Automated Milking Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One assignee dominates. The leader holds 68 families against a fifth-place count of just 2 and a tenth-place count of 1 — a single company shapes most of the claim space here.
- Dairy equipment claims cluster hard. A01J covers 64.8% of the 88 records in scope, with robotics (B25J) and veterinary instruments (A61D) each under 10% — signals of where filing has not caught up to the engineering.
- Filing peaked in 2022 at 11. Activity has not simply climbed; recent-year counts undercount true filing because publication lags roughly 18 months behind the priority date.
What this dataset covers
This landscape draws on 88 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine automated milking or automatic feeding functions with specific technical features: teat cup attachment, milk yield sensing, ration mixing, feed pushing, udder health monitoring, or visit frequency tracking. The scope is narrow by design — it is not a survey of dairy technology broadly, but of the intersection between automated animal handling and the sensing or mechanical subsystems that make automation reliable at the animal-machine interface.
Filing offices split across Europe, the United States, Sweden, the WIPO PCT route, Canada and Austria, which points to a field where the core inventive work originates in a small number of jurisdictions with strong dairy engineering bases and is then extended internationally rather than filed natively in each market.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below come from the same 88-record set: one tracks when families were filed, the other shows which IPC subclasses those families claim into. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the composition shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
A single peak year, not a steady climb
Filing rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2022, the highest point in the window so far. The most recent years understate true activity, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months — 2025 and 2026 counts will keep rising as later filings publish.
Dairy equipment dominates; robotics and diagnostics are thin
A01J (dairy equipment) appears in 64.8% of the 88 records, more than double the next most common class, A01K (animal husbandry, 36.4%). Material analysis and testing (G01N) sits at 22.7%, while robotics (B25J), veterinary instruments (A61D) and diagnosis/surgery (A61B) each cover 8% or less — the mechanical and sensing core is heavily claimed, the robotic manipulation and diagnostic layers much less so.
Shares are the percentage of the 88 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Automated Milking and Feeding Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about automated milking and feeding systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US9549534B2 — Method for milking, computer program product, and milking system
A method for milking is provided in a milking system which includes a milking machine having a plurality of teat cups, which teat cups are attached to, and detached from, teats of animals as part of the milkings of the animals. The method determines whether an animal, which presents itself at the milking system, has a regular milking permission and when the animal has a regular milking permission the animal is milked in a regular milking procedure. When the animal does not have a regular milking permission, the method determines whether the animal has at least one udder compartment that was incompletely milked last time the animal was milked.Filed by DeLaval Holding AB, published 2017-01-24.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2007050012A1 | Arrangement and method for visual detection in a milking system | 147 |
| 2 | US5284180A | Controlling vacuum level with a two-level vacuum system controller and adjustable speed drive | 47 |
| 3 | WO2007142586A1 | Automation of a rotary milking system | 46 |
| 4 | US7895972B2 | Arrangement and method for visual detection in a milking system | 29 |
| 5 | WO2006068582A1 | Method, computer program product and arrangement for controlling the milking by a milking machine | 20 |
| 6 | US20060249082A1 | Method and apparatus for counting somatic cells or fat droplets in milk | 19 |
| 7 | US20170265449A1 | Hoof treatment arrangement and method for hoof treatment | 16 |
| 8 | US20080257268A1 | Arrangement and Method for Visual Detection in a Milking System | 16 |
| 9 | US20080127896A1 | Method, Computer Program Product and Arrangement for Controlling the Milking by a Milking Machine | 16 |
| 10 | US20080257267A1 | Stall Arrangement and Installation for Dairy Cattle Farming | 12 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; a low-citation recent filing is not necessarily a weak one.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the technology split are read together.
The leader's lead is structural, not marginal
The top-ranked assignee holds 68 of the families in the ranked set, while fifth place holds only 2 and tenth place just 1. That gap is wide enough that new entrants should assume the core teat-cup-attachment and milking-sequence claim space is already occupied, and look instead at adjacent sensing or feed-management claims.
Robotic manipulation is under-claimed relative to the mechanics
Only 8% of the 88 records touch B25J (manipulators and robots), against 64.8% for core dairy equipment. As milking robots add more autonomous arm and vision functions, the manipulator-control layer looks less crowded than the mechanical housing it sits inside.
