Fly by Wire Control Law Design Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
Fly by Wire Control Law Design Patents: Who Files, What's Claimed, What's Still Open
63.7% concentration. The top 5 of 67 ranked assignees hold 484 of 760 records in scope — a field with a small set of repeat filers and a long tail behind them. Filings climbed from 30 in 2017 to a peak of 87 in 2024, including the documented +164% rise between 2021 (33) and 2024 (87). 2025 and 2026 show fewer published records, consistent with the normal 18-month gap between filing and publication rather than a genuine drop in activity.
- 1SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORP173
- 2ARCHER AVIATION INC112
- 3BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON INC83
- 4TEXTRON INNOVATIONS INC62
- 5THE BOEING CO54
See the full fly by wire control law design 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
Frequently asked questions
Who holds the most fly-by-wire control law patents?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 173 of the 760 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 54 and the tenth-ranked at 21. The top 5 assignees together hold 484 records, or 63.7% of all records in scope, out of a ranking that covers 67 companies in total. This concentration is typical of a field built by a small number of established airframers and helicopter manufacturers rather than a broad base of independent filers.
Is fly-by-wire control law patent activity growing or slowing?
Filings grew sharply from 33 in 2021 to a peak of 87 in 2024, a rise of 164% over that span. The apparent decline in 2025 and 2026 is an artefact of publication lag, which typically runs about 18 months between filing and publication, so those years are still filling in and should not be read as a genuine slowdown. On the evidence available through the complete year of 2024, the field was expanding, not contracting.
What does US9587961B2 actually cover, and does it block new entrants?
US9587961B2, assigned to Airbus, claims a display management system that renders flight envelope protection information by combining a control module, a signal detection module reading aircraft sensor parameters, and a protection selection module that chooses which envelope protection attribute to display. It is specifically about the display and selection logic for envelope protection information, not the underlying control law computation itself. Anyone building a cockpit display that selects and presents envelope protection attributes from live sensor data should review this claim scope closely rather than assume it is a blanket barrier to all envelope-protection work.
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 Fly by Wire Control Law Design 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.