Completion Packers and Anchors Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 71.5% of all 460 records sit with just five assignees, leaving a long tail of single-digit filers behind them.
- Filing fell from 18 to 4 a year between the 2021 peak and 2024, a -78% swing that predates the still-filling-in 2025-2026 window.
- 97.6% of records classify under E21B while coating, alloy and sensor-adjacent classes each hold under 3% — thin but present.
Filing growth compares 2021 (18 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 460 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Completion packers and anchors sit at the point where a well is made mechanically sound: sealing elements, slip systems, hydraulic setting mechanisms and the tubing seal assemblies that isolate zones under differential pressure. This landscape draws on 460 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine packer-type claims (production, retrievable or permanent packers) with a specific mechanical or hydraulic feature — slip design, sealing element, setting mechanism, pressure rating or milling method. That intersection keeps the corpus focused on functional hardware claims rather than general oilfield tooling.
The dataset is dominated by a handful of major oilfield service companies whose filing histories stretch back decades, visible in a set of frequently-cited 1990s priority documents that still anchor citation counts today. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so any reading of the most recent one or two years understates real activity.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 460-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims fall into.
A sharp pullback from the 2021 peak
Annual filings rose to a peak of 18 in 2021, then fell to 4 by 2024 — a -78% move over that three-year span. Counts from 2025 onward are still filling in under normal publication lag and should not yet be read as a continued decline.
Concentrated in E21B, with thin adjacent classes
E21B (earth and rock drilling) covers 97.6% of the 460 records, as expected for a wells-focused search. The remaining classes each cover under 3% of records individually — cleaning, geophysics, coatings, alloys, presses and electric solid-state devices — pointing to where packer hardware intersects with materials and sensing work without being the primary claim focus there.
Shares are the percentage of the 460 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Completion Packers and Anchors with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about completion packers and anchors and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe documents anchoring this field
US7216720B2 — Multi-string production packer and method of using the same
A production packer comprising a packer body, a flat plate welded to its top, a sealing element bonded to the outside of the body, plus production tubing, water overflow tubing, gas vent tubing and pump cable pack-off tubing routed through it. The packer is sized so the sealing element's diameter exceeds that of the surrounding production casing, and the sealing element material is specified to withstand production-level pressures.Filed by ZIMMERMAN, C. DUANE, published 2007-05-15.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5388648A | Method and apparatus for sealing the juncture between a vertical well and one or more horizontal wells using … | 644 |
| 2 | US5318122A | Method and apparatus for sealing the juncture between a vertical well and one or more horizontal wells using … | 378 |
| 3 | US5322127A | Method and apparatus for sealing the juncture between a vertical well and one or more horizontal wells | 254 |
| 4 | US5353876A | Method and apparatus for sealing the juncture between a verticle well and one or more horizontal wells using … | 253 |
| 5 | US5311936A | Method and apparatus for isolating one horizontal production zone in a multilateral well | 229 |
| 6 | US5743335A | Well completion system and method | 173 |
| 7 | US5520252A | Method and apparatus for sealing the juncture between a vertical well and one or more horizontal wells | 159 |
| 8 | US5318121A | Method and apparatus for locating and re-entering one or more horizontal wells using whipstock with sealable … | 158 |
| 9 | US5325924A | Method and apparatus for locating and re-entering one or more horizontal wells using mandrel means | 146 |
| 10 | US6938698B2 | Shear activated inflation fluid system for inflatable packers | 128 |
Citation counts accumulate over time and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later claim drafting, not of current commercial relevance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and trend numbers mean for filing strategy
Read together, the ranking and the trend point to a mature, consolidated field where the open ground is in adjacent materials and sensing classes rather than in the core packer mechanism.
Five assignees hold most of the ground
The top five assignees combined account for 329 of the 460 records in scope, 71.5% of the field. That leaves a long tail among the remaining 56 ranked companies, most holding single-digit counts — a difficult space for a new entrant to out-file, but one where narrow, specific improvements can still clear prior art held by a small number of owners.
