Gas Lift Design Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Gas Lift Design and Operation Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, and Where the Field Is Still Open
33.4% concentration. The top 5 assignees account for 123 of 368 records in scope — a genuinely concentrated field, not a fragmented one. Filings rose from 12 in 2017 to a peak of 23 in 2022, then eased to 9 by 2024 — a -10% move across the 2021-to-2024 span that is the most recent period with reliable, near-complete counts. 2025 and 2026 figures will revise upward as publication catches up.
- 1WEATHERFORD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC35
- 2BAKER HUGHES OILFIELD OPERATIONS LLC25
- 3PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA PETROBRAS23
- 4VALENCE OPERATING CO20
- 5HALLIBURTON CO20
See the full gas lift design and operation 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 on gas lift patents
Who holds the most gas lift patents?
The dataset shows a leader-and-field structure: the top assignee holds 35 of the 368 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 20 and the tenth-ranked filer at 9. The top five assignees together account for 33.4% of all records, and the top ten reach 48.1% — so roughly half the field’s output traces back to a handful of companies, with a long tail of single-digit filers making up the rest of the 100 ranked assignees.
Is gas lift patent filing activity growing or slowing?
Filing volume peaked at 23 in 2022 and eased to 9 by 2024, a -10% move from 2021’s 10 filings, which is the most reliable recent comparison because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months. That makes 2025 and 2026 counts artificially low rather than evidence of an actual drop-off. Read the pattern as a field settling after a 2022 filing surge, not as companies abandoning the technology.
What technical areas within gas lift are most heavily patented?
Nearly all records, 95.1% of the 368 in scope, fall under E21B (earth and rock drilling / wells), confirming that gas lift is claimed primarily as wellbore hardware. Beneath that, pumping-related claims (F04F at 10.9%, F04B at 3.3%), valve and tap mechanisms (F16K at 4.6%) and transmission/telemetry (H04B at 3.8%) form a secondary layer where gas lift intersects with adjacent equipment disciplines.
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 Gas Lift Design and Operation 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.