Cable-Stayed Bridge Patents: Filing Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 10 records and has fallen every year since, with the 2022 midpoint down to 2 — this is a cooled filing cycle, not a growing one.
- E01D bridge claims dominate at 24 of the corpus but D07B rope-and-cable filings run a close second at 11, showing the cable hardware itself is claimed almost as heavily as the bridge structure.
- Filing is split three ways geographically China, the EPO and the US each hold a comparable share of receiving-office activity, so no single jurisdiction anchors this technology.
What this landscape covers
A cable-stayed bridge structural system patent covers the cable-pylon-deck configuration as a whole: how stay cables anchor into the pylon and girder, how anchorage sockets and dehumidification protection are arranged, and how the deck cross-section is divided to carry combined rail and road loads. This search pulls records that explicitly claim the structural configuration of the system rather than isolated cable manufacturing steps, so the corpus is small and concentrated on system-level claims.
Thirty families is a small corpus for a civil-engineering category this old, which tells its own story: the structural configuration of a cable-stayed bridge is a mature, largely settled design space, and most recent invention activity has moved into adjacent claims — cable materials, sensing, and inspection — rather than the base structure itself.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Publication data lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year here undercounts what has actually been filed. Even allowing for that lag, the trajectory is clearly downward from its 2017 peak.
A 2017 peak followed by sustained decline
Filings hit 10 in 2017, the high point of the tracked period, then fell through the 2022 midpoint of 2 and continued lower toward the 2026 cut-off. That shape is consistent with a technology whose core structural claims were staked out early and have not needed re-filing since.
Bridge structure and cable hardware lead the classification mix
E01D (bridges) accounts for 24 of the records and D07B (ropes and cables) for 11, confirming that most protection sits on the physical cable-pylon-deck system rather than software or monitoring layers. Smaller pockets in G06F, G06T and G06Q data processing, A62C fire-fighting, F16L pipe fittings and B29C plastics shaping show where digital and materials add-ons have started to attach to the base structure.
Shares are the percentage of the 30 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cable-Stayed Bridge Structural System with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cable-stayed bridge structural system and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Stay Cable System (EP1001089B1 / "Schrägseilsystem")
The system covers tendons with parallel strands under a sheath pipe, anchored through main and auxiliary anchorage sockets, an anchoring tie beam, and a dehumidification protection system. Its distinguishing feature is splitting the anchoring holes in the anchorage sockets into two symmetrical groups so the main anchorage socket can sit reliably at the bottom of a girder with the cable axis aligned to the girder web, using a double half-cylindrical auxiliary arrangement.Filed by Hou Yincheng; cited 41 times, the highest count in this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EP1001089A1 | Novel technique for stay cable system | 41 |
| 2 | JP1989190861A | Tension member for structure | 23 |
| 3 | CN110438881A | 桥塔内穿的三分箱混合主梁和四索面公铁合建斜拉桥 | 14 |
| 4 | WO2018130271A1 | Hybrid pipe for stay cable and its manufacturing method | 12 |
| 5 | CN107066762A | 一种用于斜拉桥同向回转拉索的设计方法 | 7 |
| 6 | CN203049445U | 采用干空气除湿并能监控索体湿度的平行钢丝拉索体系 | 7 |
| 7 | US20190330808A1 | Hybrid pipe for stay cable and its manufacturing method | 6 |
| 8 | US20220127803A1 | Long-service-life PWS Cable with Replaceable Sleeve and Shielding gas | 3 |
| 9 | US20240029225A1 | Structure state prediction apparatus, structure state prediction method, and structure state prediction progr… | 2 |
| 10 | CN119989495A | 斜拉桥拉索系统设计方法、系统及存储介质 | 1 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references; read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not of current commercial relevance.
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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The dataset is small enough that individual records move the picture, but three patterns hold up across it.
The structural core was staked out early
A sharp 2017 peak followed by a steady fall to 2 filings by 2022 suggests the basic cable-pylon-deck configuration attracted its heaviest filing years ago. New entrants filing on the bare structural system today are filing into a space others already claimed.