Activity has pulled back sharply from its peak
Filing volume peaked at 18 in 2021 and had fallen to 4 by 2024, a -78% decline over that span. That drop lands well before the publication-lag window, so it reflects a genuine slowdown in new filings rather than a reporting gap — worth weighing against any assumption that this is still a growth technology.
Nearly all activity sits in one IPC subclass
E21B (earth and rock drilling) covers 449 of the 460 records. The handful of records also touching coatings, alloys, geophysics or solid-state electric devices are small in absolute terms but mark where packer claims are starting to reach into materials science and downhole sensing rather than pure mechanical sealing.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to completion packers and anchors, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Limited | 4 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Technology LLC | 3 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Limited | 3 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Prad Research and Development N.V. | 3 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 3 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Holdings Limited | 3 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Prad Research and Development N.V. | 2 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 2 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, concentrated among related entities under the same corporate family — a pattern typical of internal restructuring and joint R&D units rather than cross-company collaboration.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked list of 61 companies is dominated by a small number of major oilfield service providers with decades of packer filings behind them; the gaps sit in the classes that barely register in this corpus.
One filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's record count is nearly nine times that of the fifth-place company (16 records), a gap wide enough to suggest the leader's portfolio functions as a baseline prior-art set that any new packer design has to be checked against.
A tight mid-tier cluster
Between fifth and tenth place the record counts compress quickly, from 16 down to 9, before the long tail of the remaining ranked companies drops into single digits. That compression marks the practical cutoff for firms with an actively maintained packer portfolio versus occasional filers.
Materials and sensing classes are thin
Coating and surface deposition, alloys, and solid-state electric devices each sit at under 1.5% of the 460 records. These are small absolute numbers, but they mark areas where packer sealing elements and setting mechanisms have not yet been heavily claimed against advanced materials or embedded sensing.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Baker Hughes Holdings LLC | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Company | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | 0 | — |
| BJ Services Company | 0 | — |
| Weatherford Lamb, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Smith International, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The numbers point to a consolidated, slowing field with narrow openings in materials and sensing integration. Two natural next steps follow from that.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With one assignee holding 142 of 460 records, understanding exactly what its core sealing-element and setting-mechanism claims cover is the first filter for any new design.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaCheck the thin IPC classes for freedom to operate
Coatings, alloys and solid-state sensing each sit under 3% of records — worth a targeted search before assuming the space is open.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about completion packer patents
The ranking in this dataset shows one assignee with 142 of the 460 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place company at 16 records. The top five assignees together hold 71.5% of all records, and the top ten hold 84.3%. That level of concentration means most new filers are working around a small number of established portfolios rather than an open field.
Filing activity peaked at 18 records in 2021 and had fallen to 4 by 2024, a decline of 78% over that span. That drop is measured against complete years, so it is a real slowdown rather than a data gap. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those years should not yet be read as confirming or reversing the trend.
Almost all records, 97.6% of the 460 in scope, classify under E21B, the earth and rock drilling subclass covering wells. Smaller numbers of records also touch cleaning, geophysics, coatings, alloys, presses and solid-state electric devices, each under 3% of records. These smaller classes mark where packer hardware claims intersect with materials science and downhole sensing rather than pure mechanical sealing.
US7216720B2 describes a multi-string production packer with a packer body, a welded flat plate, a bonded sealing element, and separate tubing runs for production, water overflow, gas venting and pump cable pack-off. Its claims are specific to that combination of components and the sizing relationship between the sealing element and the production casing. It does not block packer designs built around different sealing element attachment methods or different tubing configurations, but any multi-string design following a similar body-plus-sealing-element layout should be checked against it.
The clearest under-claimed areas sit outside the dominant E21B class: sealing element coatings and surface treatments, packer-integrated pressure or temperature sensing, and alloy formulations suited to high differential-pressure slip systems each account for under 3% of the 460 records. These are narrow slices of a concentrated field, but they represent claim space that has not been heavily occupied by the leading assignees' core mechanical packer portfolios.
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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.