Distribution Feeder Automation Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 62.5% of all 104 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 81.7% — a field where a handful of grid-equipment incumbents set the terms.
- Filing has cooled, not collapsed. Filings ran from 4 in 2021 to 2 in 2024, a 50% drop over that span, after peaking at 5 in 2019 — publication lag means 2025-26 figures are still filling in.
- Protection and grid-power classes dominate. H02H protective circuitry and H02J power-supply/grid systems appear on 38.5% and 33.7% of the 104 records respectively, while AI-based computing (G06N) already touches 12.5%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (2) — 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 104 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Distribution feeder automation sits at the intersection of protective relaying, grid-topology control and, increasingly, data-driven decision logic. This landscape covers 104 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine feeder automation, distribution automation or self-healing network language with specific operational concerns: fault isolation time, sectionalizer coordination, loop restoration, communication dependency, switching sequence or reliability index. That pairing narrows the set to filings that go beyond describing automated feeders in general and instead stake a claim on how a fault gets isolated, a loop gets restored, or a reliability index gets computed.
Because the search terms require both a system-level concept and an operational mechanism, the set skews toward assignees who have built out full protection-and-restoration stacks rather than single-component suppliers.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 104 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend: a 2019 peak, then a step down
Filings rose to a peak of 5 in 2019, then eased; the tracked growth figure of 4 filings in 2021 down to 2 in 2024 (-50%) is the most recent span long enough to read as a trend, since 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Where the claims sit: protection and grid systems lead
H02H (protective circuit arrangements) appears on 38.5% of the 104 records and H02J (power supply and grid systems) on 33.7% — together the backbone of the field. G06Q (business/admin data processing, 20.2%), G06F (electric digital data processing, 13.5%) and G06N (AI-based computing, 12.5%) show that reliability-index and switching-sequence claims increasingly route through software and analytics rather than pure electromechanical logic. Shares add to more than 100% because a single record can carry several IPC classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 104 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Distribution Feeder Automation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about distribution feeder automation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
AU2021106381A4 — Method for Calculating Power Supply Reliability of Power Distribution Network Capable of Considering Multifunctional Power Distribution Automation Terminals
Filed by Guangxi University, this filing splits feeder automation into four function modes — non-automation, automatic positioning, automatic isolation and automatic transfer — and provides a method to quantify power supply reliability under each. It treats reliability index calculation as a function of which automation mode a feeder segment is running, rather than treating automation as a single on/off variable.Abstract trimmed to the operative claim scope; full text available via the linked record.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7558703B2 | Electrical substation monitoring and diagnostics | 85 |
| 2 | US20110004355A1 | Hybrid Distribution Network Power Restoration Control | 77 |
| 3 | US20110282507A1 | Method and apparatus for adapting at least one set of parameters of an intelligent electronic device | 75 |
| 4 | US20040153215A1 | Fault control and restoration in a multi-feed power network | 67 |
| 5 | US20060116794A1 | Intelligent configuration system for power distribution feeder reclosers and switches | 64 |
| 6 | US20080103732A1 | Electrical substation monitoring and diagnostics | 58 |
| 7 | US6907321B2 | Fault control and restoration in a multi-feed power network | 56 |
| 8 | EP2194656A1 | Electrical power network management system | 44 |
| 9 | US20070285857A1 | Coordinated fault protection system | 36 |
| 10 | US20140108851A1 | Online Protection Coordination for Distribution Management System | 26 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply by virtue of having had more time to accumulate them — read this as a map of foundational art, not of current filing priority.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the dataset that matter more than the headline counts.
A short list of assignees sets the claim boundaries
With the five leading assignees holding 62.5% of all 104 records and the leading ten holding 81.7%, most of the protection-and-restoration claim space is already staked by a small group of grid-equipment incumbents. New entrants are more likely to find room in adjacent software and analytics claims than in core fault-isolation mechanics.
Activity has stepped down from its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 5 in 2019 and the tracked 2021-2024 span shows a 50% drop. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025-26 counts are not yet complete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline.
Analytics classes are now embedded alongside protection claims
G06N appears on 12.5% of the 104 records and G06F on 13.5%, sitting alongside the core H02H/H02J protection and grid-system classes. Reliability-index and switching-sequence logic is increasingly claimed as a computational method rather than purely as hardware behaviour.
