Flight Deck Alerting Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 84.5% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 382 of 452 records in scope, leaving a thin tail for everyone else to file around.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. After peaking at 40 records in 2022, filings fell -43% from 2021 (35) to 2024 (20), the last complete year in the trend.
- B64D and G08G dominate the claim space. Aircraft equipment (38.9%) and traffic control systems (35.8%) classes cover more than a third of all 452 records each.
Filing growth compares 2021 (35 records) with 2024 (20) — 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 452 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this field covers
Flight deck alerting and crew interface patents sit at the intersection of crew alerting systems, engine indicating displays, and the input hardware that lets pilots act on an alert once it fires: touch screens, cursor control devices, and electronic checklists. The search string binds alert logic terms like alert prioritization, master caution and alert inhibition to the display and input mechanisms that carry them, which is why the IPC composition below leans heavily on aircraft equipment and navigation classes alongside digital data processing.
The 452 records in scope span 2015 through the middle of 2026, with a data cut-off that means the last one to two years understate true filing activity because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 452 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2022 peak followed by a real pullback
Filings rose from 5 in 2017 to a peak of 40 in 2022, then declined -43% from 2021's 35 to 2024's 20 — the last year in the window that can be read as complete. Years after 2024 are still filling in and should not be read as a continued fall.
Aircraft equipment and traffic control dominate
B64D (aircraft equipment) appears on 38.9% of the 452 records, closely followed by G08G (traffic control systems) at 35.8% and G06F (digital data processing) at 34.1%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should each be read against the full 452-record base, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 452 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Flight Deck Alerting and Crew Interface with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about flight deck alerting and crew interface and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US9189962B1 — System and methods for generating alert signals in a terrain awareness and warning system
Systems and methods for generating and providing alerts in a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS), comprising a navigation system, an airport-related database, a terrain database, a terrain alert processor, and a crew alerting system. A phase of flight and flight attitude parameter is determined from proximity to the nearest airport or runway environment, and a terrain clearance altitude tied to that phase is added to the highest elevation of a terrain cell the aircraft is projected to cross, to determine a minimum operating altitude.Filed by Rockwell Collins, 2015-11-17.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5111402A | Integrated aircraft test system | 227 |
| 2 | US5381986A | Folding wing-tip system | 221 |
| 3 | US5956019A | Touch-pad cursor control device | 200 |
| 4 | US6542796B1 | Methods and apparatus for integrating, organizing, and accessing flight planning and other data on multifunct… | 199 |
| 5 | US6784869B1 | Cursor and display management system for multi-function control and display system | 187 |
| 6 | US5161158A | Failure analysis system | 175 |
| 7 | US8234068B1 | System, module, and method of constructing a flight path used by an avionics system | 146 |
| 8 | US6753891B1 | Aircraft electronic checklist system with hyperlinks | 113 |
| 9 | US7321318B2 | Methods and systems for controlling the display of information at an aircraft flight deck | 104 |
| 10 | US20150261379A1 | Touch Screen Instrument Panel | 103 |
Citation counts favour older filings inside any searched corpus; treat them as a signal of prior influence on the field, not of what matters today.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting the next claim set in this space.
The field is not open at the top
382 of the 452 records in scope belong to five assignees, and the leader alone accounts for 205. New entrants competing on core alert-prioritization or master-caution logic are filing directly against dense, well-defended prior art.
Activity has cooled from its 2022 peak
Filings fell from 35 in 2021 to 20 in 2024 after peaking at 40 in 2022. That is a real pullback in a complete window, not an artefact of publication lag, since 2024 is the last year that can be treated as settled.
Claim density sits in aircraft equipment and traffic control
B64D and G08G each touch more than a third of records, with G06F close behind at 34.1%. Software-adjacent alerting logic is now claimed nearly as often as the hardware it runs on.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to flight deck alerting and crew interface, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
A ranking of 40 companies, drawn from all 452 records — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, this is the entire ranking the dataset returns.
One assignee holds nearly half the field
The leading assignee's 205 records account for close to half of all 452 in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 21. Its recent-year filing has slowed sharply, down 67% year over year in the latest partial year.
The next five add little breading room
The top 10 combined account for 94.9% of all records, meaning the remaining 30 companies in the ranking share barely 5% of the field between them. Entering here means either licensing around the leaders or working the narrow remainder.
Several top filers have gone quiet
A number of the largest historical filers show zero records in the latest year tracked, and the leader itself is down sharply year over year. That does not mean the underlying claim space is settled — it may simply mean publication has not caught up with recent filing.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Honeywell International Inc | 1 | -67% |
| The Boeing Co | 0 | -100% |
| Rockwell Collins Inc | 0 | — |
| Gulfstream Aerospace Corp | 0 | — |
| Cessna Aircraft Company | 0 | — |
| Bombardier Inc | 0 | — |
| Beta Air LLC | 0 | — |
| Short Brothers PLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking, or spotting where to file next.
Map claims against the leader's 205 records
Before drafting in alert prioritization or master caution logic, check which specific claim elements the top assignee already covers rather than assuming the whole space is blocked.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the momentum shift
Several top-10 assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year. Confirm whether that reflects genuine pullback or publication lag before reading it as an opening.
Track assignee momentum in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
G08B and G06Q classes touch alerting at far lower rates than B64D or G08G. A first claim combining checklist logic with signalling/alarm integration has less prior art to route around.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads decisively with 205 of the 452 records in scope, roughly ten times the count at fifth place (21). The top five assignees combined hold 84.5% of all records, and the top ten hold 94.9%, so the field is heavily concentrated rather than fragmented. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate here should start with the leader's portfolio before looking at the long tail of 30 remaining companies in the ranking.
Filings peaked at 40 records in 2022 and then declined -43% from 35 in 2021 to 20 in 2024, the most recent year that can be read as complete. Numbers for 2025 and 2026 in the raw trend look lower still, but that is expected: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those years are still filling in and should not be read as a continued decline. Based on the complete window through 2024, activity has genuinely cooled from its 2022 high.
The dominant classes are B64D (aircraft equipment), present on 38.9% of the 452 records, and G08G (traffic control systems) at 35.8%, with G06F (digital data processing) close behind at 34.1%. G01C (navigation and gyroscopes) covers 27.2%, while G08B (signalling and alarm systems) and G06Q (business/admin data processing) are comparatively thin at 6.0% and 7.5%. Because records often carry multiple classes, these percentages overlap and should each be read against the 452-record total rather than against one another.
US9189962B1, filed by Rockwell Collins in 2015, covers a terrain awareness and warning system that determines a minimum operating altitude by combining a phase-of-flight and flight-attitude parameter with terrain-cell elevation data, generating crew alerts from that calculation. It is a narrow, calculation-specific claim tied to terrain proximity alerting rather than a broad claim over crew alerting generally. Designs using different inputs to trigger terrain alerts, or alerting logic for non-terrain hazards, are unlikely to fall inside its scope, but any new TAWS-style altitude calculation should be checked against it specifically.
The classes with the lowest coverage relative to the core alerting and display classes are G08B (signalling and alarm systems, 6.0% of records) and G06Q (business and administrative data processing, 7.5%), both far below B64D and G08G. That gap suggests less-claimed territory in combining checklist or business-data logic directly with alarm signalling, rather than in the core aural-alert or touch-display mechanisms already covered by the leading assignees. Co-assignee activity is also thin, with only 10 co-assignee pairs identified across the dataset, pointing to limited cross-company collaboration in this niche so far.
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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.