Expandable Tubular Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. the five leading assignees hold 59.7% of all 1,840 records in scope, and the top ten hold 73.5% — this is a field with a small set of gatekeepers, not a fragmented one.
- Filings have cooled from their 2019 peak. the peak year was 2019 at 58 records, and the 2021→2024 span shows an 11% decline (14 to 11, -21%), with 2025 onward still filling in due to publication lag.
- Claim density runs well beyond drilling. 83.6% of records sit in E21B, but meaningful overlap into F16L pipe fittings and A61F implant/prosthesis classing shows expansion-cone and sealing mechanics reused far outside the wellbore.
Filing growth compares 2021 (14 records) with 2024 (11) — 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 1,840 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
Expandable and solid expandable tubular technology spans casing patches, liner hangers, expansion cones and elastomer seals used to restore or increase wellbore diameter without a full workover. The 1,840 records in scope run from 2015 through the current data cut-off, capturing both the drilling-specific mechanics and the adjacent sealing and expansion hardware that shares claim language with medical stent and graft technology. Patent families, not raw document counts, are the fairer unit here because they neutralise aggressive continuation filing by a small number of large operators.
The receiving-office spread — led by the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, with WIPO and EPO filings close behind — points to a technology prosecuted primarily where deepwater and unconventional wells are drilled or serviced, rather than filed defensively across a broad global footprint.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,840 records: filing activity by year, and the IPC subclasses those records are classified under.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked in 2019 at 58 records and have since eased; the 2021-to-2024 comparison (14 to 11 records, -21%) is the most recent window not distorted by publication lag, since records from 2025 onward are still being published.
IPC subclass composition
E21B (earth and rock drilling) covers 83.6% of records, confirming this is primarily a wellbore technology, but secondary classing into F16L pipe fittings (10.3%) and A61F implants and prostheses (9.7%) shows the expansion-cone and radial-seal mechanics are drawn from, and cited by, tubular graft and stent art.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,840 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Expandable and Solid Expandable Tubulars with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about expandable and solid expandable tubulars and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Expandable casing patch system and method for installing such casing patch
A casing patch assembly deployable within existing casing uses a pipe with wide and narrow diameter portions, an expansion cone, and a plug that seals against the wide portion while an anchor engages the casing wall. Fluid passed through a channel in the plug urges the expansion cone along the narrow portion, expanding it in place.Filed by UNIARMOUR LLC, published 2026-04-30 as US20260117616A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5667523A | Dual supported intraluminal graft | 896 |
| 2 | US6217585B1 | Mechanical stent and graft delivery system | 845 |
| 3 | US6325826B1 | Extendible stent apparatus | 619 |
| 4 | US5628786A | Radially expandable vascular graft with resistance to longitudinal compression and method of making same | 550 |
| 5 | US6190357B1 | Expandable cannula for performing cardiopulmonary bypass and method for using same | 515 |
| 6 | US6706062B2 | Extendible stent apparatus | 389 |
| 7 | US20020042650A1 | Extendible stent apparatus | 363 |
| 8 | US20030074049A1 | Covered stents and systems for deploying covered stents | 357 |
| 9 | US20040055758A1 | Annular isolators for expandable tubulars in wellbores | 313 |
| 10 | US5390742A | Internally sealable perforable nipple for downhole well applications | 283 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside a searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on downstream design, not as a ranking of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the assignee, class and trend data that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
A small gatekeeper set, not a fragmented field
With the five leading assignees holding 59.7% of all 1,840 records and the top ten holding 73.5%, a new entrant is filing into territory already claimed densely by a handful of operators and service companies. Freedom-to-operate work here should start with those leaders' portfolios, not a broad landscape scan.
Activity has eased from its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 58 records in 2019 and the 2021-to-2024 window shows an 11-to-14 decline, a 21% drop. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are not yet a reliable read on whether that decline continues.
