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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/automated-drilling-and-blasting-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Mining AutomationAutomated Drilling and Blasting Patents: Who Is Filing and Where the Gaps Sit
- A three-way field. Only three assignees appear in the ranking, with one clear leader at 11 records against a much smaller tail.
- Drilling dominates the claim space. E21B (earth and rock drilling) appears in 91.7% of the 12 records in scope, far ahead of manipulator and robotics claims at 50.0%.
- Filing has not built a sustained run yet. Activity peaked at 5 records in 2025 after years of little or no filing, too short a run to call a growth rate.
12
Published Records
EP
Leading Jurisdiction
2025
Peak Filing Year
E21B
Lead IPC Subclass
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent families matching automated drill rigs and blasting automation, narrowed to records that also address drill hole accuracy, rod handling, charge placement, fragmentation control, vibration monitoring or cycle time. The scope is deliberately tight: 12 published records sit inside it, spanning 2015 through the current data cut-off in mid-2026. That is a small corpus by patent-landscape standards, and it should be read as an early-stage or niche technical cluster rather than a mature, heavily-litigated field.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent years in the trend understate real filing activity. Family counts, not raw document counts, are used wherever the ranking is discussed, which neutralises continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 12-record corpus: how filings have moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A short, uneven run
Filings sat at zero in 2017 and stayed thin for most of the window before climbing to a peak of 5 records in 2025. With fewer than four complete years of meaningful activity once publication lag is factored in, no growth rate can be stated from this trend.
Drilling mechanics lead, robotics is close behind
E21B (earth and rock drilling for wells) appears in 91.7% of the 12 records in scope, confirming that most filings are anchored in physical drill-rig mechanics. B25J (manipulators and robots) follows at 50.0%, showing that automation claims are frequently paired with drilling claims rather than filed as standalone robotics. Mine safety (E21F), blasting proper (F42D), navigation (G01C), vibration sensing (G01H) and material analysis (G01N) each appear in only one or two records — each is a single-digit share of the record total, not an established sub-field yet.
Shares are the percentage of the 12 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A representative filing
Representative record
Controlling the protective cover of a drill rig's scanning device
SANDVIK MINING AND CONSTRUCTION OY
The filing describes an apparatus with a processor and memory that determines which state a drill rig's drilling cycle is in, then uses that state to control the position of a protective cover over a scanning device mounted on the rig. The claim ties cover position directly to drilling-cycle state rather than treating the cover as a fixed guard.Filed by Sandvik Mining and Construction Oy; published 2025-12-31.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EP4343105A1 | Determination of an updated drilling plan | 2 |
Citation counts here are a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not a ranking of current technical importance — older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (1 of 1 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the composition and trend data, aimed at where to file next rather than where filing has already happened.
Concentration
11 records
leading assignee
One filer, then a thin tail
The ranking returns only three assignees, and the leader accounts for 11 of the 12 records in scope. That leaves very little independent art from other filers inside this exact search definition, though it does not mean the wider mining-automation field is uncrowded outside these terms.
Read as: a narrow but concentrated corpus, not a market share figure.
Technology mix
91.7% vs 50.0%
E21B vs B25J share of 12 records
Drilling mechanics still anchors most claims
Almost every record in scope touches earth and rock drilling claims (E21B), and half also carry manipulator or robotics claims (B25J). That pairing suggests automation features are being claimed as add-ons to drilling hardware rather than as independent robotics inventions.
High density in E21B means claim space there is occupied, not that the mechanics are settled.
Timing
5 records
peak year (2025)
A recent, unproven filing run
Filing sat near zero for years before the 2025 peak. One strong year after a long quiet stretch is not enough evidence of a durable trend, especially with the most recent year in the window still partial and understated by publication lag.
Treat 2025 as a signal to watch, not a baseline to extrapolate from.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automated drilling and blasting, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who holds the claim space
Only three assignees appear in this dataset's ranking. That is the complete set the data endpoint returns for this search definition, not a filtered top tier.
Leader
11 records
of 12 in scope
Sandvik Mining and Construction Machinery
Accounts for the large majority of the corpus, with filings anchored in drill-rig mechanics and, in the representative record, drilling-cycle-aware control of onboard scanning hardware.
-100% YoY in the latest partial year, consistent with the overall trend's understatement near the data cut-off.
Research filer
1 co-filing
with a mining company
Kunming University of Science and Technology
Appears as one of two smaller assignees in the ranking and forms the dataset's single co-assignee pairing, filing alongside a mining operator rather than solely as an academic filer.
A pattern worth watching for university-industry technology transfer in this niche.
Operator co-filer
1 co-filing
strongest pair in the set
Liangshan Mining Co., Ltd.
The only operating-company assignee in the ranking, co-filing with the university partner above rather than filing independently.
Suggests applied, site-specific automation work rather than platform-level IP building.
Recent-year momentum
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sandvik Mining and Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Kunming University of Science and Technology | 0 | -100% |
| Liangshan Mining Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
This landscape is a starting map, not a clearance opinion. Two directions worth pursuing before committing R&D or filing budget.
Stress-test the white space chips
Each under-claimed branch above is based on a single-digit record count out of 12. Before designing around any of them, pull the underlying families and confirm they are genuinely unclaimed rather than simply mis-classified.
Explore the sub-areas in EurekaWatch the leader's next filing wave
With one assignee holding most of the corpus and 2025 the only strong filing year so far, the next 12-18 months of publications (once lag clears) will show whether this is a sustained programme or a one-off cluster.
Track filing activity in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
This dataset's ranking contains only three assignees for the exact search definition used here: one clear leader with 11 of the 12 records in scope, plus two smaller filers, a university and a mining operator, who appear together as a co-filing pair. That is a narrow field rather than a broad competitive set, so it should be read as the state of this specific claim niche, not the whole automated-mining-equipment market. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should widen the search terms before drawing conclusions about the broader industry.
The trend line does not support a growth-rate claim: filings were at zero in 2017, stayed thin for most of the window, and reached a peak of 5 records in 2025 after years without a comparable run. Fewer than four complete years of meaningful activity remain once publication lag is accounted for, which is too short a base to compute or state a growth rate. The honest read is that 2025 is a single strong year worth monitoring, not evidence of a sustained upward trend yet.
Earth and rock drilling claims, classified under E21B, appear in 91.7% of the 12 records in scope, making drill-rig mechanics the dominant subject matter. Manipulator and robotics claims (B25J) are the second most common, present in half the records, typically layered onto drilling claims rather than filed independently. Mine safety, blasting proper, navigation, vibration monitoring and material analysis each show up in only one or two records, meaning they are present but far from established sub-fields within this dataset.
EP4671487A1 claims an apparatus that determines which state a drill rig's drilling cycle is currently in and then controls the position of a protective cover over a scanning device based on that state. The invention ties cover positioning to drilling-cycle state rather than treating the cover as a static or manually-operated guard. For anyone building drill-rig sensor protection, the design-around question is whether cover control can be triggered by something other than drilling-cycle state, such as a fixed schedule or an independent proximity sensor.
Several IPC subclasses appear in only one of the 12 records: mine ventilation integration, frame or support standardisation for rod handling, vibration-based charge placement, navigation-linked fragmentation control, and material-analysis feedback into blast design. Each of these looks under-claimed within this specific dataset, but a single-record presence can also mean the classification is inconsistent rather than the space being genuinely open. Confirming that requires pulling the individual families before committing to a filing strategy around any one of them.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automated Drilling and Blasting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.