Building Energy Management Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 35.6% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees together account for 3,585 of the 10,070 records in scope — a field with a clear head and a long tail below it.
- Filing cooled from its 2019 peak. Volume ran from 961 records in 2019 down to 552 in 2024, a -35% swing across 2021-2024, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up.
- Control software outweighs mechanical HVAC hardware. G05B control and regulating systems touch 36.3% of records versus 22.6% for F24F air conditioning and ventilation — the fight is increasingly in the software layer.
Filing growth compares 2021 (849 records) with 2024 (552) — 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 10,070 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What building energy management patents actually cover
Building energy management sits at the intersection of controls engineering, HVAC hardware and, increasingly, data processing. The dataset behind this page spans 10,070 records filed or published between 2015 and 2026, captured through claim and title language tied to building management systems, HVAC control, occupancy scheduling and thermal storage. Because the search terms bridge both mechanical building equipment and the software that governs it, the record set mixes actuator and refrigerant-cycle patents with dashboards, analytics and grid-interaction claims.
The result is a field where a single filing often touches several IPC subclasses at once — a smart thermostat claim can sit in control systems, air conditioning and digital data processing simultaneously. That overlap is the reason the technology composition below adds up to more than 100% of records, and it is also why competitive mapping here needs more than one classification lens.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 10,070-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which technical classes carry the claim density.
Filing volume: a 2019 peak, then a pull-back
Annual filings ran from 686 records in 2017 up to a peak of 961 in 2019, then eased to 552 by 2024 — a -35% move across the 2021-2024 window. 2025 and 2026 numbers will keep revising upward as publication catches up with filing, roughly an 18-month lag, so treat the tail of the chart as a floor rather than a ceiling.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
Control and regulating systems (G05B) touch 36.3% of the 10,070 records, ahead of air conditioning and ventilation hardware (F24F) at 22.6%. Business and administrative data processing (G06Q) and general digital data processing (G06F) each sit near 18%, and AI-based computing (G06N) already reaches 6.5% — a share worth watching given how recent that class is as a mainstream filing target.
Shares are the percentage of the 10,070 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Building Energy Management Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about building energy management patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited prior art
Building energy management system with virtual audit metrics (US20190302157A1)
The filing describes collecting building-equipment data samples across two time periods, computing energy audit metrics from each period, comparing the resulting values, and displaying the comparison — effectively a virtual, continuous energy audit rather than a periodic manual one.Filed by Tyco Fire & Security GmbH, published 2019-10-03.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100332373A1 | System and method for participation in energy-related markets | 1,024 |
| 2 | US20100327766A1 | Wireless emergency lighting system | 996 |
| 3 | US6785592B1 | System and method for energy management | 982 |
| 4 | US9641122B2 | HVAC actuator with automatic end stop recalibration | 957 |
| 5 | US20100324962A1 | Smart building manager | 954 |
| 6 | US20110133655A1 | Autonomous grid shifting lighting device | 934 |
| 7 | US20100141153A1 | Wireless lighting devices and applications | 911 |
| 8 | US10034344B2 | Control interface facility management system | 836 |
| 9 | US20100217550A1 | System and method for electric grid utilization and optimization | 775 |
| 10 | US20120080944A1 | Grid Shifting System for a Lighting Circuit | 754 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate them — read this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current filing activity.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three findings that shape where a new filing is likely to face dense prior art, and where the claim space is comparatively open.
The field has a clear head, then a long tail
3,585 of the 10,070 records in scope belong to the five leading assignees, and the top 10 combined reach 46.2% (4,649 records). That leaves more than half of the dataset spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants — a pattern typical of a field where large controls and building-systems incumbents set the baseline and smaller players file around specific features.
Volume has pulled back from its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 961 records in 2019 and have since eased, with 2021's 849 records falling to 552 by 2024. That is a real three-year decline, not an artefact of publication lag, since 2024 is the last year in the dataset old enough to be treated as complete.
