Flight Control Surface Position Sensing Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
Flight Control Surface Position Sensing Patents: Who Holds the Claims and Where They Thin Out
Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 52.9% of all 1,037 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 60.9% — a small group has occupied most of the claim space. Filings ran from 21 in 2017 to a peak of 70 in 2019, then eased; the comparable window shows 54 filings in 2021 falling to 24 in 2024, a 56% decline. Because publication lags filing, 2025 and 2026 are not yet reliable evidence of a further slowdown.
- 1DEKA PRODUCTS LP37.4%
- 2HAMILTON SUNDSTRAND CORP6.8%
- 3THE BOEING CO3.9%
- 4HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC2.7%
- 5MOOG INC2.2%
See the full flight control surface position sensing 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 this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in flight control surface position sensing?
One assignee dominates this landscape, holding 388 of the 1,037 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 23 and the tenth-ranked at 14. The top 5 assignees together hold 52.9% of all records, and the top 10 hold 60.9%, so the field is concentrated rather than evenly split. For a new entrant, the practical competitive set to study is short: a small number of aerospace primes and instrumentation specialists rather than dozens of comparable-sized players.
Is patent filing in this field growing or slowing?
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 70 records and has since eased; the comparable window shows 54 filings in 2021 falling to 24 in 2024, a 56% decline over three years. That is a genuine slowdown over a period where the data is essentially complete. The 2025 and 2026 counts are not a reliable basis for judging the trend further, because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months and those years are still filling in.
What technology areas do these patents cover besides core position sensors?
The dataset’s IPC composition shows claims spreading well beyond a narrow sensor class: A61M (devices for body fluids) covers 31.3% of the 1,037 records and G01D (general measuring and recording) covers 17.3%, with G01F, G05D, B67D, G01B, A61J and F15B each adding smaller shares. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages sum to more than 100%, which is expected. The pattern indicates that position-sensing claims are frequently bundled with actuation, dispensing or fluid-measurement contexts rather than filed as standalone sensor patents.
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 Flight Control Surface Position Sensing 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.