Casing Design & Tubular Selection Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Top-heavy field. the top 5 assignees hold 206 of 364 records in scope (56.6%), and the top 10 hold 79.7% — a long tail of single-filing entrants fills the rest.
- Filing is accelerating, not fading. filings ran from 1 in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a +400% rise over that span, even though the most recent published years are still catching up to actual filing dates.
- Software sits inside a drilling-hardware field. E21B (wells) covers 71.2% of records, but G06F and G06Q data-processing classes appear on 15.4% and 12.4% respectively — well-planning software is claimed alongside the physical tubulars.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (5) — 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 364 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Casing design and tubular selection patents cover the mechanical and computational work of specifying, qualifying and running casing strings: collapse and burst resistance, triaxial stress analysis, premium connection seals, centralizer placement, residual wall thickness after wear, and annular pressure buildup during fluid expansion. The search captures 364 published records from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, spanning both the physical hardware and the well-planning software used to size it.
The record set is dominated by large oilfield service companies rather than casing manufacturers alone, and a meaningful share of the filings sit in data-processing classes rather than pure mechanical design — a sign that string design has become as much a calculation problem as a metallurgical one.
Filing trends and technology composition
Trend and classification data for the 364 records in scope, drawn directly from publication dates and IPC subclass assignments.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 15 in 2017 to a peak of 17 in 2022, then continued with 2021 at 1 and 2024 at 5 — a +400% rise across that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months; treat the tail as incomplete rather than a slowdown.
IPC subclass composition
E21B (earth and rock drilling for wells) covers 71.2% of the 364 records, confirming this is fundamentally a wellbore-hardware field. G06F (15.4%) and G06Q (12.4%) data-processing classes point to a substantial well-planning and simulation software layer, while F16L pipe fittings (8.5%) and smaller shares in G01N, A61B, F16K and A61M mark adjacent measurement and fluid-handling claims. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 364 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Casing Design and Tubular Selection with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about casing design and tubular selection and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US20160370498A1 — Simulating the effects of syntactic foam on annular pressure buildup during annular fluid expansion in a wellbore
Systems and methods for simulating the effects of syntactic foam on annular pressure buildup during annular fluid expansion in a wellbore to mitigate annular pressure buildup in the wellbore.Filed by Landmark Graphics Corporation, published 2016-12-22.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070199721A1 | Well planning system and method | 177 |
| 2 | US20050209912A1 | Method system and program storage device for automatically calculating and displaying time and cost data in a… | 173 |
| 3 | US6457540B2 | Method and system for hydraulic friction controlled drilling and completing geopressured wells utilizing conc… | 169 |
| 4 | US20050209866A1 | Method and apparatus and program storage device adapted for visualization of qualitative and quantitative ris… | 165 |
| 5 | US7653563B2 | Method and apparatus and program storage device adapted for automatic qualitative and quantitative risk asses… | 133 |
| 6 | US20050209836A1 | Method and apparatus and program storage device including an integrated well planning workflow control system… | 132 |
| 7 | US5154452A | Tubular connection with S-thread form for clamping center seal | 128 |
| 8 | US20100038076A1 | Expandable tubulars for use in geologic structures | 121 |
| 9 | US7548873B2 | Method system and program storage device for automatically calculating and displaying time and cost data in a… | 120 |
| 10 | US7630914B2 | Method and apparatus and program storage device adapted for visualization of qualitative and quantitative ris… | 117 |
Citation counts reflect an older, well-established cohort of well-planning and risk-assessment filings; treat them as evidence of influence within this corpus, not of current filing priority.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the concentration, classification and citation figures above.
Filing space is claimed at the top, not evenly spread
The leader alone accounts for 91 records, and the top 5 combined take 206 of the 364 records in scope. That leaves a long tail below tenth place (12 records) filing one or two documents each — workable niches exist, but they sit beneath, not beside, the leaders.
