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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/functional-safety-sil-verification-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Functional SafetyFunctional Safety SIL Verification Patents: Filing Trends and Where Claim Space Sits Open
55
Published Records
45%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+33%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 55 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This review maps 55 published patent records matching SIL verification, safety integrity verification and SIL validation language in titles, abstracts and claims, filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off. The scope spans automated storage and retrieval safety zones, transcoder-based information transmission, and process-safety risk assessment alongside core functional-safety verification claims, reflecting how SIL-related verification language gets reused across adjacent control and data-transmission disciplines.
Coverage runs through 2026-07-31, but publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent-year counts understate actual filing activity and should not be read as a slowdown.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 55-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which technical classes carry the claim volume.
A peak in 2019, then a rebuilding phase
Filings peaked at 6 in 2019, the highest single year in the dataset. Activity from 2021 to 2024 grew 33%, from 3 to 4 filings a year — a real signal of renewed interest, though the small absolute counts mean each year's total can swing on a handful of filings. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because of publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
Data processing and transmission dominate, not control hardware
G06F (electric digital data processing) leads at 29.1% of the 55 records, with H04L (digital information transmission) at 20.0%. Control-specific classes — G05D at 16.4% and G05B at 5.5% — trail well behind, and G06Q business-process filings at 14.5% indicate a meaningful share of the field frames SIL verification as an administrative or risk-assessment workflow rather than a purely control-engineering problem.
Shares are the percentage of the 55 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative filing and most-cited records
Representative Filing
EP2969856B1 — Automated Storage and Retrieval System with Integral Secured Personnel Access Zones and Remote Rover Shutdown
SYMBOTIC LLC
Filed by Symbotic LLC and granted 2024-07-31, this record extends a family that also appears among the corpus's most-cited documents (US20140343717A1 and WO2014145437A1 cover the same invention). It addresses safety-zone access control and remote shutdown of mobile storage-and-retrieval equipment — a mechanical/access-safety application of SIL-style verification logic rather than a software verification tool.Family also published as US20140343717A1 and WO2014145437A1, the two most-cited records in this dataset.
Highest-cited records in the dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140343717A1 | Automated storage and retrieval system with integral secured personnel access zones and remote rover shutdown | 70 |
| 2 | US6763460B1 | Method of transmitting information data from a sender to a receiver via a transcoder, method of transcoding i… | 39 |
| 3 | WO2014145437A1 | Automated storage and retrieval system with integral secured personnel access zones and remote rover shutdown | 25 |
| 4 | CN104091221A | 安全仪表系统SIL等级评估单元 | 15 |
| 5 | US7117361B1 | Method of transmitting information data from a sender to a receiver via a transcoder | 13 |
| 6 | WO2010149333A1 | Data verification method | 12 |
| 7 | CN113553687A | 存储器、安全仪表系统SIL验证方法、系统和装置 | 4 |
| 8 | US10088840B2 | Automated storage and retrieval system with integral secured personnel access zones and remote rover shutdown | 4 |
| 9 | EP2446388A1 | Data verification method | 4 |
| 10 | US8521676B1 | System to build, analyze and manage a real world model in software of a safety instrumented system architectu… | 3 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate references; treat them as a measure of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the concentration and composition mean for filing strategy
Four read-outs from the ranking, the trend and the technology composition that matter for where to file next and who to watch.
Concentration
45.5%
of 55 records held by top 5 assignees
Leadership is concentrated but not locked
The top five assignees hold 45.5% of all 55 records in scope, and the leader alone accounts for 10. That leaves more than half the field spread across a long tail of 42 ranked companies, many with only one or two filings — evidence of a field still being staked out rather than one with an entrenched dominant player.
Based on the 42-company assignee ranking
Growth
+33%
filings, 2021 to 2024
Renewed filing activity after the 2019 peak
After peaking at 6 filings in 2019, activity dipped before growing 33% from 3 filings in 2021 to 4 in 2024 — the most recent span the dataset can treat as complete. Given publication lag, 2025-2026 figures will likely revise upward once later publications land.