Activity is uneven, not exponential
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2022. There is no computable growth rate across a clean run of complete years, and the most recent years will read low simply because publication has not caught up with filing.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automated milking and feeding systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who is not
The ranked set contains 17 companies, spanning large dairy equipment manufacturers, a university research foundation, and several individual inventors. Recent-year momentum is flat across the entities the evidence tracks, which is consistent with a mature core technology rather than a race among many active filers.
DeLaval Holding AB
Holds the large majority of the ranked families, with claims spanning milking sequence control, teat cup attachment and udder health logic, including the representative filing US9549534B2. Recent-year momentum shows 0 in the latest tracked year, suggesting the current filing push has cooled rather than accelerated.
University-originated filings
Cornell Research Foundation appears in the ranking alongside Fraunhofer, pointing to academic and applied-research contributions in sensing and diagnostics rather than commercial milking hardware.
Individual inventors and small collaborations
Names like Holmgren Hans, Andersson Lars and Lundwall Jonas appear as co-assignees alongside the largest filer, a pattern consistent with named inventors retaining or sharing rights on specific mechanism patents rather than a diffuse competitive field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Technologies Holdings Corp | 1 | -50% |
| DeLaval Holding AB | 0 | — |
| Cornell Research Foundation, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Forderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | 0 | — |
| GEA Farm Technologies GmbH | 0 | — |
| HOLMGREN HANS | 0 | — |
| LIAO BOHAO | 0 | — |
| Westfalia Surge GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated core and a thinner robotics and diagnostics layer. Two directions follow from that.
Map the manipulator-control claims directly
With B25J sitting at only 8% of records against a 64.8% share for core dairy equipment, a targeted search on robotic arm control and vision-guided attachment inside milking systems would clarify how much of that layer is actually open.
Explore robotics claims in EurekaTrack the leader's recent filings by claim type
The leading assignee shows 0 filings in the latest tracked year after holding 68 families overall — worth checking whether that reflects a genuine pause or a publication-lag artefact before drawing conclusions about their strategy.
Run a freshness check in EurekaCommon questions about automated milking and feeding patents
Within this 88-record dataset, one assignee, DeLaval Holding AB, holds a clear majority of the ranked families at 68, far ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 2 and the tenth-ranked at 1. This concentration means most of the foundational milking-sequence and teat-cup-attachment claim space sits with a single company. New entrants evaluating freedom to operate in this specific niche should expect to design around, or license from, that leader before looking at the long tail of smaller filers.
The dataset is dominated by A01J dairy equipment claims, present in 64.8% of the 88 records, followed by A01K animal husbandry at 36.4% and G01N material analysis and testing at 22.7%. Smaller but still relevant classes include robotics (B25J), veterinary instruments (A61D) and horseshoes (A01L), each under 10%. This spread shows the field is still primarily mechanical and sensing-based, with robotic manipulation and diagnostic layers claimed far less densely.
Filing activity rose from zero recorded filings in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2022, the highest point in the tracked window. A precise growth rate cannot be stated here because there are fewer than four complete years of data once publication lag is taken into account, and the lag itself means the most recent years will always look artificially quiet until later filings publish. Anyone tracking momentum should revisit filing counts for 2024-2026 in a future data pull rather than treating today's numbers as final.
Based on the technology composition, robotic manipulation (B25J, 8.0% of records) and veterinary diagnostic instruments (A61D, 8.0%) are claimed far less densely than core dairy equipment mechanics (A01J, 64.8%). That gap suggests opportunities around autonomous arm control for teat attachment, vision-guided feed pushing, and udder health biomarker sensing, areas that sit adjacent to heavily claimed mechanical ground but are not yet saturated themselves.
US9549534B2, assigned to DeLaval Holding AB and published in January 2017, claims a method for milking that determines whether a presenting animal has regular milking permission and, if not, checks whether an udder compartment was incompletely milked in a prior session before deciding how to proceed. It is a control-logic patent covering the decision sequence around teat cup attachment and detachment tied to milking permission and incomplete-milking history, not a claim over teat cup hardware itself. Anyone building automated milking decision software should review its specific method steps closely rather than assume it only covers physical apparatus.
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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.
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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.