Building Energy Management Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2018 at 21 and have not returned to that level since, with the 2022 midpoint sitting at 11 — the claim space opened faster than it is now being filled.
- G05B control logic dominates appearing in 116 of 133 families, more than double F24F air-conditioning-specific filings, showing claims cluster on control strategy rather than mechanical HVAC hardware.
- The United States receives 95 filings versus 15 at the EPO and single digits elsewhere, so most enforceable rights in this dataset sit in one jurisdiction.
What this landscape covers
Building energy management systems sit at the intersection of control theory and facilities operation: software and control logic that predicts occupancy, runs model predictive control loops, schedules demand response events, and flags equipment faults before they waste energy. This dataset pulls 133 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine building-automation search terms with occupancy prediction, MPC, demand response, fault detection and energy-baseline claim language, scoped to the F24F11, G05B15 and G05D23 IPC subclasses.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart are undercounts of actual filing activity, not a real drop-off. The more reliable signal is the shape from 2018 to 2022: a clear peak followed by a plateau, not sustained growth.
Filing trends and technology composition
133 patent families, filed mostly through the USPTO, concentrated in control-systems classifications rather than mechanical HVAC design.
A 2018 peak that has not been repeated
Filings rose to 21 in 2018, the high point of the covered period, then eased toward the 2022 midpoint of 11. That pattern reads as a claim space that filled quickly around a first wave of fault-detection and demand-response patents, then slowed as the obvious control-logic claims were staked out. The 2025-2026 figures are partial due to publication lag and should not be read as a collapse.
Control logic outweighs air-conditioning hardware
G05B (control and regulating systems) appears in 116 of 133 families, far ahead of F24F (air conditioning and ventilation) at 46. G06F (data processing) and H04L (data transmission) filings, at 38 and 21 respectively, point to a software and connectivity layer wrapped around the control claims, while G06Q business-process claims (13) and G06T image processing (15) mark smaller adjacent branches tied to analytics dashboards and occupancy-sensing imagery.
Shares are the percentage of the 133 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 Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about building energy management systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
US9310786B2 — Automated demand response scheduling to reduce electrical loads
A system and method for reducing an electrical load in a facility with a building automation system: on receiving a new demand response event, the system determines which devices of the building automation system to control, prepares a schedule of control actions for those devices, and sends control messages to execute the schedule during the demand response event.Filed by Siemens Industry Inc., granted 2016.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120022700A1 | Automated fault detection and diagnostics in a building management system | 408 |
| 2 | US8731724B2 | Automated fault detection and diagnostics in a building management system | 287 |
| 3 | US20170212482A1 | Building energy management system with energy analytics | 243 |
| 4 | US10055114B2 | Building energy management system with ad hoc dashboard | 186 |
| 5 | US10921972B2 | Building system with data model including bidirectional relationships | 171 |
| 6 | US11073976B2 | Building system with a building graph | 171 |
| 7 | US10534326B2 | Building automation system with integrated building information model | 157 |
| 8 | US20230030077A1 | Building system with a building graph | 54 |
| 9 | US9639413B2 | Automated fault detection and diagnostics in a building management system | 46 |
| 10 | US20180238575A1 | Building automation system with microservices architecture | 45 |
Citation counts favour older filings in any searched corpus; treat the ranking as a signal of influence on later filers, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once families, jurisdictions and IPC codes are laid side by side.
The early land grab is over
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has not returned to that level. A midpoint of 11 in 2022 shows the field settling into a lower, steadier rate rather than continuing to accelerate — later entrants are filing into a claim space that is already partially occupied.
Enforcement leverage is US-centric
The United States accounts for the large majority of filings, with Europe a distant second at 15 and China, India and Canada each in single digits. A freedom-to-operate review that only checks US prior art will miss most of what little coverage exists elsewhere.
Control software, not ductwork, is contested
G05B control-and-regulation claims appear in more than double the families that F24F air-conditioning-specific claims do. Applicants are largely patenting how a building's systems are decided and scheduled, not the mechanical equipment itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to building energy management systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | SIEMENS CORP | 9 |
| SONG ZHEN | JI KUN | 3 |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | Siemens Corporation | 2 |
| SONG ZHEN | WEI DONG | 2 |
| SONG ZHEN | LU YAN | 2 |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | SONGKAKUL PORNSAK | 1 |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | RULE THOMAS | 1 |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | MARCHI MICHAEL J | 1 |
Co-assignee pairs are rare in this dataset — only 10 identified — and the strongest pairing links two related Siemens entities, suggesting most patenting here happens inside a single corporate group rather than through joint ventures.
