Electric Aircraft Power Patents: Leader & Long Tail Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (48 records) with 2024 (36) — 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 353 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 353 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine high-voltage aircraft power distribution architectures — DC buses, power conversion, and electric propulsion control — with electric or hybrid-electric aircraft platforms. The scope spans both fixed-wing and rotorcraft applications, from turboelectric power extraction to newer eVTOL power architectures, and includes filings across eight overlapping IPC subclasses that together describe how power moves from generation to propulsion inside an aircraft.
Records here originate mainly from established aerospace suppliers alongside a smaller but active group of eVTOL and urban air mobility entrants, plus a cluster of Chinese university and state-affiliated filers. The mix matters for freedom-to-operate work: incumbents hold dense prior art around bus voltage control and power extraction, while emerging entrants are filing narrower claims around motor and conversion topologies suited to distributed electric propulsion.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 353-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that describe aircraft power distribution technology.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 60 in 2023, then eased to 36 by 2024 — a 25% decline over the 2021-2024 span. The 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent-year figures should not be read as a slowdown yet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B64D (aircraft equipment) appears in 40.8% of the 353 records, followed by H02J (power supply and grid systems) at 26.1% and B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) at 17.3%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% of the record total — each percentage should be read against the full 353-record base, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 353 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electric & Hybrid-Electric Aviation — High-Voltage Aircraft Power Distribution Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electric & hybrid-electric aviation — high-voltage aircraft power distribution patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the field
Active voltage control for hybrid electric aircraft (US10589635B1, Boeing, 2020)
A solid-state high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) bus voltage controller providing active power flow control in a hybrid electric aircraft power supply system. The controller pairs an active voltage controller with an active rectifier unit using PWM control and high-power, high-frequency semiconductor switches with fast turn-off capability, driving the HVDC bus toward a reference voltage set by the low-level controller.Abstract condensed from the original filing for readability.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5982156A | Feed-forward control of aircraft bus dc boost converter | 192 |
| 2 | US5914542A | Super capacitor charging | 156 |
| 3 | US20060042252A1 | Engine power extraction control system | 129 |
| 4 | US7285871B2 | Engine power extraction control system | 117 |
| 5 | US20060272313A1 | More electric aircraft power transfer systems and methods | 115 |
| 6 | US7552582B2 | More electric aircraft power transfer systems and methods | 64 |
| 7 | US20200307390A1 | Systems and methods for maintaining attitude control under degraded energy source conditions using multiple p… | 63 |
| 8 | US20220119121A1 | Integrated Electric Propulsion Unit | 61 |
| 9 | US20060044722A1 | Primary panel and motor controller integration for aircraft power distribution system | 45 |
| 10 | US20210344255A1 | Electric Propulsion System Having Integrated Electrical and Thermal Architecture and Related Methods of Opera… | 35 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — treat these as markers of historical influence on the field's foundational bus-control and power-extraction concepts, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for strategy
Three read-throughs from the filing and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file next or who to watch.
A narrow set of gatekeepers
Ten assignees account for 249 of the 353 records in scope. That level of concentration means freedom-to-operate work in bus voltage control and power extraction architectures needs to clear a small number of well-established portfolios rather than a diffuse field.
Past-peak, not yet declining confirmed
Annual filings fell from 48 in 2021 to 36 in 2024 after peaking at 60 in 2023. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete and should not yet be read as continued decline.
Aircraft equipment is the densest class
B64D (aircraft equipment) covers 40.8% of the 353 records, well ahead of H02M power conversion at 13.3% and H02K motors/generators at 9.3%. The gap suggests conversion and motor-control claims are comparatively less crowded relative to system-level aircraft equipment claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electric & hybrid-electric aviation — high-voltage aircraft power distribution patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion — use these as starting points for deeper diligence.
Test freedom-to-operate against the top 10
With 70.5% of records held by ten assignees, a targeted claim-chart review against those portfolios will surface more real conflicts than a broad novelty search across the full 353-record set.
Run a claim comparisonWatch the eVTOL filing cohort
Recent-year momentum is shifting toward newer electric aircraft entrants even as some incumbents show flat latest-year counts; tracking this cohort's filings over the next few publication cycles will show whether the shift holds.
Track assignee momentumProbe the under-claimed conversion and motor classes
H02M and H02K carry lower record shares than B64D and H02J, suggesting narrower but potentially more defensible claim space in power conversion and motor-control specifics.
Explore white spaceCommon questions on this landscape
The ranked leader in this 353-record dataset holds 46 records, with the second through fifth-ranked assignees bringing the top five combined to 182 records, or 51.6% of all records in scope. This concentration is typical of established aerospace power suppliers that have filed continuously since more-electric-aircraft programmes began. A freedom-to-operate review should start with these leading portfolios before broadening to the long tail of single-filing entrants.
Filings peaked at 60 records in 2023 and fell to 36 by 2024, a 25% decline over the 2021-2024 span. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in this dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation of a continued slowdown. The 2024 figure is the most recent year that can be treated as reasonably complete.
B64D (aircraft equipment) and H02J (power supply and grid systems) are the densest classes, covering 40.8% and 26.1% of the 353 records respectively. Power conversion (H02M, 13.3%) and electric motor and generator technology (H02K, 9.3%) carry meaningfully lower record shares, suggesting comparatively more open claim space in conversion topology and motor-control specifics than in system-level aircraft power architecture. This does not mean those areas are undeveloped, only that fewer records currently occupy them.
The most-cited record in this dataset is US5982156A, 'Feed-forward control of aircraft bus dc boost converter,' with 192 citations, followed by US5914542A on super capacitor charging at 156 citations. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older, foundational filings that have simply had more time to accumulate references, so they should be read as markers of historical influence on bus-control concepts rather than as a guide to current commercial importance.
Yes, though they represent a smaller share of the dataset than commercial suppliers. Co-assignee data shows a Chinese university appearing repeatedly alongside state-affiliated power-grid and aviation research entities, indicating structured collaborative research programmes distinct from the commercial-supplier cluster that dominates the top rankings. These filings tend to cluster around specific technical sub-problems rather than broad system architecture claims.
Research Electric & Hybrid-Electric Aviation — High-Voltage Aircraft Power Distribution Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole electric & hybrid-electric aviation — high-voltage aircraft power distribution patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.