Drill Rig Automation Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
Drill rig automation patents: mapping who controls the claim space and where it is still open
70.4% concentration. The top 5 of 40 ranked assignees hold 138 of 196 records in scope — a field with a narrow set of gatekeepers, not a crowded field of equals. Filings ran from 14 in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2020, tapering toward a partial, low count in 2026 as publications from the last 18 months are still arriving. With fewer than four complete years once lag is accounted for, no growth rate can be stated reliably from this trend alone.
- 1SHELL INTERNATIONALE RESEARCH MAATSCHAPPIJ BV59
- 2SHELL OIL CO30
- 3HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC23
- 4TERRAPOWER LLC14
- 5HRL LAB12
See the full drill rig automation 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 on drill rig automation patents
Who are the leading patent holders in drill rig automation?
The dataset’s assignee ranking is topped by a single filer with 59 of the 196 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 12. The top 5 of the 40 ranked assignees together hold 70.4% of all records, and the top 10 hold 94.9%, so the field is concentrated among a small group rather than spread evenly. Most of the leading names are established oilfield-services and drilling-technology companies rather than new entrants, reflecting years of continuation and multi-jurisdiction filing around core sensor and rod-handling mechanisms.
How many patents cover drill rig automation technology?
There are 196 published records in scope for this landscape, covering the period from 2015 through mid-2026. These span rod handling, teleremote operation, hole navigation accuracy, collision avoidance and related measurement-while-drilling systems. The count reflects records matching the search scope, not the full universe of drilling-equipment patents generally, since the search is intentionally narrowed to automation-related claim language.
What patent classification covers drill rig automation?
The overwhelming majority of records, 85.7% of the 196 in scope, fall under IPC subclass E21B, earth and rock drilling for wells. Smaller but notable shares appear in G21C (nuclear reactors, 10.7%) and G01V (geophysics and gravity surveying, 8.2%), reflecting adjacent applications such as nuclear-drilling automation and subsurface sensing. Digital data processing (G06F) and wireless communication (H04W) each cover under 4% of records, indicating that software and connectivity claims are a smaller but growing layer on top of the mechanical core.
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 Rig Automation 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.