Avionics Data Bus Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 57.4% of the field sits with five assignees. 170 of 296 records in scope belong to the top five filers, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 33 records and has since pulled back sharply. the last complete year, 2024, shows only 3 filings against 14 in 2021 — a 79% drop over that span.
- Digital processing and transmission classes dominate the claim map. G06F and H04L together touch well over a third of all records each, while aircraft-specific class B64D covers only 8.4%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (14 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 296 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review maps patent activity around avionics data bus technology — the bus controllers, remote terminals and physical-layer coupling methods built on standards such as ARINC 429 and MIL-STD-1553. The scope spans 296 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from filings that combine bus-architecture terms with implementation details like Manchester encoding, stub length and transformer coupling.
Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the technology composition below sums to more than 100% of the record total — that is expected and reflects how densely these filings straddle digital processing, transmission and aircraft-equipment classifications at once.
Filing trend and technology composition
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the tail end of the trend below is still filling in. Treat 2024 as the most recent year that can be read reliably.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 25 in 2017 to a peak of 33 in 2018, then eased across the following years; the last complete year, 2024, recorded 3 filings versus 14 in 2021 — a 79% decline over that three-year window. The 2025-2026 figures are not yet representative given publication lag.
IPC subclass composition
G06F (electric digital data processing) and H04L (digital information transmission) each anchor more than a third of the 296 records in scope, at 38.9% and 34.8% respectively. Aircraft-specific class B64D covers 8.4%, with navigation-adjacent G01C at 8.1%, power systems H02J at 7.4%, non-electric control G05D and general transmission H04B both at 6.8%, and weapon-sighting class F41G at 6.4% — evidence that a meaningful share of this corpus sits in defence-adjacent applications, not purely commercial avionics.
Shares are the percentage of the 296 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Avionics Data Bus Technology with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about avionics data bus technology and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing
Bus fault detection and isolation
A bus fault detection and isolation system and method is disclosed that can operate non-intrusively to detect and isolate faults in a bus, such as a dual redundant MIL STD 1553 bus. The system and method can be configured to operate within a bus controller using existing system commands and variables defined for testing, so no additional equipment or failure points are introduced and the bus remains in an unmodified state while fault detection and isolation takes place.Filed by Lockheed Martin, published 2006-04-20 as US20060085692A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190385057A1 | System and Method for using Signal Waveform Analysis for Detecting a Change in a Wired Network | 581 |
| 2 | US20200389469A1 | System and method for tunnel-based malware detection | 532 |
| 3 | US4729102A | Aircraft data acquisition and recording system | 260 |
| 4 | US4280221A | Digital data communication system | 252 |
| 5 | US20050197748A1 | Vehicle data services | 223 |
| 6 | US7558903B2 | Interfacing a legacy data bus with a wideband wireless data resource utilizing an embedded bus controller | 211 |
| 7 | US20220046114A1 | System and method for data compression based on data position in frames structure | 155 |
| 8 | CN110325929A | 用于检测有线网络变化的信号波形分析的系统和方法 | 140 |
| 9 | US7356389B2 | Vehicle data services | 135 |
| 10 | US20110054721A1 | Vehicle monitoring system | 102 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read alongside each other: concentration at the top, a composition tilted toward software and transmission claims rather than physical-layer hardware, and a filing curve that has cooled from its 2018 peak.
The field is concentrated but not closed
Five assignees hold 170 of the 296 records in scope, yet 78 companies appear in the ranking overall, which means a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants keeps arriving even as the leaders hold the core bus-controller and remote-terminal claims.
Software-side claims outweigh physical-layer ones
G06F and H04L together dominate the IPC composition, while aircraft-equipment class B64D sits at just 8.4%. That split suggests the contested ground has moved from bus hardware itself toward the data processing and transmission logic layered on top of it.
