Casing While Drilling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 46.1% concentration. The top 5 of 80 ranked assignees account for 148 of the 321 records in scope — a small group holds nearly half the field.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. 2017 was the high-water mark at 18 filings; from 2021 (17) to 2024 (4) — the last complete year — filings fell 76%.
- E21B dominates, everything else is thin. 94.1% of records sit in earth and rock drilling (E21B); no other IPC subclass clears 4% of the 321 records.
Filing growth compares 2021 (17 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 321 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the casing while drilling patent record shows
Casing while drilling — running casing itself as the drillstring rather than drilling with a conventional string and casing afterward — sits at the intersection of drilling mechanics, casing-shoe design and wellbore integrity. The search underlying this page combines casing while drilling, drillable bit and casing drive system terms with wear, clearance, liner-drilling and wellbore-strengthening concepts, returning 321 published records dated between 2015 and mid-2026.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has declined since; because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any chart will understate real activity and should not be read as a trend on their own. Ownership is concentrated: 80 assignees appear in the ranking, but the top 5 already account for 46.1% of all records and the top 10 for 67.3%, leaving a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
Filing trend, technology mix and where the claims sit
Three views of the same 321-record dataset: when the filings happened, what technical classes they touch, and how concentrated ownership is at the top of the ranking.
A 2017 peak followed by a multi-year decline
Filings rose to a peak of 18 in 2017. Using 2021 (17) against 2024 (4), the last year treatable as complete, filings fell 76% over that three-year span — a real contraction in new filing activity, not an artefact of publication lag. Years after 2024 will fill in further as pending applications publish, so they should not yet be read as confirming a continued fall.
One dominant class, several thin adjacencies
E21B (earth and rock drilling for wells) covers 94.1% of the 321 records, confirming this is fundamentally a drilling-mechanics field rather than a materials or software one. The next largest class, C09K (materials for miscellaneous applications), reaches only 3.7%; digital-processing (G06F) and geophysics (G01V) classes sit at 0.9% and 0.6% respectively, marking them as thin but present adjacencies rather than empty ones.
Shares are the percentage of the 321 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Casing While Drilling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about casing while drilling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a representative recent filing
US10267136B2 — Methods for analyzing and optimizing casing while drilling assemblies
A method for selecting a bottomhole assembly (BHA) includes inputting casing while drilling BHA parameters, wellbore parameters, and casing while drilling operating parameters, performing a dynamic simulation of a first BHA based on those parameters, and presenting a first set of performance data of the first BHA calculated from the dynamic simulation.Filed by Schlumberger Technology Corporation, published 2019-04-23 — a simulation-and-selection approach rather than a physical BHA design, which shapes what it can and cannot block.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20040149431A1 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing and monobore | 251 |
| 2 | US7066284B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 233 |
| 3 | US20110280104A1 | Dual top drive systems and methods for wellbore operations | 169 |
| 4 | US20120273470A1 | Method of protecting high power laser drilling, workover and completion systems from carbon gettering deposits | 147 |
| 5 | US7225879B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 123 |
| 6 | WO2003042489A2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 112 |
| 7 | US20050241855A1 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 95 |
| 8 | US6412574B1 | Method of forming a subsea borehole from a drilling vessel in a body of water of known depth | 89 |
| 9 | US20050236187A1 | Drilling with casing | 80 |
| 10 | US20030221870A1 | Earth loop heat exchange methods and systems | 79 |
Citation counts accumulate over time and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a measure 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 →Reading the concentration and citation data correctly
The headline numbers only mean something once you know what they are being measured against. These three read-outs pull the concentration, citation and filing-trend figures into decision-relevant statements.
Ownership is tight at the top, long-tailed below it
The leader alone holds 62 records. Combined with the next four, the top 5 of the 80 ranked assignees cover 148 records — 46.1% of the 321 in scope. The other 54% is spread across a long tail, many holding only one or two families, which is where freedom-to-operate work has to be done record-by-record rather than assignee-by-assignee.
A real slowdown, not a publication-lag illusion
Filings fell from 17 in 2021 to 4 in 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete given typical publication lag. That decline follows an earlier 2017 peak of 18, suggesting the wave of casing-while-drilling filing activity crested nearly a decade ago and has not been replaced by a comparable second wave.
