Current Sense Resistors Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 37.5% of all 112 records sit with the top five assignees, with the leader alone holding 14 records — concentration is real but not a monopoly.
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 8 and has since flattened toward the 2022 midpoint of 5, suggesting the core measurement approach is largely settled rather than still expanding.
- 90.2% of records sit in G01R electric and magnetic measurement, while control-side classes like H02P and H02M each cover roughly a quarter — the sensor and its control integration are claimed together far more than the resistor element alone.
What this landscape covers
Current sense resistors and shunts sit at the intersection of precision resistive manufacturing and current-measurement circuit design. This landscape draws on 112 published records filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, searched across titles and claims for terms like shunt resistor, current sensing element and Kelvin connection, and restricted to IPC classes covering resistors and electric measurement (H01C1, G01R19, H01C7).
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in the trend is necessarily undercounted and should not be read as a real drop-off. The dataset spans component makers, automotive and motor-drive suppliers, and semiconductor-adjacent filers, reflecting how shunt and resistor claims are frequently bundled with the drive or measurement circuit around them.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 112 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 8 in 2021, then eased back toward 5 at the 2022 midpoint — a flat-to-declining pattern rather than sustained growth. Treat the final year or two as understated given publication lag.
IPC subclass composition
G01R (electric and magnetic measurement) covers 90.2% of the 112 records, confirming that measurement claims dominate. H02P and H02M, covering motor control and power conversion, each appear in roughly a fifth to a quarter of records, showing how often a shunt claim is filed alongside the drive circuit it feeds.
Shares are the percentage of the 112 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Current Sense Resistors and Shunts with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about current sense resistors and shunts and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Current sense resistor circuit with average Kelvin sense features
A current sense resistor circuit using Kelvin connection sense features provides an average voltage across net sense resistance and average voltage across net reference resistance to be available at the Kelvin connection points. The Kelvin connections can be used by a negative feedback gain loop to hold the average current through respective reference elements and sense elements substantially constant.Filed by Micrel, Incorporated, published as US20050283325A1 on 2005-12-22.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6239610B1 | Arrangement for detecting jamming situations in electric drives | 42 |
| 2 | US20140125429A1 | Shunt resistor device | 33 |
| 3 | US20140097933A1 | Shunt resistor and method for manufacturing the same | 32 |
| 4 | US6313690B1 | Semiconductor switching device with leakage current detecting function | 30 |
| 5 | EP0827266A2 | High-side type motor current detecting circuit | 30 |
| 6 | US20090015184A1 | System for measuring current in multiple motor coils using a single sensing element | 28 |
| 7 | US5900714A | Circuit for sensing motor load current | 22 |
| 8 | US20030090241A1 | Power converter with shunt resistor | 20 |
| 9 | US6794854B2 | Vehicle power converted with shunt resistor having plate-shape resistive member | 20 |
| 10 | US20030038706A1 | Power converter with shunt resistor | 16 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Reading concentration, technology mix and citation patterns together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is not.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The leading assignee holds 14 of the 112 records, and the top five combined account for 37.5% of all records in scope. That leaves nearly two-thirds of the field spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, meaning a well-drafted claim still has room even in a field with a clear leader.
Activity has flattened since 2021
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 8 in 2021, then settled to 5 by the 2022 midpoint with no sign of renewed growth. That pattern is more consistent with a maturing measurement approach than an emerging one, though the final years are understated by publication lag.
Measurement claims dominate, control claims ride alongside
G01R covers 90.2% of records, confirming that most filings are drafted as measurement inventions first. H02P (26.8%) and H02M (20.5%) show that a large minority of those same filings also claim the motor-control or power-conversion circuit the shunt feeds, rather than the resistor element in isolation.
Older jamming-detection and shunt-device filings anchor the field
The most-cited record in this set addresses detecting jamming situations in electric drives, cited 42 times, followed closely by shunt resistor device and manufacturing filings in the low 30s. These older records set vocabulary and structure that later filers still cite, even where their commercial relevance has faded.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to current sense resistors and shunts, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
38 companies make up the entire ranked list returned for this search — not a top-50 or top-100 cut — so the tail below the leaders is genuinely thin rather than trimmed.
One filer sets the pace, but does not dominate
The leading assignee's 14 records are the largest single share in the ranking, yet still represent well under half of the top-five total, let alone the full 112-record dataset. Watching this filer's newest publications is useful for tracking where claim language is heading, but their absence from a sub-area does not mean it is open.
A tight mid-tier below the leader
Fifth place holds 5 records and tenth place holds 4 — a narrow gap that indicates no single runner-up has separated from the pack. That flat mid-field is typically easier ground for a new entrant to compete in than the very top.
Filing is US- and Europe-heavy
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 53, with Europe (EPO) second at 32; Japan, China, WIPO and Germany each sit in single digits. That skew suggests enforcement and freedom-to-operate diligence should prioritise US and European filings first.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| KOA Corporation | 0 | — |
| Daikin Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Micrel, Incorporated | 0 | — |
| Kongsberg Inc. | 0 | — |
| International Rectifier Corporation | 0 | — |
| Tektronix, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Yazaki Corporation | 0 | — |
| MAHLE International GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a field with a settled measurement core and thinner coverage around temperature and transient behaviour.
Map the leader's newest claims
Track the top assignee's most recent publications against the IPC composition to see whether they are extending into H02H protective circuits or H02M power conversion, the two subclasses with the thinnest overlap.
Explore assignee filings in EurekaStress-test a thermal EMF or Kelvin-sense claim
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the under-claimed sub-areas before drafting, since thin coverage in this dataset is a starting signal, not a guarantee of open space.
Run a white space check in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Across the 112 records in this dataset, filing is led by a single assignee holding 14 records, with the top five combined accounting for 37.5% of all records in scope. Below that, the field spreads across 38 ranked companies with a relatively flat mid-tier — fifth place holds 5 records and tenth place holds 4. That pattern means no single company controls the space outright, so competitive tracking needs to cover the mid-field, not just the top name.
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 8 in 2021, then eased back to 5 by the 2022 midpoint, which reads as flat to declining rather than an expanding field. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one or two years in any trend chart will always look lower than the true filing rate. Taken together, the pattern suggests the core current-sensing approach is settled rather than still being actively redefined.
The dominant class is G01R, electric and magnetic measurement, covering 90.2% of the 112 records, confirming that most filings are drafted primarily as measurement inventions. A meaningful minority also touch H02P (motor and generator control, 26.8%) and H02M (power conversion, 20.5%), reflecting that shunt claims are often bundled with the drive circuit they feed. H01C, the resistor class itself, appears in 19.6% of records, less than the measurement or control classes.
Against the heavy concentration in G01R measurement claims, sub-areas like thermal EMF compensation in shunt alloys, Kelvin-sense trace layout, power-rating derating under transient overload, and protective circuit integration with H02H show up thinly in the IPC composition. These are not confirmed gaps, but they are areas where filing density is lower relative to the core measurement claims, making them worth a dedicated freedom-to-operate check before drafting.
US20050283325A1, filed by Micrel, Incorporated, claims a current sense resistor circuit that uses Kelvin connection sense features to provide averaged voltage readings across net sense and reference resistance, feeding a negative feedback gain loop. It is specific to the averaging and feedback-loop mechanism around Kelvin sensing, not to Kelvin connections generally, so designs using different averaging methods or non-feedback readout are less likely to be blocked. Any team building an average-Kelvin-sense feedback loop should review this filing's claims in detail before finalising a circuit topology.
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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.