Downhole Power & Telemetry Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 83.2% of all 191 records sit with the top 5 assignees, with the leader alone holding 92 records — this field is filed by a small set of incumbents, not a broad crowd.
- E21B (earth & rock drilling) covers 90.1% of records, while power-electronics classes like H01G (capacitors) and H02J (power supply systems) each sit near 4%, marking them as thin, addressable branches.
- Filings grew 50% from 2021 to 2024 (4 to 6 in the growth-tracked cohort), with 2022 the peak filing year at 31 records — momentum that predates the still-filling 2025-26 window.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (6) — 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 191 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks patents at the intersection of downhole power supply and wireless downhole telemetry — thermoelectric generators, downhole battery packs, inductive couplers, electromagnetic telemetry, repeater nodes and energy-harvesting systems used to power and communicate with tools deep in a wellbore. The 191 records in scope span filings from 2015 through the current data cut-off, covering both the mechanical well-construction side of the problem and the electronics that keep instruments running and talking without a wireline.
Coverage runs from 2015-01-01 to 2026-07-31. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart understate actual filing activity and should not be read as a slowdown.
Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset shows a field that grew steadily through the late 2010s, peaked in 2022, and is dominated by classic drilling-and-wells classification even where the underlying invention is an electronics or communications problem.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose from 23 in 2017 to a peak of 31 in 2022. The tracked growth window shows filings up 50% from 2021 (4) to 2024 (6); 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
IPC subclass distribution
E21B (earth & rock drilling, wells) appears on 90.1% of the 191 records, confirming that nearly every filing is anchored to a wellbore application. G01V (geophysics & gravity surveying) reaches 20.4%, while the communications and power-electronics classes — H04W, H04L, G04G, H01G, H02J, H04B — each sit in the single digits, indicating the electronics content is present but comparatively thinly claimed relative to the drilling-domain framing.
Shares are the percentage of the 191 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Downhole Power and Wireless Telemetry with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about downhole power and wireless telemetry and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Downhole power supply device (US20170350216A1, Welltec Oilfield Solutions)
The present invention relates to a downhole power supply device for supplying power in situ to a power consuming device arranged in a well, comprising a fuel cell producing electricity and water and having a fuel inlet, an oxidising inlet, an electric output and a water outlet, a fuel container fluidly connected to the fuel inlet, and an oxidising agent container fluidly connected to the oxidising inlet, wherein the fuel cell has an internal pressure which is at least 1.0 bar for increasing a boiling temperature of the water produced in the fuel cell.Filed 2017-12-07. Claims a pressurised fuel-cell power source for downhole tools, a distinct route from battery-pack or thermoelectric approaches.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US8316936B2 | Use of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) in well treatments | 259 |
| 2 | US20110186290A1 | Use of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in Well Treatments | 179 |
| 3 | US8162050B2 | Use of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) in well treatments | 143 |
| 4 | US20110199228A1 | Use of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in Well Treatments | 131 |
| 5 | US6400646B1 | Method for compensating for remote clock offset | 131 |
| 6 | US20110192592A1 | Use of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in Well Treatments | 122 |
| 7 | US4518888A | Downhole apparatus for absorbing vibratory energy to generate electrical power | 120 |
| 8 | US6951252B2 | Surface controlled subsurface lateral branch safety valve | 118 |
| 9 | US20150107824A1 | Power system for downhole toolstring | 101 |
| 10 | US20140265565A1 | Modular signal interface devices and related downhole power and data systems | 98 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the IPC composition and the filing trend are read together: concentration at the top, drilling-domain framing over electronics framing, and a growth window that ended before the most recent, still-incomplete years.
A small group holds most of the claim space
The top 5 assignees combined account for 83.2% of all 191 records in scope, and the leader alone holds 92 — roughly half the entire dataset. A new entrant is not competing against 38 similarly sized rivals; it is competing against one dominant filer and a handful of well-established followers.
Power electronics is under-claimed relative to its role
Nearly every record carries an E21B (wells/drilling) class, but the power and communications classes that actually describe the enabling electronics — H02J, H01G, H04B — each sit at 4.2% or below. That gap suggests the electronics content of these inventions is often claimed as a wellbore accessory rather than as a power or communications system in its own right.
