol, lactate), and it sells handheld NIR spectrometers for industrial material identification such as plastics, textile, and animal-feed analysis. This is an R&D-heavy operating company, not a shell licensor.

Patent-litigation posture. In the tracked database, trinamiX appears once, as plaintiff (1 case, 0 as defendant) — consistent with a technology developer enforcing its own portfolio rather than a defendant being attacked by NPEs. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Midland Division, a venue frequently chosen by patent plaintiffs.

Notable case. trinamiX GmbH v. Apple Inc. (filed Sept. 3, 2026) alleges that Apple's Face ID in iPhone 15–17 series, iPad Pro, and other products infringes seven trinamiX patents covering material- and skin-detection for face authentication; trinamiX seeks unspecified damages and an injunction (Reuters). The asserted technology traces to a 2010 BASF organic-solar-cell discovery that led to early 3D-camera prototypes.