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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/energy-regeneration-in-hydraulic-actuation-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Hydraulics & PneumaticsEnergy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation: Patents, Leaders and Where the Field Is Still Open
- Filings grew 25% from 2021 to 2024 (111 → 139) even as the field's 2020 peak of 159 records has not been matched since, publication lag means the most recent years understate true activity.
- The top 5 assignees hold just 10.6% of all 2,122 records concentration is shallow — the leader sits at 76 records against a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, unusual for a field this active.
- B60L and B60K together touch over half the corpus electric vehicle propulsion and drive-train classes dominate filings, while F15B fluid-pressure actuator claims sit at under 10% of records — a narrower, more contestable slice.
2,122
Published Records
11%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+25%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (111 records) with 2024 (139) — 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 2,122 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Energy regeneration in hydraulic actuation spans circuits and controls that capture kinetic or potential energy during deceleration, lowering or braking events and return it to useful work rather than dissipating it as heat. The dataset in scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off and totals 2,122 published records, drawn from a search combining hydraulic energy recovery terminology with claim-level language on recoverable energy, storage element sizing, round-trip efficiency and duty-cycle dependence.
Because the search string pulls in both dedicated hydraulic circuit patents and the much larger body of electric and hybrid vehicle regeneration filings that reference hydraulic or braking-adjacent mechanisms, the IPC composition below leans heavily toward vehicle propulsion classes. Readers focused purely on fluid-power hardware should treat the F15B and E02F shares as the more directly comparable subset.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,122-record corpus: filing activity over time, and where those records sit across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 93 in 2017 to a peak of 159 in 2020, then eased before climbing again — 111 in 2021 to 139 in 2024, a 25% rise over that span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the usual 18-month publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
IPC subclass composition
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) accounts for 33.8% of the 2,122 records in scope, with B60K and B60W each above 17%. Dedicated fluid-pressure hardware under F15B sits at 9.2%, and earth-moving equipment under E02F at 5.9% — smaller, more specialised slices where claim space is less crowded. Records can carry multiple classes, so these shares sum above 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,122 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Most-cited records and a representative filing
Representative Filing
US20160230081A1 — Ground Supporting Energy Recovery Medium with Carbohydrate-Based Thickener, Salt and Proppant in Base Liquid
MONTANUNIVERSITAET LEOBEN
Energy recovery medium for insertion into a ground hole in a ground comprising a recoverable energy carrying medium, wherein the energy recovery medium comprises a base liquid, a carbohydrate-based thickener mixed in the base liquid, a salt dissolved in the base liquid and configured for increasing a density of the base liquid, and proppant particles dispersed within the mixture of the base liquid, the thickener and the salt.Filed by Montanuniversitaet Leoben, this record illustrates how broadly the search string's 'energy recovery' language reaches beyond conventional hydraulic circuits into subsurface and geothermal-adjacent applications.
Highest-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5291960A | Hybrid electric vehicle regenerative braking energy recovery system | 595 |
| 2 | US20150143806A1 | Quintuple-Effect Generation Multi-Cycle Hybrid Renewable Energy System with Integrated Energy Provisioning, S… | 266 |
| 3 | US5950543A | Evacuated tube transport | 198 |
| 4 | US4169506A | In situ retorting of oil shale and energy recovery | 193 |
| 5 | US6017200A | Integrated pumping and/or energy recovery system | 171 |
| 6 | US4794890A | Electromagnetic valve actuator | 156 |
| 7 | US20040046448A1 | Independent braking and controllability control method and system for a vehicle with regenerative braking | 133 |
| 8 | US20110127096A1 | Energy Recovery Systems for Vehicles and Vehicle Wheels Comprising the Same | 127 |
| 9 | US4732353A | Three axis attitude control system | 123 |
| 10 | US4108077A | Rail vehicles with propulsion energy recovery system | 121 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not as a ranking of present-day importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data means for a filing decision
Three read-throughs on where the claim space is dense, where it is thin, and how the leading assignees are actually moving.
Concentration
10.6% of 2,122
top 5 combined share
Leadership is shallow, not locked up
The leading assignee holds 76 records and the fifth-place holder only 27 — a steep drop-off inside the top five itself. With the top 5 combined at just 10.6% of all records in scope, no single filer has cornered the field the way concentration patterns often run in mature hydraulics segments.
Ranked leaders, 100 companies
Momentum
+25%, 2021→2024
filing growth, complete years
Growth is real but recent years understate it
Filings rose from 111 in 2021 to 139 in 2024, a complete and comparable three-year window. 2025 and 2026 counts will keep rising as publications catch up with filings made roughly 18 months earlier, so current-year dips are an artefact of timing, not retreat.
