Drill String Torque and Drag Patents: Who Leads 2026
- 57.1% concentration. The top 5 of 89 ranked assignees hold 372 of 651 records in scope — over half the field sits with a handful of oilfield service majors.
- Filings peaked in 2020. 43 records that year, then a well-documented drop from 31 filings in 2021 to 3 in 2024 — a -90% swing, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in as publication catches up.
- E21B dominates, but control logic is rising. 93.7% of records sit in earth-drilling class E21B, while 10.0% also carry G06F data-processing claims — the modelling software layer is where new claim space is opening.
Filing growth compares 2021 (31 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 651 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Drill string torque and drag modelling covers the soft-string and stiff-string mechanics used to predict hook load, side force, helical buckling and casing wear as a drill string moves through a wellbore. The 651 records in scope span filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, drawn from a search combining torque, drag and buckling model terms with the operational inputs that drive them — friction factor, hook load, tortuosity and casing wear. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent years understate true filing activity.
The field is anchored in oilfield services rather than pure software: earth and rock drilling claims (E21B) touch the overwhelming majority of records, while smaller but meaningful shares carry digital processing, control-system and geophysical measurement classes. That pattern points to a technology still expressed mainly as drilling-operation method claims, with computational and control layers increasingly bolted on rather than filed as standalone software.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 651-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 43 in 2020, then fell sharply — 31 in 2021 down to 3 in 2024, a documented -90% move. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because of publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
E21B (earth and rock drilling) appears in 93.7% of the 651 records, confirming this is fundamentally a drilling-operations field. G06F (data processing, 10.0%), G05B (control systems, 3.5%) and G01V (geophysics, 2.6%) show where computational and sensing layers attach to that core, though as records can carry multiple classes these shares do not sum to 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 651 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Drill String Torque and Drag Modelling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about drill string torque and drag modelling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
US9752388B2 — Estimating casing wear due to drill string reciprocation
The patent covers estimating casing wear during the reciprocation portion of a drilling operation by treating the up-stroke and down-stroke forces independently: reciprocating the drill string through the wellbore for a plurality of strokes according to defined parameters, calculating separate up-stroke and down-stroke normal forces against the casing, and deriving a reciprocation casing wear estimate from a dedicated wear model applied to each direction.Filed by Landmark Graphics Corporation, published 2017-09-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090090555A1 | Automated directional drilling apparatus and methods | 443 |
| 2 | US6612382B2 | Iterative drilling simulation process for enhanced economic decision making | 254 |
| 3 | US20040149431A1 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing and monobore | 251 |
| 4 | US20110186353A1 | System and Method for Monitoring and Controlling Underground Drilling | 235 |
| 5 | US7066284B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 233 |
| 6 | US20080156531A1 | Automated MSE-based drilling apparatus and methods | 190 |
| 7 | US7085696B2 | Iterative drilling simulation process for enhanced economic decision making | 187 |
| 8 | US5803193A | Drill pipe/casing protector assembly | 186 |
| 9 | US20010042642A1 | Iterative drilling simulation process for enhanced economic decision making | 183 |
| 10 | US5474142A | Automatic drilling system | 174 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of being in circulation longer; treat them as a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the concentration, trend and classification data, aimed at where a new filing would actually land.
Claim space is occupied at the top
Over half of all records in scope belong to five assignees out of the 89 ranked. New entrants are filing into dense prior art around the core soft-string and stiff-string mechanics, and freedom-to-operate work should start with those incumbents' families, not a general prior-art sweep.
A sharp pull-back, not a slow fade
The drop from 31 filings in 2021 to 3 in 2024 is a real, documented swing rather than a gradual slowdown. It coincides with the field's leading assignees showing no filings in the latest tracked year, which is consistent with a mature claim set rather than continued active build-out.