Expansion and sealing mechanics cross into medical device art
The most-cited records in this dataset are stent and vascular graft patents, not drilling patents — a reminder that expansion-cone and radial-seal claim language predates the oilfield application and that prior art searches should not stop at E21B.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to expandable and solid expandable tubulars, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | SHUSTER MARK | 25 |
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. | KRIESELS PETRUS CORNELIS | 18 |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | GRAY MALCOLM | 18 |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | COSTA SCOTT | 18 |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | GRINBERG GRIGORIY | 16 |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | BRISCO DAVID PAUL | 16 |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | WATSON BROCK WAYNE | 14 |
| Welltec A/S | Welltec Oilfield Solutions AG | 12 |
Ten co-assignee pairs recur in this dataset, with the strongest pairing appearing 25 times — evidence of named-inventor and corporate-assignee filing pairs rather than broad industry consortia.
Who holds the claim space
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted in records; it is the full ranking the dataset returns, not a curated top-50 or top-100 list.
One filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 343 records, more than triple the fifth-ranked assignee's 99 — a gap wide enough that any competitive claim mapping should treat this filer's portfolio as the baseline to design around.
Leaders have gone quiet in the most recent tracked year
Several of the largest historical filers show zero filings in the latest year, with year-on-year drops of -100% reported for some. Given the 18-month publication lag, this likely reflects incomplete data rather than an actual filing halt, but it is worth re-checking against fresh publications before drawing conclusions.
A long tail beneath the concentrated top ten
Below the top ten, which together hold 73.5% of all 1,840 records, the remaining ranked assignees each hold comparatively small counts — service companies, single-well operators and toolmakers filing narrowly around specific hardware variants.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. | 0 | — |
| Enventure Global Technology, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Weatherford Lamb, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Welltec A/S | 0 | -100% |
| Shell Oil Company | 0 | — |
| Welltec Oilfield Solutions AG | 0 | — |
| Weatherford Technology Holdings, LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated top tier, a cooling filing trend still subject to publication lag, and cross-domain claim overlap with medical device art. Each of these opens a different next step.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top ten
Since 73.5% of all 1,840 records sit with ten assignees, a targeted FTO review of those portfolios covers most of the field's active claim space before a broader search is needed.
Run an FTO scan in EurekaTrack the 2025-2026 filing gap as it fills in
Recent-year zeros across several leading assignees are very likely a publication-lag artefact rather than a real slowdown; re-pull the trend in a few quarters before concluding filings have stopped.
Set a filing alert in EurekaSearch stent and graft prior art before drafting seal claims
The most-cited records in this space are vascular graft and stent patents, not drilling patents, so novelty searches for expansion-cone or elastomer-seal claims should extend into A61F and A61M art.
Search cross-domain prior art in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset's assignee ranking shows a single leader with 343 of the 1,840 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 99 and the tenth at 30. The top five assignees combined hold 59.7% of all records, and the top ten hold 73.5%, so the field is dominated by a small group of major oilfield service and operator companies rather than spread evenly across many filers. Anyone entering this space should benchmark against that leading portfolio first, since it represents the densest concentration of prior claims.
Filings peaked in 2019 at 58 records and the most recent complete comparison window, 2021 to 2024, shows an 11% drop in absolute terms and a 21% relative decline (14 records down to 11). However, because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the years 2025 and 2026 in this dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of a continued decline. A fair read is that the field has cooled somewhat from its 2019 high, with the most recent trend still unresolved.
A solid expandable tubular is a pipe or casing section that is run downhole at a reduced diameter and then radially expanded in place, typically using an expansion cone, to restore or increase wellbore diameter. The expansion-cone and radial-seal mechanics involved are closely related to those used in vascular stents and grafts, which is why 9.7% of records in this dataset also carry an A61F implants and prostheses classification, and why the most-cited prior art in the corpus is medical stent and graft patents rather than drilling patents.
Secondary IPC classing in this dataset points to under-claimed branches around elastomer seal durability under repeated expansion cycles, casing patch anchor geometry for multi-stage repairs, and liner hanger expansion pressure monitoring, areas that sit adjacent to the dense E21B core but carry comparatively fewer dedicated filings. These are not empty spaces, but they show lower filing density relative to the core expansion-cone and casing-patch claims that the leading assignees have concentrated on.
The United States leads with 455 filings in this dataset, followed by the United Kingdom at 274, Australia at 196, Canada at 189, WIPO/PCT filings at 175, and the European Patent Office at 174. This spread suggests prosecution is concentrated in jurisdictions with active deepwater and unconventional drilling programmes rather than filed defensively across a wide global footprint, which is useful context when scoping a freedom-to-operate search by territory.
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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.