Filing activity has pulled back from its 2018 peak
Annual filings ran from 14 in 2021 down to 3 in 2024, a 79% drop, after peaking at 33 in 2018. Read the 2025-2026 counts with caution given the roughly 18-month publication lag on recent filings.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to avionics data bus technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the core claims, and where gaps remain
The leader board is dominated by aerospace primes and a cybersecurity specialist, with defence contractors and Nordic aerospace firms filling out the top ranks; co-assignee activity is thin, suggesting most of this work is filed by single corporate entities rather than joint research efforts.
A single assignee holds the largest share
The top-ranked assignee accounts for 89 of the 296 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 11 and tenth place at 7 — a steep drop-off that marks where the core bus-controller and fault-detection claims are already occupied.
Joint filing is rare in this field
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest links tied to the same three inventor names repeating across pairs — evidence that most avionics data bus patents are filed by a single corporate assignee rather than through joint ventures.
Filing is anchored in the US, with EPO and PCT as secondary routes
The United States receiving office accounts for the largest share of records at 118, followed by Europe (EPO) at 49 and WIPO/PCT at 27, with Israel, Austria and Canada each contributing double-digit counts — a spread that reflects both commercial aerospace and defence-cybersecurity filers.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Saab AB | 0 | — |
| Arilou Information Security Technologies Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Raytheon BBN Technologies Corp. | 0 | — |
| Sundstrand Data Control Inc. | 0 | — |
| PETTERSSON ANDERS | 0 | — |
| HAKEGARD JAN | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish where the claim density sits and where it thins out. The next step is usually to test a specific claim concept against the live filings rather than the aggregate counts.
Check a draft claim against the leaders' filings
Run a candidate bus-controller or remote-terminal claim against the top assignees' portfolios before drafting further, since the top five hold well over half of all records in scope.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the white space chips as a filing shortlist
The under-claimed sub-areas above are a starting list, not a conclusion — verify current claim density in each before committing engineering resources.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaWatch the 2025-2026 filings as they publish
Because of the roughly 18-month publication lag, the most recent filing years will keep revising upward; revisit the trend once 2025 is complete.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about avionics data bus patents
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 89 of the 296 records in scope, with the top five assignees together accounting for 57.4% of all records. That concentration is driven by long-established aerospace primes and defence contractors that have filed continuously since before this dataset's 2015 start date. Behind the top ranks, 78 companies appear in the full ranking, so there is still a long tail of smaller and newer filers entering the space.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 33 records and has since declined, with the last complete year, 2024, recording just 3 filings against 14 in 2021 — a 79% drop over that span. This should not be read as the technology going stale; high past filing density means the core bus-controller and remote-terminal claim space is already occupied, which can itself discourage new filings. The 2025-2026 figures are undercounted because of the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication.
The dominant classes are G06F (electric digital data processing) at 38.9% of the 296 records and H04L (digital information transmission) at 34.8%, both well ahead of aircraft-specific class B64D at 8.4%. This shows the claim activity has shifted toward the software and transmission logic layered on top of the physical bus, rather than the physical bus hardware itself. A single record often carries several of these classes at once, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Sub-areas such as stub-length fault isolation on redundant buses, transformer-coupling degradation detection and Manchester-encoding error correction at the physical layer show thinner claim density than the core bus-controller and remote-terminal space held by the leading assignees. Cyber-intrusion detection integrated directly into bus controllers is another area with room, given how heavily the top-cited records lean on network-level rather than bus-level detection. Anyone considering these branches should still verify current density against live filings before committing to a claim strategy.
The search terms in this dataset cover both standards together rather than separating them, so a direct comparison isn't available from this data. What is clear is that defence-adjacent classes such as F41G (weapon sighting and aiming) appear in 6.4% of the 296 records, alongside power-systems class H02J at 7.4%, indicating meaningful overlap between military and commercial avionics bus applications. Readers needing a standard-specific breakdown should narrow the underlying search string accordingly.
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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.