AMI Modularity & Standardization Patents: Fragmented Field, Long Tail 2026
- Filing has not built momentum. activity peaked at 4 families in 2021 and fell to 1 by the 2022 midpoint, with no sustained climb since.
- Claim activity clusters outside the meter itself. the largest IPC subclass is H04N (pictorial communication), ahead of the core measurement class G01R, suggesting camera/video-security integration is drawing more filing than metrology proper.
- No single assignee dominates. the strongest co-filing links are a single university and its named inventors, each with just one family in the latest year — this is a long-tail field, not a concentrated one.
What this patent landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families that combine advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) or smart-meter subject matter with claims to standardized or modular metering and interoperability standards. The search string requires both elements to appear in title, abstract or claims, which narrows the set to documents that treat modularity or standard-setting as a filed invention rather than a background feature. Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, with 24 published families identified across that window.
The set is small enough that individual documents move the picture: a single highly cited video-recorder patent sits inside the corpus alongside university-filed metering hardware, and the technology composition reflects that mix rather than a single dominant engineering approach.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 24-family corpus: filings by year, and where those filings land across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2021, then dropped back to 1 by 2022 and have not recovered. With 2026 still partial and publication typically lagging filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years will read low regardless of underlying activity — but even accounting for that lag, the trend line is flat-to-declining rather than growing.
IPC subclass composition
H04N (pictorial communication) leads with 10 records, ahead of G01R (electric and magnetic measurement) at 7 and G06F (data processing) and G08B (signalling/alarm) at 5 each. G01D (general measuring and recording) and H04L (digital transmission) each hold 4, with G01C and G06Q at 2 apiece. The weight toward H04N and G08B indicates a meaningful share of this corpus is about metering integrated with video/security monitoring rather than pure measurement or communication-protocol standardization.
Shares are the percentage of the 24 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Advanced Metering Infrastructure Modularity and Standardization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about advanced metering infrastructure modularity and standardization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Meter disconnect relay (US20130169266A1)
A modular meter disconnect relay built around a base, a solenoid with a moving plunger, a shuttle driven by that plunger, and one or more disconnect switches opened or closed by the shuttle's movement. A spring supplements the plunger's outward force, and a magnet is part of the solenoid assembly.Filed by Aclara Meters LLC; published 2013-07-04.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120113265A1 | Network video recorder system | 156 |
| 2 | US7437204B2 | Method and apparatus for monitoring host to tool communications | 92 |
| 3 | US20210183175A1 | System of privacy oriented automated electric vehicle miles traveled usage fee assessment and settlement usin… | 57 |
| 4 | US20160232764A1 | System and method for a security system | 51 |
| 5 | US7200671B1 | Method and apparatus for monitoring host to tool communications | 49 |
| 6 | US20150103179A1 | Network video recorder system | 47 |
| 7 | US20170201724A1 | System and method for a security system | 45 |
| 8 | US20200099896A1 | System and method for a security system | 41 |
| 9 | US8922658B2 | Network video recorder system | 35 |
| 10 | US20070094548A1 | Method and Apparatus for Monitoring Host to Tool Communications | 20 |
Citation counts favour older documents that have had more time to accumulate references within the searched corpus; treat them as a measure of influence on this field's citation graph, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers indicate
Three patterns stand out once the filing trend, IPC mix and assignee structure are read together.
No sustained filing wave
Filings peaked at 4 families in 2021 and fell back to 1 by 2022, with the run of years since showing no renewed climb. For a field this small, a single active applicant can produce a visible bump — the 2021 peak does not by itself indicate a broadening trend.
Video/security integration outweighs core metrology
H04N, the pictorial-communication class, holds more records than G01R, the electric-measurement class most directly tied to meter accuracy. That split suggests a meaningful part of this corpus is filed around metering combined with camera or surveillance functions, not standardization of the measurement chain itself.
