Automatic Transmission Planetary Gearsets Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled sharply since 2017. the peak year on record (52 families) has given way to a flat-to-declining midpoint by 2022, well before the recent-year publication lag can explain it.
- Six-figure receiving-office volume sits almost entirely in three jurisdictions. the United States, Europe and Japan together account for the large majority of filings, with the UK, Canada and Germany trailing far behind.
- The most-cited prior art is old and continuously-variable in nature. records from the mid-1990s through mid-2000s on continuously variable and multi-planetary transmissions still anchor citation counts above 250.
Filing growth compares 2021 (14 records) with 2024 (8) — 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 1,676 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families combining automatic transmission, planetary gear set and multi-speed automatic transmission terminology in the title, cross-referenced against claim-level language on ratio spread, clutch pack design, torque converter lockup and shift schedule control, and filtered to the F16H3, F16H41 and F16H61 gearing subclasses. It spans filings published between 2015 and mid-2026, giving a fifteen-year-plus view of how mechanical transmission architecture has been claimed.
The technology composition skews heavily mechanical: F16H gearing dominates at 1,674 of 1,676 records, with hybrid and joint vehicle control (B60W) and vehicle propulsion (B60K) as the largest adjacent overlays. Clutch and brake claims (F16D) and engine control (F02D) appear as secondary but recurring layers, suggesting most invention activity sits at the mechanical gearset and its immediate control interface rather than in standalone electronic control patents.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Annual filing counts and IPC composition for the automatic transmission planetary gearset corpus, drawn from 1,676 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026.
A peak in 2017, then a steady decline
Filings peaked at 52 in 2017 and had fallen to roughly 5 by the 2022 midpoint, a decline that predates any distortion from the 18-month publication lag on the most recent years. This points to a genuine slowdown in new mechanical planetary-gearset filing rather than a reporting artefact.
Gearing dominates; control-layer overlays are secondary
F16H gearing and transmission claims cover nearly the entire corpus, with hybrid/joint vehicle control (B60W, 323 records) and vehicle propulsion (B60K, 200 records) the next largest categories — evidence that most filings are mechanical architecture claims with control logic layered on top rather than software-first inventions.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,676 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Automatic Transmission Planetary Gearsets with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about automatic transmission planetary gearsets and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Hydraulic control system for a hydrodynamic torque converter with a controlled lockup clutch (ZF Friedrichshafen)
The filing describes a hydraulic control system for a torque converter and its lockup clutch, engaging the clutch when the torque converter's supply pressure falls below a predefined level relative to the clutch's own supply pressure, using a converter pressure valve to manage the transition.Filed by ZF Friedrichshafen AG; granted 2010-11-02.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7011600B2 | Continuously variable transmission | 439 |
| 2 | US5385064A | Dual clutch countershaft automatic transmission | 350 |
| 3 | US6422969B1 | Powertrain with a six speed planetary transmission having three planetary gear sets | 332 |
| 4 | US7166052B2 | Continuously variable planetary gear set | 292 |
| 5 | US7036620B2 | Continuously variable transmission | 277 |
| 6 | US7166056B2 | Continuously variable transmission | 229 |
| 7 | US7169076B2 | Continuously variable transmission | 223 |
| 8 | US6056661A | Multi-range transmission with input split planetary gear set and continuously variable transmission unit | 214 |
| 9 | US4875391A | Electronically-controlled, adaptive automatic transmission system | 214 |
| 10 | US7198585B2 | Continuously variable transmission | 205 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that later inventors had more years to cite against — read this as a measure of influence on subsequent claim drafting, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data says about where this field stands
Four read-outs from the filing trend, jurisdiction split and citation pattern that matter for anyone deciding where to file or search next.
The mechanical core has stopped attracting new filings
Filing volume dropped from a 2017 peak of 52 to roughly 5 by 2022, well ahead of the point where publication lag could explain it. Whoever files a fundamentally new planetary architecture now faces a much thinner recent prior-art wall — but also a market that has largely stopped filing basic mechanical variants.
Protection is concentrated in three receiving offices
The United States, Europe and Japan account for the overwhelming share of receiving-office activity, with the UK, Canada and Germany each below 75 filings. A freedom-to-operate check outside these three offices will clear a much shorter list.
Influential prior art predates the current filing slowdown
The most-cited records are continuously variable and multi-planetary transmission patents from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, with citation counts as high as 439. These remain the reference points examiners and drafters return to, even as new filing has slowed.
