High Lift Devices and Slat Design Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
High Lift Devices and Slat Design Patents: Who Leads and Where the Claims Sit
Concentrated at the top. The five most active filers hold 226 of 369 records in scope, or 61.2% — a field where a handful of aerospace primes have staked out most of the claim space. Filings rose from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 35 in 2020, then settled into a narrower band — 22 in 2021 down to 21 in 2024, a -5% change over that span. Treat 2025 and 2026 as undercounted rather than declining; publication lag means recent filings are still arriving in the dataset.
- 1AIRBUS OPERATIONS GMBH84
- 2THE BOEING CO70
- 3AIRBUS OPERATIONS LTD52
- 4BOMBARDIER INC10
- 5CITY UNIV10
See the full high lift devices and slat 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 patents on high lift devices and slat design?
One assignee leads the field clearly, with 84 of the 369 records in scope — far ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 10 and the tenth-ranked filer at 7. The top five assignees combined hold 226 records, 61.2% of the total, and the top ten hold 265, or 71.8%. This is a leader-plus-long-tail structure: a dominant OEM, a cluster of aerospace primes and suppliers just behind, and 85 ranked companies in total filling out the rest with small counts each.
Is patent filing activity in slat and high-lift device technology growing or slowing down?
Filing peaked at 35 records in 2020 and has since settled into a narrower band, moving from 22 records in 2021 to 21 in 2024 — a -5% change over that span, essentially flat rather than declining. Numbers for 2025 and 2026 in any dataset will look lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in R&D activity. Treat any year within the last two years as incomplete when judging momentum.
What does EP4292925A1 actually cover?
EP4292925A1, filed by Airbus Operations GmbH and published 2023-12-20, claims a support arrangement for a leading-edge high lift device where the support arm itself is configured as a fluid conduit, feeding anti-ice fluid such as pressurised hot air to the device as it moves. It is specifically framed around a droop nose device embodiment. The novelty is the dual mechanical-and-fluid role of the support arm, so a design-around would need to route the fluid supply through a path that is not integral to the load-bearing support structure.
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 High Lift Devices and Slat 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.