Demand Response Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 18.8% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 1,106 of 5,896 records in scope, a visible but not dominant concentration — plenty of room remains outside that group.
- Filings grew 44% from 2021 to 2024. 2024 is the last complete filing year at 449 records, up from 311 in 2021, and publication lag means 2025-2026 figures will still rise as they fill in.
- H02J dominates, but G06Q is close behind. 60.9% of records sit in power supply and grid systems (H02J), while 30.5% also carry business/data-processing claims (G06Q) — the control layer and the market layer are being claimed together.
Filing growth compares 2021 (311 records) with 2024 (449) — 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 5,896 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the demand response and flexible load patent record shows
Demand response and flexible load technology sits at the intersection of grid control engineering and market-facing software. The dataset in scope — 5,896 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 — spans everything from load curtailment signalling and power-flow management to the commercial mechanisms that price and dispatch flexible demand. Filing activity is broad rather than narrow: no single assignee approaches a majority share, and the technology composition shows grid-hardware classes and data/software classes both carrying substantial weight in the same records.
Reading the landscape this way — by family, by IPC class, by receiving office — separates where claim space is genuinely dense from where a filing simply looks crowded because of continuations or multi-jurisdiction copies of the same invention. That distinction matters most when deciding where to file next or where a freedom-to-operate search needs to go deep rather than wide.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 5,896-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 422 in 2017 to a peak of 449 in 2024, including a 44% increase between 2021 (311) and 2024 (449). 2026 shows only 107 so far because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months — treat the last one to two years as incomplete, not as a slowdown.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H02J (power supply and grid systems) covers 60.9% of the 5,896 records, with G06Q (business and administrative data processing) at 30.5% and G05B (control and regulating systems) at 17.2%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read against the full record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 5,896 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Demand Response & Flexible Loads Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about demand response & flexible loads patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative record from the dataset
Method for multi-dimensional identification of flexible load demand response effect
Filed by North China Electric Power University, this record sets out a method for evaluating flexible load demand response effects using multiple characteristic indicators — including peak load reduction rate, peak-to-valley difference ratio and load factor ratio — built from cleaned and preprocessed evaluation data for a defined target object, area and demand response project.Abstract text has been shortened for length; see the linked record for the complete claim set.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170232300A1 | Smart device | 1,052 |
| 2 | US9026347B2 | Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging and grid integration apparatus and methods | 1,039 |
| 3 | US20100332373A1 | System and method for participation in energy-related markets | 1,024 |
| 4 | US20100179704A1 | Optimization of microgrid energy use and distribution | 908 |
| 5 | US20080177678A1 | Method of communicating between a utility and its customer locations | 897 |
| 6 | US20100217550A1 | System and method for electric grid utilization and optimization | 775 |
| 7 | US20080077336A1 | Power line universal monitor | 765 |
| 8 | US20110231028A1 | Optimization of microgrid energy use and distribution | 656 |
| 9 | US20130179061A1 | Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging and grid integration apparatus and methods | 589 |
| 10 | US20180117446A1 | Smart device | 587 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals
Three read-outs from the same dataset, each pointing at a different decision: where the technology is going, who is filing it, and where claim density is thin.
Growth is real, not a filing-year artefact
Filings climbed from 311 in 2021 to a peak of 449 in 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete given the roughly 18-month publication lag. That is sustained growth across a three-year span rather than a single spike, and it lines up with the broader push to monetise flexible load as grid assets scale.
Leadership is visible but not locked in
The five leading assignees combine for 1,106 of the 5,896 records in scope, and the ten leading assignees reach 25.3%. That leaves roughly three-quarters of the field outside the most active filers — a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants still shapes most of the claim space.
Grid control and commerce claims overlap
H02J (power supply and grid systems) is the dominant class, but 30.5% of records also carry G06Q claims covering business and administrative data processing — pricing, dispatch and market participation logic filed alongside the hardware and control claims rather than separately.
