Bottom Hole Assembly Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 51.8% concentration. The top five assignees account for 556 of the 1,073 records in scope — more than half the field sits with a handful of operators and service companies.
- Filing kept climbing, not stalling. From 2021 to 2024 — the last year with complete published data — filings rose 26 to 30, a 15% increase, even after the 2018 peak of 61.
- One class dominates the claim space. E21B covers 87.7% of all records, while adjacent digital-control classes like G06G and G06F sit under 7% each — signalling where design-around room is thinner than it looks.
Filing growth compares 2021 (26 records) with 2024 (30) — 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 1,073 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Bottom hole assembly design sits at the mechanical core of directional and rotary drilling: stabilizer placement, pendulum assembly geometry, neutral point positioning and the control of tubular buckling under compressive load. The search underlying this page pairs core hardware terms — bottom hole assembly, drill collar, stabilizer placement — with the specific mechanical concepts that distinguish one BHA configuration from another, such as packed hole assembly, bit tilt and spiral blade geometry.
The 1,073 records in scope span publication from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, drawn from receiving offices led by the United States, Canada, WIPO and the UK. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate actual filing activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,073 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filings rose again after the 2018 peak
Annual filings hit a peak of 61 in 2018, cooled, then rebuilt: 2021 to 2024 — the last complete published year — moved from 26 to 30, a 15% rise. Counts in 2025 and 2026 are still filling in behind the publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
E21B carries the field; digital-control classes trail far behind
E21B (earth and rock drilling) appears on 87.7% of the 1,073 records — the mechanical core of the BHA. Analogue and digital computing classes (G06G, G06F) each sit near 6%, geophysics (G01V) near 2%, and measurement, control and business-process classes each fall below 1.5%. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,073 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Bottom Hole Assembly Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about bottom hole assembly design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
US6581699B1 — Steerable drilling system and method
A bottom hole assembly for drilling a deviated borehole using a positive displacement motor or rotary steerable device with a substantially uniform-diameter motor housing lacking radial stabilizers. The long-gauge bit's gauge section runs at least 75% of the bit diameter, with a specified axial spacing between bit face and motor housing bend — a geometric approach to controlling bit tilt without conventional stabilizer placement.Abstract text is drawn directly from the filing; the underlying record carries the assignee and date shown separately on this page.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5924499A | Acoustic data link and formation property sensor for downhole MWD system | 488 |
| 2 | US20090090555A1 | Automated directional drilling apparatus and methods | 443 |
| 3 | US6213226B1 | Directional drilling assembly and method | 286 |
| 4 | US6612382B2 | Iterative drilling simulation process for enhanced economic decision making | 254 |
| 5 | US5148875A | Method and apparatus for horizontal drilling | 252 |
| 6 | US20070045267A1 | Subsurface connection methods for subsurface heaters | 214 |
| 7 | US20070045265A1 | Low temperature barriers with heat interceptor wells for in situ processes | 212 |
| 8 | US7527094B2 | Double barrier system for an in situ conversion process | 207 |
| 9 | US20070045268A1 | Varying properties along lengths of temperature limited heaters | 194 |
| 10 | US5074366A | Method and apparatus for horizontal drilling | 194 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate references within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not of current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-outs from the concentration, trend and citation data, translated into what they mean for someone deciding where to file next.
Half the field sits with five assignees
The top five assignees combine for 556 of the 1,073 records in scope — 51.8% of the whole dataset. That level of concentration means core BHA mechanical claims (stabilizer geometry, pendulum assembly configuration) are heavily pre-empted by a small number of service companies and operators, and a new entrant's freedom to operate narrows fast in that core.
Growth continued past the 2018 peak
Filing volume peaked at 61 in 2018, dipped, then climbed again: complete published data shows 26 filings in 2021 rising to 30 in 2024, a 15% increase. That is renewed activity, not a technology winding down — treat any apparent drop in 2025-2026 as a publication-lag artefact rather than a real decline.