Filing activity spans three major offices roughly evenly
China leads with 24 filings, the United States follows with 21, and the EPO with 18; India (14), WIPO/PCT (9) and Austria (6) round out the receiving offices. No single jurisdiction dominates the way the top assignees dominate ownership.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to distribution feeder automation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where the joint filings sit
The leader holds 22 of the 104 records; by fifth place that falls to 8, and by tenth place to 3 — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one.
One assignee well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 22 of the 104 records in scope, more than double the fifth-place count of 8. That gap suggests a single organisation has built sustained, multi-year filing coverage across protection and restoration mechanics rather than opportunistic one-off filings.
A second tier of grid-equipment specialists
Fifth place sits at 8 records, and tenth place at just 3 — the ranked leaders taper quickly. Co-assignee pairs at this tier point to internal inventor teams filing repeatedly together rather than shifting collaborations between separate firms.
Even the leaders show no filings in the latest tracked year
Every one of the most active assignees, including the top-ranked one, shows 0 filings in the latest year tracked. Given the 18-month publication lag, this reads as an artefact of recent filings not yet publishing rather than a stop in R&D activity.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ABB Research Ltd. | 0 | — |
| S&C Electric Company | 0 | — |
| STOUPIS JAMES | 0 | — |
| State Grid Corporation of China | 0 | — |
| LUBKEMAN DAVID | 0 | — |
| WANG ZHENYUAN | 0 | — |
| SCHERRER KORNEL | 0 | — |
| COLONNA DONATO | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape data points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking or claim drafting.
Check freedom-to-operate on switching-sequence claims
With H02H and H02J covering the bulk of the 104 records, a targeted search on switching-sequence and sectionalizer-coordination claims held by the leading assignees is the fastest way to see what is already blocked.
Explore in EurekaTrack the leader's continuation filings
The top assignee's 22-record lead and the flat latest-year momentum across all leading filers make it worth watching for continuation or divisional filings once the 2025-26 publication lag clears.
Set up monitoring in EurekaDraft around the AI-computation white space
G06N appears on only 12.5% of records, suggesting reliability-index and fault-prediction methods built on machine learning models are less densely claimed than the core protection mechanics.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about distribution feeder automation patents
This dataset tracks 104 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine feeder automation or self-healing network concepts with specific mechanisms such as fault isolation time or sectionalizer coordination. Filing activity peaked at 5 records in 2019, and the 2021-2024 span shows a drop from 4 to 2 filings, a 50% decline over that period. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any such dataset are understated and should not yet be read as a continued slowdown.
Ownership is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 22 of the 104 records in scope, and the top five assignees combined hold 62.5% of all records. The top ten extend that to 81.7%, after which the ranking tapers into a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. This pattern is typical of grid-equipment fields where a small number of incumbents have built protection-and-restoration portfolios over many years.
The dataset splits mainly across protective circuit arrangements (H02H, 38.5% of records) and power supply/grid systems (H02J, 33.7%), reflecting the core function of isolating faults and restoring feeder loops. A meaningful minority of records also carry business/admin data processing (G06Q, 20.2%), general digital data processing (G06F, 13.5%) and AI-based computing (G06N, 12.5%) classes, showing that reliability-index and switching-sequence logic is increasingly implemented as software and analytics rather than purely as protection hardware.
The technology composition data shows AI-based computing (G06N, 12.5% of records) and general digital processing (G06F, 13.5%) sitting well below the core protection classes, suggesting fault-prediction and reliability-index computation methods built on modern computing models are less densely claimed than the underlying switching and isolation mechanics. Communication-dependency fallback logic — how a feeder automation scheme behaves when its communication link degrades or drops — is also a narrower, more specific area worth checking against the leading assignees' portfolios before filing.
Patent applications are typically published around 18 months after filing, so any filing made in late 2024 through 2026 may not yet appear in a published-record dataset like this one. The apparent drop in 2025-26 filings is therefore a data-completeness artefact rather than evidence that inventive activity in distribution feeder automation has stopped. The more reliable recent read is the 2021-to-2024 comparison, which shows a genuine 50% decline in filings over that three-year span.
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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.