Warehouse Slotting Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- One filer holds 30 of 59 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 72.9% of the field — this is a concentrated space, not a fragmented one.
- Filing peaked in 2020 at 17 records, then settled into a steadier pace; 2021 to 2024 still shows +50% growth on the complete-year figures.
- G06Q and B65G classes each cover roughly two-thirds of records, while AI-flagged G06N and navigation-flagged G01C sit at just 3.4% apiece — a visible gap between logistics claims and adaptive control claims.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (6) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 59 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review covers 59 published records matching dynamic warehouse slotting and automated storage & retrieval terms, filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off. The search combines slotting- and location-assignment language with warehouse automation and material handling terms, so it captures both the software logic that decides where inventory sits and the physical systems — racks, vehicles, robotic pickers — that move it there.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown. The most reliable read on recent activity is 2021 through 2024, the last year with a largely complete filing record.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 59 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims fall into.
A 2020 peak, then a steadier plateau
Filings climbed from zero in 2017 to a peak of 17 in 2020, the sharpest single-year concentration in the dataset. Activity from 2021 to 2024 grew 50% across that span, on the complete-year figures — a real but more measured pace than the 2020 spike suggests.
Logistics classes dominate; adaptive control is thin
G06Q (business/commerce data processing) and B65G (conveying & material handling) each appear in roughly two-thirds of the 59 records, and G05D (control of non-electric variables) in over 40% — expected, given the topic. B25J (robots/manipulators) covers about a quarter of records, while G06N (AI-based computing) and G01C (navigation) each sit at just 3.4%, the smallest slices in the composition.
Shares are the percentage of the 59 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Automated Storage & Retrieval — Dynamic Warehouse Slotting Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Material Handling System Using a Plurality of Vehicles In a Plurality of Modes of Operation
A material handling system includes storage locations disposed in racks and a track having a vertical section adjacent one of the racks. A plurality of material handling vehicles are provided, each including a horizontal drive for driving the vehicle horizontally, a vertical drive for driving the vehicle vertically, and a mechanism for transferring items onto or off the vehicle. A vehicle accessory has an opening configured to cooperate with the vehicles. A central controller may be programmed to provide control signals to determine whether a mode of operation to perform an inventory management task is a first mode of operation or a second mode of operation.Filed by OPEX Corporation, published 2024 — illustrative of how the leading assignee frames vehicle-mode switching as a controller-level claim rather than a purely mechanical one.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20210269244A1 | Automated warehouse system and method for optimized batch picking | 91 |
| 2 | US20180253680A1 | Static warehouse area sizing and slotting of a multi-mode forward area | 61 |
| 3 | WO2020006010A1 | Automated warehouse system and method for optimized batch picking | 27 |
| 4 | US20180286002A1 | Reconfigurable lightdirected pick/put system | 23 |
| 5 | US20210047117A1 | Systems and methods for managing inventory | 20 |
| 6 | US20210047121A1 | Systems and methods for dynamically managing the location of inventory items in an inventory management facil… | 16 |
| 7 | US20220414566A1 | Systems and methods for autonomous labor intelligent dynamic assignment | 14 |
| 8 | US20220179416A1 | Systems and methods for dynamic repositioning of inventory | 13 |
| 9 | US11554917B2 | Systems and methods for dynamically managing the location of inventory items in an inventory management facil… | 10 |
| 10 | US20250061396A1 | Computer-Automated Slotting System and Method | 9 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations within this corpus; treat them as a signal of influence, not of current importance.
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Reading the concentration, trend and class figures together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is still open.
A small group controls most of the field
With the leader alone accounting for 30 of 59 records and the top five holding 72.9% of all records in scope, this is not a fragmented field with room for an incremental entrant to file broad claims. New filers are more likely to find open ground in narrow, specific mechanisms than in general slotting logic.