The field is drilling mechanics first
With E21B covering 94.1% of records and no other IPC subclass above 3.7%, casing-while-drilling patenting remains overwhelmingly about the drilling assembly and wellbore mechanics rather than materials science, sensing, or software. The thin classes — C09K, F03C, F04C, G06F, G01V — mark where cross-disciplinary claims exist but are not yet dense.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to casing while drilling, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
The ranked leaders hold the core casing-drive and BHA claims; the receiving-office spread shows this is a US/Canada/UK-centred field with a meaningful PCT and Norway presence reflecting offshore drilling activity.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 62 of the 321 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 19 and tenth place at 11 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-and-field structure rather than an evenly distributed one.
A clear second tier, then a long tail
Places five through ten range from 19 down to 11 records, together with the leader accounting for 67.3% of all 321 records. Below tenth place, the remaining assignees in the 80-company ranking each hold small numbers of families, typically single-digit.
US, Canada and UK anchor the filing map
The United States leads receiving offices with 103 filings, followed by Canada (53) and the United Kingdom (44); WIPO/PCT filings (35) and EPO filings (20) show the same applicants pursuing broader coverage, while Norway's 17 filings reflect the offshore/North Sea drilling base.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| TESCO CORP | 0 | — |
| SMART DRILLING & COMPLETION INC | 0 | — |
| Weatherford Lamb, Inc. | 0 | — |
| ConocoPhillips Company | 0 | — |
| Sinvent AS | 0 | — |
| Meta Downhole Ltd | 0 | — |
| WELL ENG PARTNERS WEP | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether you are clearing a design, watching a competitor, or scoping a new filing.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 62 of 321 records, any new casing-while-drilling BHA or drive-system design should be checked claim-by-claim against that portfolio before committing to a design direction.
Run a claim comparison in Eureka →Scope filings toward the thin IPC classes
C09K, F03C, F04C, G06F and G01V all sit under 4% of the 321 records despite technical relevance to casing-while-drilling systems — a materials, hydraulics or software angle on the same mechanical problem may face less prior art.
Explore white space in Eureka →Track whether filing activity re-accelerates
The 2021-to-2024 76% decline is real, but 2025–2026 figures are still filling in under publication lag; re-check the trend once a full 18 months has passed to see whether the slowdown is durable.
Set up trend monitoring in Eureka →Common questions on casing while drilling patents
Casing while drilling runs the well casing itself as the drillstring, eliminating a separate drilling and casing-running step. It creates distinct patenting territory because it combines casing-string mechanics, drillable-bit design, casing-drive systems and wellbore-integrity concerns that do not arise in conventional drill-then-case operations. That combination is why searches for this topic pull in wear, clearance and wellbore-strengthening terms alongside the core casing-while-drilling and drillable-bit language, rather than sitting cleanly inside one existing drilling-technology class.
The dataset ranks 80 assignees across 321 records, and ownership is concentrated: the top-ranked assignee alone holds 62 records, with the fifth-place assignee at 19 and tenth place at 11. The top five combined account for 46.1% of all 321 records in scope, and the top ten for 67.3%, so a small number of companies control most of the core filing activity while a long tail files only occasionally.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 18 records and has declined since. Comparing 2021 (17 filings) to 2024 (4 filings), the last year that can be treated as complete once publication lag is accounted for, filings fell 76%. Figures for 2025 and 2026 will rise as pending applications publish, so the near-term years should not yet be read as continuing the decline — but the 2021–2024 trend itself is a genuine contraction, not a lag artefact.
E21B, the core earth-and-rock-drilling class, covers 94.1% of the 321 records, leaving every other IPC subclass under 4%. Materials for casing or drillable-bit components (C09K, 3.7%), hydraulic and rotary-piston pump elements (F03C, F04C, around 1% each), and digital BHA simulation or geophysical monitoring (G06F, G01V, under 1% each) all show technical relevance but thin filing density, making them plausible white-space areas for a differentiated claim.
The United States leads with 103 receiving-office filings, ahead of Canada (53) and the United Kingdom (44). WIPO/PCT filings (35) and European filings via the EPO (20) indicate applicants seeking broader multi-jurisdiction coverage, and Norway's 17 filings reflect the technology's relevance to North Sea offshore drilling operations. A single patent family can appear in more than one receiving office, so these counts are not directly additive with the 321-record total.
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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.