Electrical Submersible Pump Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Electrical submersible pump patents: who holds the ground and where it opens up
56.7% concentration. The top five assignees hold 625 of 1,103 records in scope, so freedom-to-operate work for ESP hardware runs through a short list of filers before it runs anywhere else. Filings rose from 32 in 2017 to a peak of 73 in 2020, then eased to 65 in 2021 and 55 in 2024 — a 15% decline over that three-year window. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continued drop.
- 1BAKER HUGHES CO210
- 2SAUDI ARABIAN OIL CO154
- 3HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC128
- 4SCHLUMBERGER TECH CORP67
- 5BAKER HUGHES OILFIELD OPERATIONS LLC66
See the full electrical submersible pump systems 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 about ESP patents
Who holds the most patents on electrical submersible pump systems?
One assignee leads clearly with 210 of the 1,103 records in scope, more than three times the fifth-place total of 66. The top five assignees combined hold 625 records, or 56.7% of the field, and the top ten reach 799 records, or 72.4%. This means clearance and licensing conversations for ESP hardware concentrate around a short list of companies rather than being spread evenly across the field.
Is ESP patent filing activity growing or slowing down?
Filings peaked at 73 in 2020, then eased to 65 in 2021 and 55 in 2024, a 15% decline over that three-year span. That reads as a plateau in a maturing field rather than a collapse, and the 2025-2026 figures shown in any trend chart are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months. Judge momentum on the 2021-2024 window, not on the most recent one or two years.
What technical areas within ESP systems are least covered by existing patents?
Motor-control electronics are the clearest gap: H02P (control of motors and generators) touches only 9.2% of the 1,103 records, and H04B (transmission) reaches just 4.3%, compared with 68.8% for E21B earth and rock drilling classes covering the mechanical wellbore hardware. Variable-speed drive fault handling, downhole telemetry over the power cable, and motor winding insulation condition-sensing all sit in this thinner band. A new filing aimed at drive electronics or condition monitoring has more open claim space than another pump-stage mechanical design.
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 Electrical Submersible Pump Systems 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.