Cable hardware is claimed almost as hard as the bridge itself
With D07B rope-and-cable filings running at nearly half the volume of E01D bridge filings, protection on stay cable materials and construction is nearly as dense as protection on the overall bridge structure — a filer targeting only the cable would still cross a busy subclass.
No single office anchors the technology
China and the EPO each account for 8 records and the US for 5, with smaller counts at AT, India and the UAE. A filing strategy built around one jurisdiction will miss most of the competitive art in this field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cable-stayed bridge structural system, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where it thins out
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is flat: every named assignee shows 0 filings in the latest year, consistent with the corpus-wide decline. That makes this a landscape of settled positions rather than active races.
A quiet field, not an empty one
Assignees including VSL, Jiangsu Fasten Cable, Fujifilm, Anhui Transport Holding Group and China Railway Shanghai Design Institute Group all show zero filings in the most recent tracked year. That reflects the broader 2017-peak-then-decline pattern rather than any one firm exiting the space.
A long tail with little repeat filing
With only 30 families spread across the full assignee ranking, most participants appear to hold a handful of records rather than a defensive thicket. That leaves room for a well-drafted claim to stand out rather than compete against dozens of near-identical filings.
Three-way split keeps the field open regionally
No office holds a majority share of filings, so a new entrant is not required to clear one dominant jurisdiction's prior art before others become relevant — but it does mean freedom-to-operate work has to cover at least three regions.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| VSL International Ltd. | 0 | — |
| HOU YINCHENG | 0 | — |
| Jiangsu Fasten Cable Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Fujifilm Corporation | 0 | — |
| Anhui Transport Holding Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| China Railway Shanghai Design Institute Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Company Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shinko Wire Company, Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The base structural configuration looks settled; the open questions sit at its edges.
Check the adjacent branches before filing on structure alone
G06T monitoring, A62C fire protection and F16L pipe-based cable manufacturing all show light filing density next to a dense E01D/D07B core. A claim anchored in one of those adjacent branches has more room to clear prior art than a pure structural-configuration claim.
Explore white space in EurekaVerify freedom-to-operate across three regions, not one
China, the EPO and the US each hold a comparable share of filings, so a search limited to a single office will miss roughly two-thirds of the relevant prior art in this corpus.
Run a multi-jurisdiction searchCommon questions on cable-stayed bridge patents
This search identified 30 patent families published between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off that explicitly claim the cable-pylon-deck structural configuration. That is a small corpus for a civil-engineering category this established, which points to a design space where the core structure was largely settled in earlier filing years rather than one still being actively contested. Counting families rather than raw publications avoids inflating the picture with continuations or multi-country filings of the same invention.
Slowing. Filings peaked in 2017 at 10 records and fell through the 2022 midpoint to just 2, with the trend continuing lower toward 2026. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the very latest years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be, but the multi-year decline from the 2017 peak is a real pattern, not just a lag artefact.
EP1001089B1, titled "Schrägseilsystem" and filed by Hou Yincheng, claims a stay cable system for tendons with parallel strands under a sheath pipe, using main and auxiliary anchorage sockets, an anchoring tie beam, and a dehumidification protection system. Its distinguishing feature is dividing the anchoring holes into two symmetrical groups so the main anchorage socket sits reliably at the bottom of a girder with the cable axis aligned to the girder web. It is the most-cited record in this corpus at 41 citations, making it a reference point most later filers in this specific anchorage arrangement had to work around.
The tracked assignees include VSL, Jiangsu Fasten Cable, Fujifilm, Anhui Transport Holding Group, China Railway Shanghai Design Institute Group and others, but all show zero filings in the most recent tracked year. With only 30 families spread across the full ranking, this is a field of scattered, modest-sized positions rather than one dominated by a single large filer with a deep continuation strategy.
The core structural configuration — anchorage sockets, tie beams, pylon-deck geometry — is densely claimed relative to the corpus size, but adjacent branches carry much lighter filing density: G06T-based digital monitoring of deck and cable condition, A62C fire-resistant cable protection, and F16L pipe-based approaches to stay cable manufacturing. A first claim in one of these adjacent areas, drafted to interoperate with an existing structural system rather than re-claim it, has more room to clear prior art than a new structural-configuration filing would.
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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.