Demand Response Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings have cooled since the 2022 peak. 146 records that year against 88 in 2017 and just 21 so far in the most recent year — allow for the ~18-month publication lag before reading that drop as real decline.
- Grid control still dominates the claim set. H02J (power supply & grid systems) appears in 845 records, well ahead of G06Q business-logic filings at 573, meaning most protection sits on the electrical control layer, not the software layer.
- No single assignee is compounding filings right now. Recent-year momentum across tracked assignees is flat-to-negative, including a -100% YoY drop from more than one large filer — the leaderboard reflects past filing, not current activity.
Filing growth compares 2021 (114 records) with 2024 (98) — 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 1,659 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 1,659 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim demand response, demand-side management or load flexibility together with a load-shifting, peak-shaving or automated curtailment mechanism. The search string requires both halves to co-occur, so it captures systems that actually act on grid or building load rather than papers that merely discuss demand response as a concept. Coverage runs through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, and the most recent year is necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Receiving-office data shows the United States carries the largest share of filings, with Europe, WIPO/PCT and China each contributing a meaningful but smaller slice, and Australia and Canada rounding out the set. That distribution points to a field still anchored in US utility and building-controls practice, with PCT filings used selectively to extend protection rather than as the primary entry route.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,659 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which technical layer — grid hardware, control logic or business/data processing — carries the claims.
Filings rose to a 2022 peak, then declined
Annual filings climbed from 88 in 2017 to a peak of 146 in 2022, then fell back toward 21 in the most recent (partial) year. Read the tail end cautiously: publication lag means the last one to two years will fill in further as records surface.
Grid control leads; software and building HVAC trail
H02J (power supply and grid systems) tops the IPC breakdown at 845 records, ahead of G06Q business-process filings (573) and G05B control systems (470). H04L digital transmission, G05F variable control, G06F data processing, G05D non-electric control and F24F air conditioning each appear in smaller but non-trivial numbers, showing the claim space spans hardware control, communications and building-level actuation rather than sitting in one layer.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,659 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Demand Response System Demand Response with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about demand response system demand response and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art in this corpus
EP4067755B1 — system for controlling demand response of multiple electric heating devices
Granted to Mitsubishi Electric and dated 2025-06-04, this record claims a system for coordinating demand-response behaviour across a plurality of electric heating devices, tying building-level heating load directly into a curtailment or load-shifting control loop.Original filing text is in German; title translated for this summary.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080177678A1 | Method of communicating between a utility and its customer locations | 897 |
| 2 | US20110231028A1 | Optimization of microgrid energy use and distribution | 654 |
| 3 | US20110204720A1 | Efficient usage, storage, and sharing of energy in buildings, vehicles, and equipment | 596 |
| 4 | US20140018969A1 | Method and Apparatus for Actively Managing Electric Power Supply for an Electric Power Grid | 508 |
| 5 | US20170005515A1 | Renewable energy integrated storage and generation systems, apparatus, and methods with cloud distributed ene… | 502 |
| 6 | US8588991B1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 494 |
| 7 | US20110046805A1 | Context-aware smart home energy manager | 482 |
| 8 | US20120130556A1 | Virtual power plant system and method incorporating renewal energy, storage and scalable value-based optimiza… | 454 |
| 9 | US7177728B2 | System and methods for maintaining power usage within a set allocation | 346 |
| 10 | US20090093916A1 | Utility managed virtual power plant utilizing aggregated thermal energy storage | 314 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Three read-outs from the filing trend, the IPC split and the citation table, framed for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision rather than as trivia.
Growth has flattened, not accelerated
The 2022 peak of 146 filings sits well above both the 2017 starting point of 88 and the most recent year's 21. Even discounting the newest year for publication lag, the multi-year trajectory reads as flat-to-declining rather than an expanding frontier.
Grid-side control claims outnumber business-logic claims
Power supply and grid systems (H02J) claims outnumber business/data-processing (G06Q) claims by a wide margin, and control systems (G05B) sit close behind. Protection is concentrated on how load is physically shed or shifted, not on the scheduling algorithms layered on top.
