Drill Pipe and Tool Joint Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Drill Pipe and Tool Joint Design Patents: Who Files, What They Claim
29.2% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 454 of the 1,555 records in scope, but the remaining 70.8% is spread thin across a long tail. Annual filings rose to a peak of 76 records in 2020, then eased; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a 19% decline (16 to 13 records), a real signal since 2024 is the last year that can be treated as complete. Years after 2024 are undercounted by definition and should not be read as a continued fall.
- 1HYDRIL CO113
- 2MAKO RENTALS INC111
- 3SCOPERTA INC81
- 4WEATHERFORD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC75
- 5EXXONMOBIL UPSTREAM RESEARCH COMPANY(US)74
See the full drill pipe and tool joint design analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most patents in drill pipe and tool joint design?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 113 records, noticeably ahead of fifth place at 74 and tenth place at 37. The top five assignees combined hold 454 of the 1,555 records in scope, 29.2% of the field, and the top ten reach 713 records, 45.9%. Beyond that point the field flattens into a long tail of smaller filers, so leadership is concentrated at the very top but far from a monopoly across the whole dataset.
Is drill pipe and tool joint patent filing growing or shrinking?
Filing peaked at 76 records in 2020 and has since eased, with the 2021-to-2024 span showing a 19% decline from 16 to 13 records. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of a continuing drop. The honest read is that 2024 is the last year you can treat as settled, and it already shows a real cooling from the 2020 peak.
What does US5358285A actually cover, and does it block new stress relief groove designs?
US5358285A claims a drill pipe joint where upset tube ends connect to tool joints through a tapered weld neck, with an external stress relief groove cut into that weld neck specifically to extend fatigue life under rotary drilling stresses. Filed in 1994, it is an old reference, so its enforceable term has likely lapsed, but its claim language still frames how later groove-geometry patents in this dataset are drafted and cited against. Anyone drafting a new stress relief groove claim should check that this filing’s specific geometry and wall-thickness relationship are clearly differentiated, since it remains one of the most-cited records in the corpus.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Drill Pipe and Tool Joint Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.