Electric Propulsion Motors for Aircraft Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 63.8% of the field sits with five filers. The top 5 assignees combined account for 67 of the 105 records in scope — this is a concentrated field, not a fragmented one.
- Filing peaked in 2022, then fell sharply. Filings dropped from 11 in 2021 to 3 in 2024, a -73% swing over three years; 2025-2026 counts are still filling in due to publication lag.
- H02K dominates; B64D is the only sizeable secondary class. 99.0% of records carry a core electric-motor classification, while only 21.0% also touch aircraft-equipment integration — most activity is still motor-internal, not airframe-integration, engineering.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 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 105 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape covers 105 published records matching claims around aircraft electric motors, superconducting motors and slotless permanent-magnet designs, cross-referenced against cooling, winding and torque-density claim language. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, though the most recent one to two years are understated because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Records are drawn primarily from United States, European (EPO) and PCT filings, with smaller volumes from Austria, China and Germany. The technology composition is heavily weighted toward core electric-motor and generator classifications, with aircraft-equipment integration as the largest secondary class.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 105 records: how filing activity moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2015-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 23 in 2022 before falling to 3 by 2024, a -73% change from 2021's 11 filings; because publication lags filing, the 2025-2026 figures should not yet be read as a continued decline.
IPC subclass composition
H02K (electric motors and generators) appears in 99.0% of the 105 records, confirming this is fundamentally a motor-design corpus. B64D (aircraft equipment) at 21.0% is the largest secondary class, with H01B (conductors and insulators), F02C/F02K (gas-turbine and jet propulsion) and solid-state device classes each appearing in under 8% of records — these are the smaller, more specialised branches of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 105 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electric Propulsion Motors for Aircraft with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electric propulsion motors for aircraft and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this set
US20220320929A1 — Aircraft electric motor
Describes an aircraft electric motor with a cooling system built around an annular heat exchanger, a motor housing defining separate rotor-stator and gear-assembly cavities, a rotor sleeve within the rotor-stator cavity, and a two-shaft arrangement where a first shaft is driven by the rotor sleeve and a second shaft is driven by the resulting gear assembly rotation.Filed by Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation, published 2022-10-06.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6489701B1 | Superconducting rotating machines | 137 |
| 2 | US6597082B1 | HTS superconducting rotating machine | 84 |
| 3 | US6894418B2 | Nested stator coils for permanent magnet machines | 57 |
| 4 | US20040021391A1 | Nested stator coils for permanent magnet machines | 53 |
| 5 | US7550882B2 | Cooling for an electric motor or generator | 30 |
| 6 | US20070052304A1 | Multi-pattern high temperature superconducting motor using flux trapping and concentration | 27 |
| 7 | WO2001052393A1 | HTS superconducting rotating machine | 27 |
| 8 | EP4071983A1 | Aircraft electric motor | 21 |
| 9 | US20070035187A1 | Cooling for an electric motor or generator | 20 |
| 10 | US20200040846A1 | Superconducting ultra power efficient radial fan augmented nano-aerodrive (superfan) | 18 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus and favour older, foundational filings; treat them as a signal of influence rather than 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 a filing decision
Three findings that shape where a new filing or freedom-to-operate search should focus.
The field is led by a small group, not evenly spread
With the leader alone holding 33 records and the top 5 combined accounting for 67 of the 105 records in scope, new entrants are filing into a space where core motor architecture claims are already dense at the top.
Recent-year activity has cooled from its 2022 peak
Filings peaked at 23 in 2022 and fell to 3 by 2024. Several of the leading assignees show 0 filings in the latest tracked year, though this should be read alongside publication lag rather than as a definitive slowdown.
Aircraft-integration claims are a minority of the corpus
Almost all records touch core motor and generator classification (H02K, 99.0%), but only about a fifth extend into aircraft-equipment integration (B64D), and single-digit shares touch cabling, gas-turbine or solid-state device classes.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electric propulsion motors for aircraft, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 38 companies in total, counted by records in scope. Activity concentrates sharply at the top before tailing into single-filing entrants.
A single filer holds the largest share
The leading assignee's 33 records represent close to a third of the entire 105-record set on its own, well ahead of the fifth-place filer's 4 records.
A sharp drop after the top few filers
Filing volume falls quickly outside the leading names: fifth place holds 4 records and tenth place holds 3, showing a short list of active players rather than a broad competitive field.
Co-filing is rare and mostly internal
Only 4 co-assignee pairings appear across the dataset, the strongest recurring twice each, suggesting most work here is filed by single organisations rather than through joint ventures or research partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| American Superconductor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Atlas Copco Airpower NV | 0 | — |
| Atlas Copco Industrial Technique AB | 0 | -100% |
| COMPREHENSIVE POWER | 0 | — |
| SONIC BLUE AEROSPACE | 0 | — |
| SEMIK JARED M | 0 | — |
| RTX Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a concentrated core and a thinner set of adjacent branches worth closer review.
Map freedom-to-operate against the leading five
With 63.8% of records held by five assignees, any new motor architecture filing should start with a claim-by-claim comparison against those portfolios before drafting.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches
Cooling integration, winding thermal management and corona mitigation each show thin coverage relative to core motor classifications, and may offer more open claim space.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads clearly with 33 of the 105 records in scope, roughly a third of the entire dataset. The top 5 assignees combined hold 67 records, or 63.8% of all records, and the top 10 combined reach 81.0%. This means the field is concentrated among a short list of filers rather than spread evenly across many small players.
Filings peaked at 23 in 2022, then fell to 3 by 2024, a -73% change over that three-year span. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation of a continued decline. The honest read is that 2022 was a filing peak and post-2022 volumes are cooling, pending later data.
Almost all records, 99.0% of the 105 in scope, carry the core H02K electric motors and generators classification. The next largest class is B64D, aircraft equipment, at 21.0%, indicating that most filings focus on motor internals rather than airframe integration. Smaller classes covering conductors and insulators, gas-turbine plants, jet propulsion and solid-state devices each appear in under 8% of records, marking narrower but potentially less contested sub-areas.
US20220320929A1, filed by Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation and published in October 2022, claims an aircraft electric motor built around an annular heat exchanger cooling system, a motor housing with separate rotor-stator and gear-assembly cavities, and a two-shaft drive arrangement. Anyone designing a similarly integrated cooling-and-gearing motor housing should review its claim scope closely. It does not, however, cover motor architectures that avoid this specific cavity and dual-shaft cooling arrangement.
The evidence points to several under-claimed branches relative to the dense core motor classifications: litz winding thermal management, halbach array rotor manufacturing, oil-cooled winding integration with gearboxes, and corona inception voltage mitigation at altitude. These areas show thinner filing density in the IPC composition data, particularly outside the dominant H02K and B64D classes. That said, thin filing density signals open claim space, not necessarily an easy or commercially proven technical path.
Research Electric Propulsion Motors for Aircraft in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole electric propulsion motors for aircraft 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.