Growth is real but past its spike
The 2020 peak of 17 records was an outlier rather than a new baseline. The 2021–2024 window, the last stretch with largely complete data, shows steady 50% growth — a field still attracting filings, just not at the 2020 rate.
Adaptive and AI-flagged control is thin
G06Q and B65G together anchor the field's commercial and mechanical logic, each appearing in close to two-thirds of records. G06N and G01C each sit at only 3.4%, suggesting that machine-learning-driven slotting decisions and navigation-linked location assignment are still lightly claimed relative to the rest of the space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automated storage & retrieval — dynamic warehouse slotting patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The assignee ranking covers 16 companies, counted in records — not a top-50 or top-100 list, just the full set the data returns. The gap between the leader and the rest is wide.
One assignee dominates the ranking
The leading filer holds 30 of the 59 records in scope, more than the next four ranked assignees combined. That scale suggests a company building a defensive thicket around its core vehicle and rack architecture rather than a single flagship patent.
A steep drop after the leader
Fifth place holds just 3 records, and tenth place only 2 — the field falls off quickly from the leader's 30. This shape rewards specificity: a narrow, well-drafted claim from a smaller filer has room to stand rather than being buried under the leader's breadth.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet across the board
Latest-year momentum shows flat or negative movement across the tracked assignees, including 0% year-over-year for the leader and -100% for two others. This reads more like publication lag than a real pullback, since 2025–2026 filings are still working through the pipeline.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| OPEX Corporation | 1 | 0% |
| AHMANN ROBERT D | 0 | — |
| SYNKRATO INC | 0 | -100% |
| PECK JOHN C | 0 | — |
| JASCI LLC | 0 | -100% |
| 6 River Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Intelligrated Headquarters LLC | 0 | — |
| UCBOS INC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above frame the field; the next step is testing a specific claim or filing plan against it.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding half the records in scope, any new filing in vehicle-mode control or rack-adjacent tracking should be checked against that portfolio specifically, not just the field average.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaDraft into the under-claimed branches
G06N- and G01C-flagged filings are a small fraction of the dataset. A claim that ties machine-learning slotting logic to navigation data has more open ground than a general storage-location claim.
Run a white space search in EurekaRe-run the trend once 2025 data settles
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025–2026 figures shown here will rise. Re-checking the trend in a future cut will give a truer read on whether 2024's growth continued.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads with 30 of the 59 records in scope, well ahead of the rest of the ranked field. The top five assignees combined hold 72.9% of all records, so filing activity is concentrated rather than spread evenly across many companies. A company evaluating this space should treat the leader's portfolio as the primary freedom-to-operate check before looking at the long tail of smaller filers.
On the complete-year data, it is growing: filings rose 50% from 2021 to 2024. The dataset shows a sharp peak of 17 records in 2020, then a lower but still active pace afterward. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look low only because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those years are not yet finished filling in and should not be read as a decline.
The two largest IPC classes are G06Q, covering business and commerce data processing, and B65G, covering conveying and material handling equipment, each present in close to two-thirds of the 59 records. G05D (control of non-electric variables) and B25J (manipulators and robots) also appear substantially. Smaller shares in G06N (AI-based computing) and G01C (navigation) suggest that machine-learning-driven and navigation-linked slotting logic is comparatively lightly claimed so far.
The clearest gaps sit in classes with the lowest record shares: G06N and G01C each cover only 3.4% of the 59 records, well below the roughly two-thirds coverage of the logistics-focused G06Q and B65G classes. That points to under-claimed ground in predictive or machine-learning-driven slotting decisions and in navigation-linked location assignment, rather than in the general storage-and-retrieval mechanics that are already densely filed.
Quite concentrated at the top: the leading assignee alone holds 30 of 59 records, and the top five together hold 72.9% of all records in scope. The top ten extend that to 89.8%. This is drawn from a ranking of 16 companies total, so the field is not a long, even tail — it is a small group of active filers followed by a short list of much smaller ones.
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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.