2024 is the most recent complete year
Claim geography
9.2% F15B
fluid-pressure actuator share
The hydraulics-specific slice is the smaller one
Vehicle propulsion classes (B60L, B60K, B60W) dominate the corpus by volume, but dedicated fluid-pressure actuator claims under F15B sit at under 10% of the 2,122 records. That narrower band is where hydraulic-specific circuit and valving claims concentrate, and it carries less filing density than the vehicle-electrification classes around it.
196 of 2,122 records
Momentum by firm
-100% YoY
several leaders, latest year
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among top filers
Several of the most active historical assignees show zero filings in the latest year, with year-over-year drops as steep as -100% for some and -86% for others. Given the publication lag, this may reflect filings still in the pipeline rather than firms exiting the space — but it is worth confirming directly with any assignee under active monitoring.
Recent-year momentum, ranked assignees
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to energy regeneration in hydraulic actuation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list spans automotive OEMs, off-highway equipment makers and hydraulic component specialists, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind the leaders.
Leader
76 records
leading assignee
A single leader, then a steep drop
The top-ranked assignee sits well ahead of the field at 76 records, but the gap to fifth place (27 records) and tenth place (22 records) narrows quickly. This shape points to one or two firms treating the space as strategically core while most others file opportunistically.
Leader vs. fifth place: 76 vs. 27
Co-filing
10 pairs
co-assignee relationships
Collaboration is concentrated around one filer
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the strongest of them all involve the same lead filer paired with different individual co-inventors. This suggests joint filing is more an internal inventor-attribution pattern than cross-company R&D partnership.
Strongest pairs tied to one assignee
Geography
637 filings
China receiving office
Filing activity is heavily routed through China
China's receiving office accounts for more filings than the United States (441) and the EPO (281) combined against each other individually, with WIPO PCT, India and Japan trailing further behind. Any freedom-to-operate review should weight Chinese-office prior art accordingly.
China 637, US 441, EPO 281
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. | 1 | -86% |
| Caterpillar Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Honda Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Parker Hannifin Corporation | 0 | — |
| Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation) | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this next
The landscape points to a field with room at the edges even where the centre looks crowded.
Map claims against the F15B and E02F classes specifically
These carry lower filing density than the vehicle-propulsion classes but represent the hydraulic-specific hardware most directly relevant to circuit and valving design decisions.
Explore F15B filings in EurekaTrack the assignees showing zero recent-year filings
Several historically active filers show no activity in the latest year; confirming whether this is a publication-lag artefact or a genuine pullback matters before setting a competitive filing strategy.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaRun a freedom-to-operate check against China-office prior art
With 637 of the corpus's receiving-office filings routed through China, a review that skips this jurisdiction misses the largest single pool of prior art in the field.
Run an FTO search in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
Ownership is not heavily concentrated. The top 5 assignees combined hold 225 records, which is 10.6% of all 2,122 records in scope, and the leading assignee alone accounts for 76 records against a fifth-place holder at just 27. That gap between the leader and the rest of the top five, combined with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants across the 100 ranked assignees, means no single company has locked up the core claim space the way concentration sometimes runs in narrower hydraulics segments.
Filing activity grew over the most recent complete comparison window, rising from 111 records in 2021 to 139 in 2024, a 25% increase. The field's historical peak was 159 records in 2020. Counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing behaviour — those years are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown.
The corpus skews toward vehicle-electrification classes: B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) covers 33.8% of the 2,122 records, with B60K and B60W each above 17%. Dedicated fluid-pressure actuator claims under F15B, which are the most directly comparable to conventional hydraulic circuit hardware, sit at 9.2%. Readers focused specifically on fluid-power engineering rather than vehicle hybridisation should weight F15B and E02F (excavating and earth moving, 5.9%) more heavily than the headline propulsion classes.
The lighter-filed branches sit outside the dominant vehicle-propulsion classes: storage element sizing for variable duty cycles, round-trip efficiency optimisation in regenerative hydraulic circuits specifically, and grid-tied hydraulic storage interfaces under H02J all carry lower filing density than B60L, B60K or B60W in this corpus. Off-highway applications like excavator boom energy recovery under E02F, at 5.9% of records, and spring or weight-based hybrid recovery motors under F03G, at 5.0%, are also comparatively under-claimed relative to the automotive core.
China's receiving office leads with 637 filings, ahead of the United States at 441 and the European Patent Office at 281. WIPO's PCT route accounts for 157, with India at 153 and Japan at 120. Any competitive or freedom-to-operate analysis in this space should treat Chinese-office prior art as the largest single pool rather than a secondary check.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Energy Regeneration in Hydraulic Actuation covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.