US receiving office dominates filing choice
United States filings (882) outnumber the next-largest office, Europe (169), by more than five to one, with WIPO/PCT (148) and China (125) trailing further. A US-first filing strategy is the norm in this space, with PCT used to hold options open in secondary markets.
No filer is currently compounding
Every tracked assignee's most-recent-year filing count is flat or down sharply year-over-year, including multiple assignees at zero filings and one large filer down 100%. The historical leaderboard reflects accumulated filings, not who is actively building a position today.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to demand response system demand response, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where activity has cooled
The assignee ranking is built on 1,659 families, but recent-year momentum data tells a different story from cumulative rank: several of the largest historical filers show zero or sharply negative filings in the most recent year.
Causam Energy
Causam Energy is the only tracked assignee still recording a filing in the most recent year, though its own count is down 88% year-over-year. That makes it the closest thing to an active filer in this dataset, not a growth story.
Johnson Controls (tracked as Johnson Controls Technology Company / related IP-holding entities)
Johnson Controls and its affiliated IP-holding entity show zero filings in the most recent year. Given building-controls history in this space, that pause is worth monitoring rather than assuming permanent.
Fisker Group (Fisker Group Inc.) with named inventors
The strongest co-assignee links in this dataset pair Fisker Group with individual named inventors at a strength of four shared filings each, suggesting a small, tightly held inventor team rather than a broad multi-company alliance.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| CAUSAM ENERGY INC | 1 | -88% |
| Johnson Controls Technology Company | 0 | — |
| Google LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Fisker Group Inc. | 0 | — |
| Battelle Memorial Institute | 0 | — |
| Energy Input Output Smart Panel Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| ORISON INC | 0 | — |
| SIEMENS CORP | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing or FTO decision
The trend and assignee data narrow down where attention is worth spending; the next step is usually claim-level review of the specific families sitting in your target sub-area.
Check the sub-areas with thinner claim density
Building-level HVAC coordination and edge-side load-shifting logic show lower filing density than core grid-control claims. That gap is worth validating against your own draft claims before you file.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack assignees by recent activity, not cumulative count
Several top-ranked assignees by total filings show zero or negative momentum in the most recent year. Re-rank the field by recency before deciding who to watch or license from.
Run a momentum-adjusted search in EurekaCommon questions about demand response patents
This dataset tracks 1,659 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine demand response or demand-side management with a load-shifting, peak-shaving or curtailment mechanism. Annual filings rose from 88 in 2017 to a peak of 146 in 2022, then declined to 21 in the most recent year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year will fill in somewhat, but the multi-year trend through the peak already reads as flat-to-declining rather than accelerating growth.
The ranking in this dataset is led by a mix of energy technology and building-controls companies, but cumulative rank is a poor guide to current activity: recent-year filing momentum across tracked assignees is flat or sharply negative, with several large historical filers recording zero filings in the most recent year. A practitioner evaluating competitive risk should weight recency alongside total count rather than relying on the leaderboard alone.
The IPC composition shows claims concentrated in H02J (power supply and grid systems, 845 records) and G05B (control and regulating systems, 470 records), ahead of G06Q business-process claims (573 records). Digital transmission (H04L), electric variable control (G05F), data processing (G06F), non-electric control (G05D) and air conditioning (F24F) each appear in smaller numbers. This means most protection in the field sits on the electrical and mechanical control layer that actually sheds or shifts load, not purely on the scheduling software layered on top.
United States filings dominate this dataset at 882 records, more than five times the next-largest office, Europe (EPO) at 169. WIPO/PCT filings (148) and China (125) trail further, with Australia and Canada rounding out smaller volumes. A US-first strategy with selective PCT extension matches how the field has historically been protected, though thinner filing density elsewhere does not eliminate enforcement or freedom-to-operate risk in those markets.
EP4067755B1, granted to Mitsubishi Electric on 2025-06-04, claims a system for controlling demand-response behaviour across multiple electric heating devices, directly tying building heating load into a curtailment or load-shifting control loop. Anyone building multi-device heating coordination for demand response should review its claims closely, since it sits in one of the more specific, recently granted corners of this landscape. Whether it blocks a given design depends on the exact control architecture and communication method used, which requires a claim-by-claim comparison rather than a landscape-level read.
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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.