Claim space is concentrated in one IPC subclass
Nearly nine in ten records carry an E21B classification, the drilling-hardware subclass. Digital and analogue control classes (G06F, G06G) each cover under 7% of records, which is thin coverage relative to how much of modern BHA design now depends on downhole computation and automated steering logic.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to bottom hole assembly design, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| CHEN SHILIN | PELLETIER MICHAEL T | 21 |
| CHEN SHILIN | FREESE ROBERT P | 21 |
| CHEN SHILIN | WEAVER GARY E | 18 |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | CHEN SHILIN | 17 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp. | Schlumberger Canada Ltd. | 14 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp. | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 14 |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd. | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 13 |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd. | Schlumberger Canada Ltd. | 8 |
The strongest co-assignee pairing in this dataset appears 21 times, alongside a second pairing also at 21 — evidence of a small number of named inventors whose work is consistently jointly assigned, a pattern worth checking before assuming any BHA claim has a single owner.
Who holds the ground, and where it thins out
The ranking covers 100 companies returned by the dataset — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, the whole list the endpoint returns. Filing is heavily front-loaded: the leader alone holds 350 records, fifth place sits at 42, and by tenth place the count has fallen to 25.
One filer dominates the ranking
The leading assignee's 350 records dwarf the rest of the ranked list; fifth place holds 42 and tenth place 25, a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
The top 10 combine for two-thirds of the field
Ten assignees account for 705 of the 1,073 records in scope — 65.7% of everything published. The remaining 90 ranked companies split the rest, meaning most organisations in this space hold only a handful of filings each.
Momentum has cooled among the largest historical filers
Recent-year momentum for the largest historical assignees shows little to no new activity in the latest tracked year — several sit at zero, and the most active shows a single filing with flat year-over-year movement. That is consistent with the publication lag rather than an actual retreat from the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Motive Drilling Technologies | 1 | 0% |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Nabors Drilling Technologies USA Inc. | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company | 0 | — |
| Baker Hughes Co. | 0 | — |
| CHEN SHILIN | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp. | 0 | -100% |
| Shell Oil Co. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to two practical next steps: narrowing in on the under-claimed control and measurement classes, and checking freedom to operate against the top-five assignees before drafting new BHA claims.
Map claim boundaries in the dense E21B core
Before drafting a new stabilizer or pendulum-assembly claim, check it against the concentrated holdings of the leading assignees identified in this dataset — half the field's records sit with just five companies.
Explore claims in Eureka →Track the under-claimed digital-control branches
G06F and G06G coverage sits under 7% of records despite growing reliance on downhole computation; that gap is worth monitoring as automated steering and real-time buckling prediction mature.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Common questions about bottom hole assembly patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 350 of the 1,073 records in scope, well ahead of the rest of the field. The top five assignees combine for 556 records, or 51.8% of everything published, and the top ten reach 705 records, or 65.7%. Beyond that point coverage thins quickly into a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, so freedom-to-operate checks should focus first on the leading names before worrying about the smaller filers.
Filing peaked at 61 in 2018 and has moved in cycles since. Using complete published data, filings rose from 26 in 2021 to 30 in 2024, a 15% increase, which points to renewed rather than declining activity. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower only because publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, so those years should not yet be read as a downturn.
E21B, the earth and rock drilling subclass, appears on 87.7% of the 1,073 records in scope, making it by far the largest single category. Digital and analogue computing classes relevant to downhole control, G06F and G06G, each sit near 6%, with geophysics, measurement and business-process classes all below 2.5%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read as coverage rates, not as a breakdown of a fixed pie.
US6581699B1 describes a steerable drilling system built around a bottom hole assembly with a positive displacement motor or rotary steerable device that has a substantially uniform-diameter housing and no radial stabilizers. It specifies a long-gauge bit with a gauge section running at least 75% of the bit diameter, and a defined axial spacing between the bit face and the motor housing bend. That combination is a specific geometric route to controlling bit tilt without relying on conventional stabilizer placement, which narrows what a design-around needs to avoid.
The clearest gaps sit not in the core mechanical hardware, which is heavily claimed under E21B, but in the digital and control layers around it: automated stabilizer placement logic, real-time neutral point calculation from sensor data, and buckling prediction using computational models all fall under classes covering well under 10% of records. Any first claim in these areas should tie the digital or control method explicitly to a physical BHA parameter, since claims written purely as software risk being read against the dense general-computing prior art rather than against drilling-specific art.
Research Bottom Hole Assembly Design in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole bottom hole assembly design corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.