Heavy Lift Crane Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 46.5% concentration. The top 5 assignees account for 72 of the 155 records in scope, a leader position that a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants cannot easily contest.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. Output rose to 27 records in 2023 but fell -65% from 2021 (26) to 2024 (9), the last year the data can treat as complete.
- Marine and wind overlap heavily. B63B (ships & marine vessels, 41.9%) and F03D (wind motors, 32.3%) both sit above the core B66C crane class, showing offshore installation is where the claim pressure now concentrates.
Filing growth compares 2021 (26 records) with 2024 (9) — 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 155 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Heavy lift and transport engineering sits at the intersection of crane design, offshore marine vessels and structural installation, where a single project — floating a jacket, installing a wind turbine foundation, moving a module across a yard — has to satisfy center of gravity control, rigging arrangement integrity, ground bearing capacity limits, and dynamic amplification tolerances all at once. The 155 records in this dataset were pulled from filings that combine heavy lift crane, modular transporter or strand jack lifting terms with load-management concepts such as tandem lift and load transfer, which is why marine vessel classes and wind turbine installation classes both appear alongside the core crane and hoist class.
The scope spans filings from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, with publication naturally lagging filing by around 18 months — so 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 155 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from 7 in 2017 to a peak of 27 in 2023, then fell -65% from 26 in 2021 to 9 in 2024 — the last year in the window that can be treated as complete. 2025 and 2026 values are understated by the normal publication lag and should not be read as a decline in filing intent.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B63B (ships & marine vessels) leads at 41.9% of the 155 records, ahead of the core crane class B66C at 34.2% and wind motors F03D at 32.3%. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add to more than 100% and should be read against the 155-record total, not against each other as a closed pie.
Shares are the percentage of the 155 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Heavy Lift and Transport Engineering with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about heavy lift and transport engineering and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim and the most-cited prior art
US12515924B2 — Heavy Lift Crane (ITREC B.V., 2026-01-06)
A crane for an offshore vessel fitted with a hydro-pneumatic boom restrainer: multiple hydraulic cylinders mounted on the crane structure, cylinder heads directed toward the boom, each paired with a catcher on the boom that receives the cylinder head to resist upward pivoting when the boom is in its top zone.The claim is narrow to the hydro-pneumatic restrainer mechanism and its catcher arrangement, not to boom restraint generally.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4591112A | Vectored thrust airship | 86 |
| 2 | US20050005562A1 | Telescopic support tower | 58 |
| 3 | US20130091784A1 | Fluid-actuated telescoping tower for supporting heavy loads | 53 |
| 4 | US20090211174A1 | Telescopic support tower | 38 |
| 5 | WO2010059489A1 | Stationary positioned offshore windpower plant (OWP) and methods and means for its assembly, transportation, … | 35 |
| 6 | US20140259978A1 | Cellular Antenna Tower and Equipment Enclosure Based on Shipping Container | 28 |
| 7 | US4838522A | Deepwater subsea lowering/lifting system | 22 |
| 8 | US20110214596A1 | Vertically installed SPAR and construction methods | 21 |
| 9 | US4951924A | Deepwater subsea lowering/lifting system | 21 |
| 10 | US20170291658A1 | Modular transporter | 20 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial importance.
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 a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and class data above.
The leader position is defensible, not exclusive
With the leading assignee alone accounting for 26 records and the top 5 combined for 72 of 155, the field has a clear leader but not a monopoly — the top 10 still only reach 64.5%, leaving over a third of the record base to a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants.
Activity has pulled back from its 2023 peak
Filings rose steadily to a peak of 27 records in 2023 before falling to 9 in 2024, a -65% move from the 2021 level of 26. Because 2025-2026 filings are still publishing, this reads as a genuine pullback from peak activity rather than an artefact of the data cut-off.
Offshore installation, not the crane itself, is the busiest claim space
B63B (marine vessels) outranks the core crane class B66C, and F03D (wind motors) sits close behind at 32.3% — evidence that the densest claim activity now sits in vessel-integrated and turbine-installation contexts rather than in generic crane mechanics.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to heavy lift and transport engineering, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where the runway sits
The ranked field covers 55 companies. Filing is led at the top but the gap to the tenth-ranked assignee (4 records) is wide, and recent-year momentum has cooled across the largest filers.