2025 and 2026 counts are provisional
Technology mix
29.1%
of records classified under G06F
Software and data processing outweigh control hardware
G06F and H04L together touch roughly half of the 55 records when counted separately, well ahead of G05D and G05B control classes. That skew suggests the active claim space is in verification software, data transmission and risk-assessment workflows rather than in physical control-loop hardware.
Classes overlap; shares do not sum to 100%
Assignee links
4
co-assignee pairs identified
Collaboration is narrow and mostly intra-group
Only four co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest links connect a single petrochemical group with its own safety-engineering and risk-assessment subsidiaries rather than cross-company partnerships. This points to safety verification patenting being handled largely in-house rather than through joint filings.
Strongest pair: 3 shared records
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Co-assignee activity
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | Sinopec Qingdao Research Institute of Safety Engineering | 3 |
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | Sinopec Research Institute of Safety Engineering Co., Ltd. | 2 |
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | Sinopec National Petrochemical Project Risk Assessment Technical Center Co., Ltd. | 2 |
| Korea Telecommunication Authority | Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) | 2 |
Co-filing in this field is limited and concentrated within single corporate groups rather than across independent companies.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific questions worth running deeper before committing a filing budget or a design-around strategy.
Map the white space in control-hardware classes
G05D and G05B together sit well below G06F and H04L in share of records, which may mean the physical control-loop side of SIL verification is comparatively under-claimed rather than saturated.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the long tail for consolidation signals
With 42 ranked assignees and only a handful of co-assignee pairs, single-filer entrants could be acquisition targets or early signals of where the field moves next.
Track assignees in EurekaRe-run the trend once 2025-2026 publications land
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the true trajectory of the 2021-2024 growth will only be confirmed once later-year data completes.
Set a filing alert in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
In this dataset, a SIL verification patent is any published record whose title, abstract or claims reference SIL verification, safety integrity verification, SIL validation, or claim language tying a Safety Integrity Level to a verification or validation step within a defined word span. That search picks up core functional-safety verification tools as well as adjacent applications — such as automated storage-and-retrieval access safety and process-risk assessment systems — that reuse the same verification language. Because the term spans several industries, the 55 records in scope are broader than a strict IEC 61508 compliance-tool search alone.
The assignee ranking covers 42 companies across the 55 records in scope, with the leader holding 10 records and the field concentrating 45.5% of all records in the top five assignees. That leaves the majority of filers with only one or two records each, so leadership here means a filing lead rather than a monopoly on the technology. Petrochemical safety-engineering groups and automated-storage system makers both appear among the more active filers, reflecting the field's cross-industry spread.
Filings grew 33% from 3 in 2021 to 4 in 2024, the most recent three-year span the dataset can treat as complete. The overall peak was 6 filings in 2019, so current activity has not yet returned to that level, but the 2021-2024 direction is upward. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as evidence of a slowdown.
Electric digital data processing (G06F) leads at 29.1% of the 55 records, followed by digital information transmission (H04L) at 20.0%. Control-of-non-electric-variables (G05D) and control-and-regulating systems (G05B) claims trail at 16.4% and 5.5% respectively, and business-process classification (G06Q) touches 14.5% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and the pattern indicates that software and data-transmission claims currently occupy more of the claim space than control-hardware claims.
EP2969856B1, assigned to Symbotic LLC and granted 2024-07-31, covers an automated storage and retrieval system with integral secured personnel access zones and remote rover shutdown functionality. The same invention also appears in the dataset's two most-cited records, US20140343717A1 and WO2014145437A1, indicating this family has drawn significant follow-on citation activity. Its claims focus on physical access-zone safety and remote equipment shutdown rather than software-based SIL verification methods, so it is most relevant to warehouse and material-handling safety system design rather than process-control verification tooling.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Functional Safety: SIL Verification Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.