Software claims now outweigh mechanical HVAC claims
G05B (control and regulating systems) covers 36.3% of the 10,070 records, ahead of F24F air conditioning and ventilation hardware at 22.6%. Combined with G06Q, G06F and H02J each in the mid-to-high teens, this points to a field where the contested ground is increasingly the control and data layer sitting on top of otherwise settled HVAC hardware.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to building energy management patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Leading assignees and where their filing has slowed
The ranked leaders span building-controls incumbents, HVAC OEMs and, more recently, software and grid-services entrants. Momentum in the most recent tracked year has cooled sharply across almost every one of them, consistent with the field-wide pull-back from its 2019 peak.
A single assignee holds a commanding share
The leading assignee's 1,728 records dwarf the fifth-place holder's 321, meaning the top of this ranking is far more concentrated than the top 5-to-10 gap suggests. That gap has practical consequences for freedom-to-operate work: clearing the leader's portfolio matters more than clearing any other single competitor.
Even active filers are pulling back
The assignee with the most recent-year filings, at 13, is still down 79% year-on-year, and most other tracked assignees show similarly steep drops or flat, near-zero activity. This is field-wide cooling, not one company retreating while others advance.
Co-filing is rare and mostly intra-group
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pair links two entities under the same corporate umbrella rather than independent co-development. Cross-company joint filing is not yet a meaningful pattern in this space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tyco Fire & Security GmbH | 13 | -79% |
| Johnson Controls Technology Company | 1 | -50% |
| Signify Holding B.V. | 1 | 0% |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | 1 | -67% |
| View Operating Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Johnson Controls Tyco IP Holdings LLP | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Schneider Electric USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field consolidating at the top while cooling overall — the next steps depend on whether you are clearing a filing, tracking a competitor or scoping new claim territory.
Run freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 1,728 of 10,070 records, a targeted clearance search against that single portfolio will resolve more risk than a broad sweep of the long tail.
Explore assignee portfolios in Eureka →Map claim language in the under-claimed branches
Thermal storage dispatch and AI-based fault detection show thinner filing density than the core control classes — worth a closer claim-mapping pass before committing to a filing direction.
Map white space in Eureka →Watch for the 2025-2026 filing correction
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent drop-off in the most recent years will partly revise upward — re-run the trend view in a few quarters rather than treating today's tail as final.
Track filing trends in Eureka →Common questions about building energy management patents
The dataset's assignee ranking is led by a single company holding 1,728 of the 10,070 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 321 and the tenth at 136. The top five assignees together account for 35.6% of all records, and the top ten reach 46.2%, so the field has a genuinely concentrated head even though the ranking itself covers 100 companies rather than a handful. For competitive tracking, the leader's portfolio matters more than any single rival's.
Filing peaked at 961 records in 2019 and has since declined, falling from 849 in 2021 to 552 in 2024 — a -35% move over that three-year span. That is the last window that can be read as a real trend, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete. Read the recent apparent drop-off with that caveat rather than as confirmed slowing.
Control and regulating systems (IPC class G05B) appear in 36.3% of the 10,070 records, the single largest technical class, ahead of air conditioning and ventilation hardware (F24F) at 22.6%. Business and administrative data processing and general digital data processing each sit around 18%, and AI-based computing already reaches 6.5%. Because a single patent can carry several IPC classes, these figures describe overlapping claim territory rather than mutually exclusive buckets, and together they show the field's centre of gravity sitting in control software rather than mechanical HVAC equipment.
Relative to the dense core classes of control systems and HVAC hardware, sub-areas such as thermal storage dispatch optimisation, low-GWP working-fluid selection, occupancy prediction from sparse sensor data and AI-based fault detection in control loops show thinner filing density in this dataset. That does not guarantee an area is easy to patent in, but it does suggest less crowded claim language and fewer blocking references to clear before filing. A focused prior-art search in one of these branches is a reasonable next step before committing R&D resources.
US20190302157A1, assigned to Tyco Fire & Security GmbH and published 2019-10-03, describes a building energy management method that collects equipment data across two time periods, calculates energy audit metrics for each, compares the results, and displays the comparison. In practice this is a continuous, automated version of a periodic energy audit built into the building management system itself. Anyone building analytics that compare building performance across time windows should review its claim scope before assuming the approach is open.
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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.