Growth peaked before the reporting window closes
Filings climbed from 4 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a 50% rise over that span, with 2022 standing as the overall peak year at 31 records. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the 2025-26 figures are not yet representative and should be treated as incomplete rather than as a downturn.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to downhole power and wireless telemetry, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 38 companies as returned by the data endpoint — not a top-50 or top-100 cut — and it is heavily front-loaded. Co-filing activity is sparse: only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the whole dataset, and the strongest pairs are internal group affiliates or individual co-inventors rather than cross-company partnerships.
One assignee holds roughly half the dataset
The leading assignee's 92 records represent nearly half of all 191 filings in scope, spanning downhole power and telemetry approaches across multiple sub-branches rather than a single narrow claim set.
A steep drop-off after the top few filers
Fifth place holds 13 records against the leader's 92 — a roughly seven-fold gap that illustrates how thin the field gets outside the top handful. By tenth place the count is down to 2 records.
Little cross-company collaboration on record
Only 10 co-assignee pairings appear across the dataset, and the strongest ones link a parent company to its own manufacturing or completions affiliate, or a company to named individual inventors, rather than two independent competitors.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Welltec Oilfield Solutions AG | 0 | — |
| FastCap Systems Corp | 0 | — |
| Acoustic Data Ltd | 0 | — |
| Welltec Manufacturing Center Completions ApS | 0 | — |
| Welltec A/S | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a field with a dominant filer, a drilling-domain classification bias, and specific electronics sub-branches that remain thinly claimed. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking, or identifying a defensible filing position.
Check freedom-to-operate on the under-claimed branches
Inductive coupling, thermoelectric packaging and capacitor-based storage each carry single-digit class shares against the record total — worth a targeted search before committing claim language there.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's recent filings
With close to half the dataset, the leader's filing pattern is the single most useful proxy for where the field is heading next.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaMap the citation network around the MEMS-in-well-treatments family
The most-cited records in this dataset cluster around micro-electro-mechanical systems used in well treatments, a citation base worth understanding before filing nearby.
Explore citation mapping in EurekaCommon questions about this patent set
One assignee holds 92 of the 191 records in this dataset, close to half the entire field. The next four assignees combined bring the top 5's share to 83.2% of all records, and by the tenth-ranked company the count has fallen to just 2. This is a concentrated field: a new entrant should expect to be positioned against one dominant incumbent and a small set of established followers, not a broad, fragmented set of competitors.
The core approaches include thermoelectric generators, downhole battery packs, inductive couplers, electromagnetic telemetry systems, repeater nodes for signal relay, and energy-harvesting mechanisms, all applied to powering or communicating with tools inside a wellbore. Almost every record (90.1% of the 191 in scope) is classified under E21B, the earth and rock drilling class, even when the invention is fundamentally an electronics or communications system, because the application context is a well.
Filings grew from 4 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a 50% increase over that tracked span, with the overall peak year being 2022 at 31 records. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is an artefact of publication lag — patents typically publish around 18 months after filing — so those recent years should be read as incomplete rather than as evidence of slowing activity.
The power-electronics and communications classes are consistently thin relative to the drilling-domain classification: H02J (power supply systems) and H01G (capacitors) each sit at 4.2% of the 191 records, and H04B (transmission) is at 2.1%. Sub-areas such as inductive coupler power transfer, thermoelectric packaging for high-temperature wellbores, and capacitor-based intermittent energy storage carry comparatively little dedicated claim density and are worth a closer freedom-to-operate look before filing.
US20170350216A1, filed by Welltec Oilfield Solutions on 2017-12-07, describes a downhole power supply device built around a pressurised fuel cell — producing electricity and water from a fuel and oxidising-agent inlet, with the fuel cell held at an internal pressure of at least 1.0 bar to raise the boiling point of the water produced. It is a distinct power-generation route from battery-pack or thermoelectric approaches, and its claims are specific to the fuel-cell mechanism and its pressure control rather than to downhole power supply generally.
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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.
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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.