Filing activity is US-led with a global tail
The United States leads receiving offices at 2,557 records, ahead of the EPO (768), WIPO/PCT (540), India (501), China (337) and Canada (240). That spread suggests filers are pursuing protection across multiple jurisdictions rather than concentrating on a single home market.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to demand response & flexible loads patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked list covers 100 companies scored by family count, led by a single assignee at 341 records with the fifth-place holder at 150 and the tenth at 67 — a gradual taper rather than a cliff.
A clear leader, not a runaway one
The top-ranked assignee holds 341 records against a fifth-place figure of 150 and a tenth-place figure of 67. The gap from first to fifth is large, but the gap from fifth to tenth narrows quickly, indicating a mid-tier of active filers rather than a single dominant player.
Recent-year activity has slowed among the largest historical filers
Several of the most-ranked assignees show sharply reduced or zero filings in the latest year, including year-on-year declines of 75% and 100% among named leaders. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, some of this reflects records still working through the pipeline rather than a genuine pullback.
Co-assignment is limited but concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairs each share 23 records — a narrow set of individual co-inventors filing jointly with a single corporate assignee rather than a broad pattern of corporate joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| CAUSAM ENERGY INC | 2 | -75% |
| Kyocera Corp | 0 | — |
| General Electric Co | 0 | — |
| Accenture Global Services Ltd | 0 | — |
| Strong Force VCN Portfolio 2019 LLC | 0 | -100% |
| LANCIUM LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Viridity Energy, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Toyota Jidosha KK (Toyota Motor Corp) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis next
The dataset points to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing strategy or R&D prioritisation.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the under-claimed branches
The gate chips above flag sub-areas with thinner claim density than the H02J/G06Q core. A targeted search on those specific claim elements, rather than the field as a whole, is the efficient next step before committing engineering resources.
Explore in EurekaTrack momentum among the ranked leaders
Several top-ranked assignees show sharp year-on-year declines, but publication lag means the most recent one to two years are incomplete. Re-running the assignee ranking in six months will separate genuine pullbacks from filing-pipeline artefacts.
Explore in EurekaMap the G06Q/H02J overlap claim by claim
Nearly a third of records combine grid-control claims with business or data-processing claims. Understanding which specific claim elements pair together clarifies whether a new filing needs to clear both layers or only one.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions on demand response and flexible load patents
The ranked list of 100 assignees is led by a single company with 341 records, with the fifth-ranked assignee at 150 and the tenth at 67. That is a gradual taper rather than a small group holding the field: the top five assignees combined account for 18.8% of the 5,896 records in scope, and the top ten reach 25.3%. The remaining three-quarters of filings are spread across a long tail of companies and research institutions, so no single competitor set controls the space outright.
Filings grew from 311 in 2021 to 449 in 2024, a 44% increase over that three-year span, and 2024 is the highest filing year in the dataset so far. The apparent drop-off in 2025 and 2026 (down to 107 in 2026) is not a real slowdown — publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so recent years are still filling in as more records get published. Any assessment of current momentum should treat 2024 as the last complete year.
Power supply and grid systems (IPC class H02J) appear in 60.9% of the 5,896 records, making it the dominant technical category by a wide margin. Business and administrative data processing (G06Q) follows at 30.5%, control and regulating systems (G05B) at 17.2%, and electric vehicle propulsion (B60L) at 11.9%. Because a record can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%, and the overlap between H02J and G06Q in particular shows that grid-control and market/pricing logic are frequently claimed together.
The clearest signal is class-level overlap rather than raw filing counts: sub-areas like AI/ML-based load prediction (G06N crossing into demand response), EV-integrated demand signalling (B60L overlap), and digital transmission of curtailment signals (H04L overlap) show thinner density relative to the H02J/G06Q core. A practical next step is a targeted freedom-to-operate search on the specific claim elements in those branches rather than assuming the whole field is saturated, since concentration at the top (18.8% for the top five assignees) leaves most of the space unclaimed by any single filer.
The United States leads by receiving office with 2,557 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 768, WIPO/PCT filings at 540, India at 501, China at 337 and Canada at 240. This spread indicates that many applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than filing only in a home market, which is typical for grid technology that gets deployed across different regulatory environments. Counting by receiving office rather than by family means a single invention can appear in more than one of these totals.
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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.