Hardware claims dominate, but software is not incidental
E21B carries the great majority of records, yet G06F and G06Q data-processing classes touch 15.4% and 12.4% of records respectively. Any casing-design filing strategy has to account for well-planning and simulation claims, not just physical connection or centralizer hardware.
Recent growth is real, and the tail years understate it further
Filings rose from 1 in 2021 to 5 in 2024. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 figures shown in any chart are still filling in — read the visible drop-off there as a data artefact, not a genuine pullback.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to casing design and tubular selection, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 16 |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | VEENINGEN DAAN | 13 |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | GIVENS KRIS | 13 |
| VEENINGEN DAAN | GIVENS KRIS | 13 |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 11 |
| Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | VEENINGEN DAAN | 11 |
| Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | GIVENS KRIS | 11 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 8 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairings clustered around a small number of large service-company entities — consistent with internal corporate structuring rather than cross-company joint filing.
Who holds the claim space
Eighty companies appear in the assignee ranking built from these 364 records. The leader alone holds 91 records; fifth place holds 24 and tenth place 12, which is where the field opens into a long tail of narrower filers.
A single assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee's record count is more than triple the fifth-place figure of 24, indicating a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a one-off cluster of applications.
More than half the field sits with five companies
Five assignees combine for 206 of the 364 records in scope. For a new entrant, this means core casing-connection and stress-analysis claims are likely already occupied by one of these five, and freedom-to-operate work should start there.
The next five add less concentration than the first five
Extending from five to ten assignees adds only another 23.1 percentage points of coverage, taking the combined share to 79.7% of 364 records. The tail beyond tenth place is thin — good territory for narrow, defensible filings rather than broad platform claims.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Landmark Graphics Corporation | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services Inc | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 0 | — |
| Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 0 | — |
| Hunting Energy Services Inc | 0 | — |
| LOGINED | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish where the field stands; the next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, a filing strategy, or tracking a specific competitor.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top 5
With 56.6% of records held by five assignees, any new casing-connection or stress-analysis filing should be checked against their claim scope before drafting.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTrack the software-adjacent classes
G06F and G06Q shares suggest well-planning simulation claims are being layered onto hardware filings — worth a separate search pass if the target technology touches software.
Build a custom IPC search in EurekaCommon questions on casing design patents
The assignee ranking built from this dataset is led by one company with 91 of the 364 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 24 records. The top 5 assignees together hold 56.6% of all records, and the top 10 hold 79.7%, so the field is concentrated among a small group of large oilfield service companies rather than spread evenly across many filers. Below tenth place, the ranking extends through 80 companies total, most filing only a handful of records each.
Filings rose from 1 in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a +400% increase over that span, and the peak year in the dataset so far is 2022 with 17 filings. The 2025 and 2026 figures look lower, but that is expected: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years are always undercounted in any patent dataset. Treat the recent-year dip as incomplete data rather than a genuine slowdown.
The great majority of records, 71.2% of the 364 in scope, fall in IPC class E21B covering earth and rock drilling for wells — confirming this is primarily a physical wellbore-hardware field. However, G06F (electric digital data processing) appears on 15.4% of records and G06Q (business and administrative data processing) on 12.4%, showing that well-planning and simulation software is a meaningful secondary layer claimed alongside the hardware. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
The smaller IPC shares in this dataset — F16L pipe fittings at 8.5%, and G01N, A61B, F16K and A61M each in the low single digits — mark adjacent branches with comparatively fewer claims than the core E21B space. Sub-areas such as residual wall thickness prediction, centralizer placement optimisation, and premium connection seal qualification testing show up less densely than core collapse and burst resistance claims. Lower filing density does not guarantee a technology is unclaimed, but it is a reasonable signal of where a targeted freedom-to-operate search may find more room.
The most-cited records in this dataset are well-planning and risk-assessment patents published in the mid-2000s, with citation counts well above 100 each. Citation counts accumulate over time within a searched corpus, so older filings naturally collect more citations than recent ones regardless of their current commercial relevance. Use citation counts as a measure of historical influence on this field, not as a ranking of which technology matters most today.
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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.