Drill Rig Automation Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 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.
- E21B dominates, everything else is peripheral. 85.7% of records sit in earth and rock drilling classification; the next widest class, nuclear reactors, covers just 10.7% — a sign of how narrowly the automation claims cluster around the wellbore itself.
- No computable growth rate. Filings peaked at 18 in 2020 and the last complete years don't support a trend line — treat any recent dip as a publication-lag artefact, not a slowdown.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 196 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Drill rig automation, as scoped here, sits at the intersection of rod handling, teleremote operation and the sensing systems — hole navigation accuracy, collision avoidance, measurement while drilling — that let a rig run with less hands-on intervention. The search pulls 196 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, spanning oilfield services, mining equipment and adjacent nuclear-drilling applications. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in any trend understates real activity.
The dataset is dominated by earth and rock drilling classification, with much smaller but real activity in geophysical surveying, mining, radar/positioning and digital data processing — the last two hinting at where automation logic and connectivity claims are starting to appear alongside the mechanical and sensor claims that have defined the field so far.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 196 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how it splits across the IPC subclasses that recur most often in the claims.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
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.
IPC subclass distribution
E21B (earth & rock drilling) covers 85.7% of the 196 records, confirming this is fundamentally a wellbore-drilling technology set. Nuclear reactors (G21C, 10.7%) and geophysics/surveying (G01V, 8.2%) are the next-widest classes, with digital data processing (G06F) and wireless networks (H04W) each under 4% — a real but still-thin layer of software and connectivity claims layered on top of the mechanical core.
Shares are the percentage of the 196 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Drill Rig Automation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about drill rig automation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent filing
Autonomous drilling system with integrated AI (US12503937B1)
An autonomous drilling system for well construction activities comprises a data acquisition system collecting real-time data from sensors, including flowrate, pressure, and cuttings sensors. A digital twin framework simulates drilling operations and outputs predictions based on the collected data. An AI agent module analyzes the system by aggregating predictions, real-time data, and historical data to determine well health and recommend parameter adjustments. An integrated rig control system automates drilling operations based on these recommendations, with a human-machine interface providing manual control options.Filed by ADS Services LLC, published December 2025 — one of the more recent records in scope and illustrative of how digital-twin and AI-agent language is entering claims that were previously purely sensor- and mechanism-based.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140291023A1 | Monitoring of drilling operations with flow and density measurement | 145 |
| 2 | US20130032401A1 | Methods and systems for drilling | 116 |
| 3 | WO2011130159A2 | Methods and systems for drilling | 56 |
| 4 | US20130032407A1 | Methods and systems for drilling | 42 |
| 5 | US8939233B2 | Methods and systems for drilling | 40 |
| 6 | WO2012016045A1 | Monitoring of drilling operations with flow and density measurement | 34 |
| 7 | US20180371894A1 | System and method for generating output of a downhole inertial measurement unit | 33 |
| 8 | US20200378248A1 | Automated Filtering and Normalization of Logging Data for Improved Drilling Performance | 26 |
| 9 | US8561720B2 | Methods and systems for drilling | 24 |
| 10 | US20180149480A1 | System for incremental trajectory estimation based on real time inertial sensing | 17 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate them — read this as a signal of influence within the searched corpus, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three findings a claims strategist should take from this dataset before deciding where to file or challenge.
A narrow gatekeeper set, not a crowded field
With the top 5 of 40 ranked assignees holding 70.4% of all 196 records, and the top 10 reaching 94.9%, this is a field where a small number of filers have staked out most of the claim space. A new entrant is more likely to be negotiating around a handful of large portfolios than fragmenting attention across dozens of small ones.
Claims cluster tightly around the wellbore
Earth and rock drilling classification covers the overwhelming majority of records, while software-adjacent classes like digital data processing sit under 4%. That gap suggests automation logic itself — as distinct from the sensors and mechanisms it acts on — is comparatively thin ground, even though the abstract of the most recent representative filing leans heavily on AI and digital-twin language.
No reliable trend line yet
Filings ran from 14 in 2017 to a 2020 peak of 18, but fewer than four complete years remain once the roughly 18-month publication lag is factored in. Treat the apparent tail-off toward 2026 as a reporting artefact rather than evidence that interest in the field is cooling.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to drill rig automation, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij BV | Shell Oil Company | 29 |
| Searete LLC | ZIMMERMAN GEORGE B | 7 |
| Searete LLC | WOOD LOWELL L JR | 7 |
| Searete LLC | WEAVER THOMAS A | 7 |
| Searete LLC | WEAVER KEVAN D | 7 |
| Searete LLC | WALTER JOSHUA C | 7 |
| Searete LLC | MYHRVOLD NATHAN P | 7 |
| Searete LLC | HYDE RODERICK A | 7 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest pairing linked to a Shell-affiliated research entity and its operating counterpart — consistent with in-house R&D-to-operations filing rather than cross-company joint development.
Who holds the ground and where it thins out
The leader in this ranking holds 59 records; by fifth place that drops to 12, and by tenth place to 8 — a steep curve typical of a field anchored by one or two large oilfield-services portfolios with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants behind them.
One filer sets the pace
The leading assignee's count is nearly five times that of the fifth-placed filer, indicating a portfolio built over years of continuation and jurisdictional filing around a core set of drilling and sensor mechanisms rather than a single breakthrough application.
A steep curve past the top five
Record counts fall from 12 at fifth place to 8 at tenth, well below the leader's 59. Beyond the top ten, which together hold 94.9% of all 196 records, remaining filers are likely single-digit or single-filing entrants.
Latest-year counts read as zero for every major filer
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the field leader, shows zero filings in the latest year — consistent with publication lag rather than an actual halt, since a filing made in the last 18 months would not yet be published.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij BV | 0 | — |
| Shell Oil Company | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Searete LLC | 0 | — |
| HRL Laboratories, LLC | 0 | — |
| Technological Resources Pty Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Sandvik Intellectual Property AB | 0 | — |
| Landmark Graphics Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish the shape of the field. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking, or spotting a filing opportunity.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top filers
With 70.4% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start with their specific claim language on rod handling and hole navigation before looking anywhere else.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaPressure-test the under-claimed branches
Wireless telemetry and digital-twin simulation classes sit under 4% of records each. A first, carefully scoped claim there may face far less prior art than a mechanism-level filing in E21B.
Run a white-space search in EurekaTrack what publishes next
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, records from the last year and a half are still arriving. Recheck this landscape periodically rather than treating the current trend line as final.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on drill rig automation patents
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.
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.
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.
Filings ran from 14 in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2020, but the trend cannot reliably be described as growing or slowing because fewer than four complete years remain once the roughly 18-month publication lag is accounted for. The apparent drop toward 2026 reflects records that have not yet published, not a real decline in filing activity. Recent-year momentum figures for individual leading assignees also show zero filings in the latest year across the board, consistent with this lag rather than an industry-wide pause.
The classes with the thinnest coverage relative to the E21B core are wireless communication networks (H04W, 2.6% of records), digital data processing (G06F, 3.6%) and radar/positioning systems (G01S, 3.6%). These suggest that automation control logic, telemetry and positioning-based collision avoidance are comparatively under-claimed compared with the mechanical drilling and sensor art that dominates the field. A first filing drafted specifically around wireless rig-control telemetry or digital-twin simulation logic would likely encounter less prior art than one targeting rod-handling mechanisms directly.
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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.