A long tail, not a concentrated field
The strongest co-filing links in the dataset are a university and its named inventors, each contributing a single family. No corporate assignee shows a multi-family cluster of recent activity, which points to a field still being staked out by individual filers rather than consolidated by a small set of large players.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to advanced metering infrastructure modularity and standardization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee list is short and thinly spread: a university research group with named co-inventors accounts for the only recent-year activity in the ranking, while several corporate holders in the broader citation set show no filings in the latest year.
Gujarat Technological University and named inventors
The university appears alongside three separate named co-inventors, each pairing producing one family. This is a research-driven filing pattern rather than a product-line one, and it is the only entrant with activity recorded in the latest year.
Prior corporate assignees have gone quiet
Assignees that appear in the broader citation history show no filings in the most recent year tracked, consistent with a corpus where early activity has not been followed by renewed corporate investment.
Heavily concentrated in the United States
Nineteen of the tracked filings went through the United States receiving office, with small counts at the EPO, Austria, Germany and India. Anyone filing a standardization-focused claim outside the US faces far less prior art to contend with in this specific search.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY | 1 | — |
| DR SACHIN VRAJLAL RAJANI | 1 | — |
| DR DARSHITA SURYAKANTBHAI PATHAK | 1 | — |
| CHITRANG KAMENDU VYAS | 1 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| RAZBERI TECHNOLOGIES INC | 0 | — |
| GALVIN TOM | 0 | — |
| Marktech Instruments | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing pattern here is thin enough that manual review of the full family list is practical before committing to a filing or freedom-to-operate position.
Check the claim language directly
With only 24 families, reading full claim sets for the H04N-heavy records is feasible and will show whether video-integration claims actually read on standard metering hardware or sit in an adjacent product category.
Explore claims in EurekaWatch for renewed filing activity
The flat trend since 2021 means a new filer entering this space would be visible quickly against the low baseline. Set an alert on the search string rather than relying on periodic manual checks.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about this patent landscape
This search identified 24 published patent families combining advanced metering infrastructure or smart-meter subject matter with claims to modular meter design or interoperability standards, covering 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. That is a small corpus compared to smart-grid patenting broadly, because the search requires both the metering element and the standardization or modularity element to appear together. Readers should treat this as a narrowly scoped subset, not a count of all smart-meter patents.
Filing peaked at 4 families in 2021 and dropped to 1 by the 2022 midpoint, with no renewed climb in the years tracked since. Publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the very latest years will always understate true activity, but the overall shape through the mid-point of the trend is flat to declining rather than growing. Anyone benchmarking momentum should weight the 2021 peak carefully, since a corpus this size can be moved by a single active filer.
No single corporate assignee holds a concentrated cluster of recent filings in this dataset. The strongest co-assignee relationships link a university, Gujarat Technological University, with individually named co-inventors, each pairing contributing one family and each showing activity in the latest year. Corporate names that appear in the broader citation history around this field show no filings in the most recent year, indicating the field is currently more academic than corporate in its active filing base.
US20130169266A1, assigned to Aclara Meters LLC, claims a modular meter disconnect relay built from a base, a solenoid with a moving plunger, a shuttle driven by that plunger, and disconnect switches operated by the shuttle's movement, with a spring assisting plunger motion. It blocks designs that use this specific mechanical arrangement — solenoid-driven shuttle actuating disconnect switches within a shared base — for meter disconnection. It does not on its face cover disconnect mechanisms built on different actuation principles, such as MEMS-based or purely electronic switching, so those routes remain more open relative to this claim.
The technology composition skews toward H04N (pictorial communication, 10 records) and G01R (electric measurement, 7 records), leaving areas like cross-vendor protocol conformance testing, modular disconnect retrofit kits, interoperability certification workflows and standardized firmware update signalling with little direct representation in the 24-family set. These are sub-areas implied by the search terms but not heavily claimed in the returned corpus. A first filing in one of these branches would face a thinner prior-art landscape than a filing that overlaps the already-populated video-integration or core-measurement classes.
Research Advanced Metering Infrastructure Modularity and Standardization in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole advanced metering infrastructure modularity and standardization corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.