One assignee dominates this field, holding 142 of the 234 records in scope, compared with just 4 for the fifth-ranked filer and 1 for the tenth. That gap means the core layer-architecture claim space — carcass, armor layer, and barrier layer design — is concentrated in a single corporate group rather than spread across competitors. Any competitive analysis should treat this filer’s estate as the reference point for freedom-to-operate checks, not just one entry among many.

Filing peaked at 11 records in 2017 and has not returned to that level since, with the most recent tracked year showing no filings from the major assignees. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one or two years in any dataset understate real activity, so this should not be read as the field going dormant. It does suggest the core structural claims were largely staked out by the mid-2010s, with newer work concentrating on narrower refinements.

US10018289B2, filed by Baker Hughes Energy Technology UK Limited and published 2018-07-10, claims an elongate tape element with a specific cross-sectional profile: a body portion sitting in the gap between adjacent collapse-resistant tape windings, plus a wing portion that spans that gap and abuts the inner surface of the neighbouring winding. It blocks tape-element designs that use this gap-spanning wing geometry to reinforce collapse-resistant windings, which is a specific mechanical solution rather than a claim over collapse-resistant tape winding as a general concept. Designers using a different gap-bridging geometry, or a different fixation method between windings, would sit outside this specific claim.