The software layer is the smaller, newer slice
Only one in ten records adds a data-processing class alongside the near-universal E21B drilling claim, and control-system claims (G05B) sit lower still at 3.5%. That gap between mechanical drilling claims and computational/control claims is where a differentiated filing is more likely to find open space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to drill string torque and drag modelling, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Limited | 20 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Holdings Limited | 14 |
| Schlumberger Limited | Schlumberger Holdings Limited | 14 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 10 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Limited | 10 |
| Schlumberger Limited | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 10 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Prad Research and Development Limited | 8 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 8 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest links running between related Schlumberger corporate entities — a pattern typical of internal corporate restructuring rather than external collaboration.
Who holds the claim space
The ranking covers 89 assignees across 651 records. Five names account for more than half the field, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants behind them.
A single dominant filer
The leading assignee holds 147 records on its own, well ahead of fifth place at 36 and tenth place at 24 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a concentrated rather than fragmented field.
A fast-narrowing middle tier
The gap between fifth and tenth place is proportionally smaller than the gap between first and fifth, suggesting the mid-tier assignees compete on a narrower, more comparable set of claims than the leader's broader portfolio.
Incumbents have gone quiet
Every one of the top-tracked assignees shows zero filings in the most recent tracked year. Combined with the 2021-2024 drop, this points to a field where the dominant players have largely completed their core claim coverage rather than one where activity has simply paused.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Landmark Graphics Corporation | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| WESTERN WELL TOOL | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | 0 | — |
| Nabors Drilling Technologies USA, Inc. | 0 | — |
| HUTCHINSON MARK W | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Limited | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with occupied core claims and a thinner computational layer. Two directions follow from that.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top 5
Before drafting new soft-string or stiff-string claims, check the families held by the leading assignees, who together hold 57.1% of the 651 records in scope.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the G06F/G05B overlap
The smaller but growing overlap between drilling claims and data-processing or control-system claims is where less-crowded filing positions are more likely to exist.
Explore the technology overlap in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads clearly with 147 of the 651 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 36. The top 5 of 89 ranked assignees together hold 372 records, or 57.1% of the field, and the top 10 hold 514 records, or 79.0%. This is a concentrated field where a small number of oilfield service majors dominate the core soft-string and stiff-string claim space.
No — filings peaked at 43 in 2020 and fell sharply afterward, dropping from 31 in 2021 to 3 in 2024, a documented -90% change over that span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not be read as confirmation of continued decline, only as not-yet-complete. The pattern through 2024, combined with zero recent-year filings from the leading assignees, points to a field where core claims are largely established.
Almost all records, 93.7% of the 651 in scope, sit in IPC class E21B covering earth and rock drilling operations, confirming this is fundamentally a drilling-operations technology. Smaller but notable overlaps exist with G06F data processing (10.0%), G05B control and regulating systems (3.5%), and G01V geophysical surveying (2.6%). Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should be read as overlap shares, not as a breakdown of the whole field.
US9752388B2, assigned to Landmark Graphics Corporation and published in September 2017, covers a method for estimating casing wear during the reciprocation phase of drilling by treating up-stroke and down-stroke forces separately. The claims involve reciprocating the drill string through multiple up and down strokes according to set parameters, calculating a normal force for each stroke direction independently, and combining direction-specific wear estimates from a dedicated casing wear model. Anyone building a reciprocation-based casing wear estimator should review this family closely, since its separate treatment of up-stroke and down-stroke forces is the specific mechanism it protects.
The clearest gap sits between the near-universal E21B drilling-operation claims and the much thinner data-processing and control-system layers — only 10.0% of records carry G06F claims and just 3.5% carry G05B claims. That gap suggests real-time sensor-fused buckling detection, automated rig-control coupling with stiff-string models, and tortuosity-adjusted friction factor updating are comparatively under-claimed relative to the dense core mechanics. Any filing targeting these overlaps should be checked against the leading assignees' families first, since they hold the bulk of the underlying mechanical claims those computational layers would build on.
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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.