A small cluster of related entities files jointly
Only ten co-assignee pairings appear in the dataset, and the strongest ones link a small group of related Ford entities at 60 shared families apiece. Co-filing here is the exception, not the norm, for most assignees in the corpus.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automatic transmission planetary gearsets, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims
Recent-year momentum across the leading assignees shows zero new filings in the latest tracked year for every one of the top names — consistent with the broad slowdown seen in the overall trend, not a company-specific pullback.
Every leading assignee shows zero in the most recent year
Nissan, Jatco, General Motors, Fallbrook Technologies, Ford Global Technologies and Ford Motor all register zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the 18-month publication lag, some of this is reporting delay — but the pattern holds across every major name, reinforcing the broader decline visible in the annual trend.
Ford's filing structure runs through multiple related entities
The strongest co-assignee pairings in the dataset link Ford Motor, Ford Werke and Ford France at 60 shared families each — a filing structure typical of a multinational OEM routing patents through regional subsidiaries rather than a sign of external collaboration.
OEM and supplier filings cluster in US and Japanese offices
With Japanese assignees like Nissan and Jatco appearing among the top-filing names alongside US and European OEMs, the jurisdiction split (760 US, 356 EPO, 277 Japan) tracks closely with where the largest transmission manufacturers are headquartered.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Jatco Ltd. | 0 | — |
| General Motors LLC | 0 | — |
| Fallbrook Technologies Inc. | 0 | — |
| Ford Global Technologies, LLC | 0 | — |
| Ford Motor Company | 0 | — |
| Subaru Corporation | 0 | — |
| Ford Werke GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and assignee data point to specific next steps depending on whether you are clearing a filing or scouting for white space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the under-claimed branches
The gate chips above flag sub-areas with thinner claim density than the rest of the corpus. Before filing there, pull the specific claim language on each to confirm the gap is real and not an artefact of the search string.
Explore in Eureka →Track whether the 2017 peak was structural or cyclical
A decline this steep, starting well before the publication-lag window, suggests OEMs may be shifting R&D investment toward electrified drivetrains rather than new planetary mechanical variants. Confirming that shift changes how much weight to put on this corpus going forward.
Explore in Eureka →Map the Ford co-filing structure onto other multinational OEMs
The Ford entity cluster shows how a single OEM's patents route through regional subsidiaries. Checking whether GM, Nissan or ZF show similar structures changes how you read assignee rankings across the corpus.
Explore in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
The dataset shows filings peaking at 52 in 2017 and falling to roughly 5 by the 2022 midpoint, a decline too large and too early to be explained by the usual 18-month publication lag. The most likely driver is a shift in OEM R&D spending toward electrified and hybrid drivetrains, which reduces incentive to file new purely mechanical planetary architecture. It does not mean the technology stopped mattering commercially, only that the pace of new claim-staking on this specific mechanical approach has slowed.
Leading assignees in this corpus include major OEMs and transmission specialists such as Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Jatco and Fallbrook Technologies, based on the ranking in the underlying dataset. All of the top assignees show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, consistent with the broader industry-wide slowdown rather than a pullback specific to any one company. Co-assignee data also shows Ford routing filings through multiple related entities, which can inflate perceived filing volume if read without adjusting for shared families.
US7823710B2, assigned to ZF Friedrichshafen, describes a hydraulic control system that engages a torque converter's lockup clutch based on a comparison between the torque converter's own supply pressure and a predefined threshold tied to the clutch's supply pressure, managed through a converter pressure valve. It is a control-system patent covering the pressure-management logic and valve arrangement, not the torque converter or clutch hardware itself. Anyone designing a lockup control scheme that uses a similar pressure-threshold comparison and valve structure should review this claim set closely before finalising a design.
Based on IPC composition and claim density in this corpus, under-claimed areas include electro-hydraulic lockup clutch control under low-temperature conditions, shift schedule adaptation tuned for hybrid torque blending, and clutch pack materials aimed specifically at reducing efficiency loss. These sit at the intersection of the dominant F16H gearing category and the smaller F16D and F02D overlays, where claim density thins out relative to core gearset architecture claims. Confirming any of these as genuine white space requires a targeted claim-language search beyond the aggregate IPC counts shown here.
Receiving office data shows the United States (760 filings), Europe via the EPO (356) and Japan (277) as the dominant jurisdictions, with the UK, Canada and Germany each well under 75. This concentration reflects where the largest transmission OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers are headquartered and where they have historically sought the broadest protection. A filing strategy limited to these three offices would cover the large majority of existing competitive activity, though country-specific market entry plans should still be checked independently.
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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.