One assignee sets the pace but shows no recent-year filing
The leading assignee holds 26 of the 155 records in scope — well ahead of fifth place at 8 — but recent-year momentum data shows several of the largest filers, including this leader, recording 0 filings in the latest year, consistent with the broader post-2021 pullback.
The top 10 hold roughly two-thirds of the field
Combined, the ten highest-ranked assignees account for 100 of 155 records, meaning over a third of filing activity sits outside this group across the remaining 45 ranked companies — a wider base than the top-5 figure alone suggests.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated in one cluster
Only 4 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest links all cluster around a single deepwater-focused assignee filing jointly with named inventors — a pattern of individually-held filings rather than broad industry co-development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Itrec B.V. | 0 | — |
| HELIX ENERGY SOLUTIONS GROUP INC | 0 | — |
| Saipem SpA | 0 | — |
| MacGregor Norway | 0 | — |
| Horton Wison Deepwater | 0 | — |
| PETRODEC BV | 0 | — |
| KUCIC JOSEPH | 0 | — |
| Liebherr-Werk Ehingen GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to two practical next steps for a team assessing freedom to operate or filing strategy in this space.
Map claim boundaries around the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 26 of 155 records and a hydro-pneumatic boom restraint claim already granted in 2026, a freedom-to-operate check should start with the leader's family before assuming open space in boom-restraint mechanisms.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest the under-claimed sub-areas against your own designs
Strand jack synchronisation, ground bearing capacity monitoring and tandem lift load-sharing all show comparatively thin coverage relative to the core marine and crane classes — worth a targeted prior-art pull before committing claim language.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on heavy lift and transport engineering patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 26 of the 155 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 8 and the tenth-ranked at 4. The top 5 assignees combined account for 46.5% of all records, and the top 10 reach 64.5% — a clear leader position but not a closed field, since 55 companies appear in the full ranking and over a third of filings sit outside the top 10. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should check the leader's portfolio first, then work down through the ranked list rather than assuming the field is evenly spread.
Filing activity peaked at 27 records in 2023 after rising from just 7 in 2017, then fell -65% from 26 records in 2021 to 9 in 2024. 2024 is the most recent year the data can treat as complete, because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and understate true activity. Read the recent pullback as a genuine cooling from a 2023 peak rather than evidence the technology area has stalled.
Marine vessel engineering (IPC class B63B) appears in 41.9% of the 155 records, ahead of the core crane and hoist class B66C at 34.2% and wind turbine installation (F03D) at 32.3%. This overlap reflects that much of the current claim activity involves offshore installation work — floating cranes, vessel-mounted lifting systems and wind foundation installation — rather than land-based crane mechanics alone. Specialised structures (E04H) and drilling-related earthworks (E21B) also show meaningful overlap, each above 15% of records.
Winches and capstans (B66D) and jacks and lifting devices (B66F) each account for only 3.2% of the 155 records, far below the marine, crane and wind classes, suggesting comparatively thin claim coverage in these sub-mechanisms despite their central role in rigging arrangements. Sub-areas like strand jack synchronisation control, ground bearing capacity monitoring for modular transporters, and dynamic amplification compensation for floating installation also show light density relative to the core classes. These are the areas worth a targeted prior-art search before drafting new claims.
With the top 5 assignees holding 46.5% of the 155 records and the top 10 holding 64.5%, the field shows a moderately concentrated top tier sitting above a long tail — 55 companies appear in the full ranking, and most hold only a handful of records each. Co-filing is rare: only 4 co-assignee pairs were identified across the entire dataset, and the strongest of those cluster around a single deepwater-focused assignee filing jointly with named inventors rather than broad industry consortia. That combination — a defensible but not exclusive top tier, and little formal collaboration — is typical of specialised heavy-engineering niches rather than fields with dominant platform standards.
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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.