Who holds the claim space
Filing activity concentrates around a small group of building-controls incumbents, with recent-year momentum flat across the board — every assignee tracked shows zero filings in the latest year, consistent with the publication-lag effect rather than a real pullback.
Siemens Industry and related entities
Siemens Industry Inc. and its affiliated Siemens entities appear repeatedly, including the strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset. The representative demand-response scheduling patent in this landscape is a Siemens Industry filing.
Johnson Controls group
Multiple related Johnson Controls entities, including a Tyco IP holding partnership, appear in the assignee set, reflecting a corporate structure that spreads filings across several related legal entities rather than one.
ABB (Switzerland)
ABB's Swiss entity shows up among the tracked assignees with no filings in the most recent tracked year, matching the broader plateau in the filing trend rather than signalling a company-specific slowdown.
Tata Consultancy Services
Tata Consultancy Services appears as a tracked assignee, indicating IT-services-side interest in building energy analytics alongside the traditional controls manufacturers.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Johnson Controls Technology Company | 0 | — |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Johnson Controls Tyco IP Holdings LLP | 0 | — |
| SIEMENS CORP | 0 | — |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tata Consultancy Services Limited | 0 | — |
| Siemens Corporation | 0 | — |
| Key Technologies Internet Protocol Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature, US-heavy control-software claim space with a few specific gaps still open.
Check freedom-to-operate against G05B control claims
Given how densely control-and-regulation claims are filed, any new occupancy-prediction or MPC feature should be checked against the highest-cited fault-detection and energy-analytics families before development starts.
Explore FTO workflows in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches before filing
The chip list above marks sub-areas — image-based occupancy sensing, tariff-integrated demand response, DER fault diagnostics — that show thinner coverage than the core control claims and may be worth a first-mover filing.
Run a white-space search in EurekaWatch jurisdiction gaps outside the US
With 95 of 133 filings at the USPTO and single-digit counts in China, India and Canada, companies expanding building-automation products into those markets should verify local coverage separately rather than assume US filings translate.
Compare jurisdictions in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
In this dataset, Siemens Industry and related Siemens entities appear most consistently, including the strongest co-assignee pairing identified. Johnson Controls, through several related corporate entities including a Tyco IP holding partnership, and ABB's Swiss entity also show up repeatedly among tracked assignees. No single company dominates outright; filings are spread across a handful of established building-controls manufacturers plus at least one IT-services entrant, Tata Consultancy Services.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 21 families and has not returned to that level, with the 2022 midpoint sitting at 11. That points to a plateau rather than continued growth, though the 2025-2026 figures are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Read the recent-year dip as a data artifact, not confirmed evidence of declining interest.
The large majority of families classify under G05B, control and regulating systems, with 116 of 133 records — more than double the 46 that fall under F24F, air conditioning and ventilation hardware. Meaningful secondary clusters appear in G06F data processing (38) and H04L data transmission (21), indicating that most patenting activity is about control software and connectivity rather than mechanical HVAC equipment design.
The United States receives the large majority of filings in this dataset, 95 of 133, making it the jurisdiction with the most enforceable rights to clear. Europe follows at 15 filings, with WIPO/PCT, China, India and Canada each in single digits. A freedom-to-operate check limited to the US would cover most of the identified art, but companies operating in Europe or Asia should not assume US clearance is sufficient.
US9310786B2, assigned to Siemens Industry Inc. and granted in 2016, claims a method for scheduling control actions across multiple building-automation devices in response to a demand response event, from receiving the event through preparing and executing a device schedule. It matters because demand-response scheduling is a heavily filed sub-area within this landscape, and this patent's claim structure — event receipt, device selection, schedule preparation, message dispatch — is a common shape that later filers need to design around or license.
Based on IPC composition, branches that overlap with G06T image processing, G06Q business-rule processing and H02J power-grid systems show meaningfully thinner coverage than the core G05B control claims — specifically image-based occupancy prediction, tariff-integrated demand-response logic, and fault diagnostics extended to distributed energy resources. These are narrower niches than the dense fault-detection and energy-analytics core, but the lower filing density suggests room for a well-drafted first claim.
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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.