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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/high-voltage-direct-current-dc-cable-insulation-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Smart Grid & Power SystemsHigh-Voltage Direct Current cable insulation patents: who holds the ground and where it's still open
3,616
Published Records
27%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+17%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (58 records) with 2024 (68) — 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 3,616 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
DC cable insulation sits at the intersection of materials science and power transmission engineering: the polymer or composite that surrounds a conductor has to hold off partial discharge, space charge accumulation and thermal ageing under sustained direct current stress, not the alternating stress that most cable insulation history was built around. This search pulls 3,616 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that reference DC cable insulation directly, or that combine DC, cable and insulation terms in their technical content. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was.
The records span materials chemistry (polymer base resins, nano-filler additives), cable and connector hardware, and the surrounding power-system context — grid integration, motors and generators, and measurement equipment used to qualify insulation performance. That spread across IPC classes means a single filing can appear in several technology buckets at once, which is why the composition figures below are read against the full record count rather than against each other.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation 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 3,616-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density today.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a lower steady band
Annual filings hit their high point in 2017 at 141 records, then declined before settling into a more moderate range. Within the window that can be read as complete, 2021-to-2024 filings rose from 58 to 68, a 17% increase — evidence of renewed activity rather than a technology past its useful life. The final one to two years in the chart are undercounted by publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
IPC composition: insulation and measurement dominate
Cables, conductors and insulators (H01B) is the single largest class at 34.9% of all 3,616 records, followed by electric and magnetic measurement (G01R) at 17.9% — a sign that qualifying and testing insulation performance is claimed almost as heavily as the insulation structures themselves. Polymer composition (C08L) and polymer additive (C08K) classes sit at 9.1% and 7.0% respectively, smaller shares than the hardware-facing classes, which points to a comparatively thinner claim base on the compounding chemistry side of the problem.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,616 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 High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about high-voltage direct current: dc cable insulation patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing
A representative DC cable insulation patent
Representative record
Insulation material composition for DC power cable and the DC power cable using the same
LS CABLE & SYSTEM LTD.
An insulation material composition for a direct current (DC) power cable and the DC power cable using the same are provided. A direct current (DC) power cable insulation material composition includes 0.5 to 5 parts by weight of surface-modified nano-sized cubic magnesium oxide, per 100 parts by weight of a polyethylene base resin.Filed by LS Cable & System Ltd., published 2014-02-11 — a nano-filler approach to space-charge suppression in polyethylene-based DC cable insulation.
Most-cited records in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070296286A1 | Powered Hand Tool | 1,032 |
| 2 | US20040160199A1 | Controlled lighting methods and apparatus | 686 |
| 3 | US20110215086A1 | Wirelessly-chargeable stretch-resistant light-emitting or heat-emitting structure | 428 |
| 4 | US6565558B1 | High-frequency device for generating a plasma arc for the treatment of biological tissue | 376 |
| 5 | US6670721B2 | System, method, rotating machine and computer program product for enhancing electric power produced by renewa… | 334 |
| 6 | US20080243218A1 | MRI and RF compatible leads and related methods of operating and fabricating leads | 328 |
| 7 | US20030201098A1 | In situ recovery from a hydrocarbon containing formation using one or more simulations | 310 |
| 8 | US20040020642A1 | In situ recovery from a hydrocarbon containing formation using conductor-in-conduit heat sources with an elec… | 305 |
| 9 | US20030196789A1 | In situ thermal processing of a hydrocarbon containing formation and upgrading of produced fluids prior to fu… | 297 |
| 10 | US20050120715A1 | Heat energy recapture and recycle and its new applications | 296 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older, earlier-published records — treat them as a signal of prior influence, not of current commercial relevance.
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 High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation 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 numbers mean for filing strategy
Three findings that change where a new filing should aim, and who is worth watching.
Concentration
26.5%
of 3,616 records held by top 5 assignees
The top of the field is concentrated, the rest is a long tail
The five largest assignees together hold 26.5% of all 3,616 records, and the top ten extend that to 33.6%. That leaves roughly two-thirds of the field spread across the remaining ranked companies and unranked filers, meaning a new entrant is not walking into an unclaimed space, but is not walking into a duopoly either.
Based on the full 100-company ranking supplied for this dataset.
Filing trend
+17%
growth in filings, 2021 to 2024
Activity is rising again after the 2017 peak
Filings peaked in 2017 at 141 records, then cooled. Over the most recent span that can be treated as complete, 2021-to-2024 filings rose from 58 to 68, up 17% — a sign that interest is building again rather than fading, even before accounting for publication lag in the very latest years.
2025 and 2026 figures will continue to rise as publications catch up.
Claim density
34.9%
of records classed under H01B
Insulation and cable hardware carry the heaviest claim load
H01B (cables, conductors and insulators) covers 34.9% of all records, well ahead of measurement (G01R, 17.9%) and any of the polymer-chemistry classes. Compounding-side classes — C08L and C08K combined — sit well under a fifth of records each, suggesting the additive and formulation side of DC insulation carries comparatively less claim density than the structural and hardware side.
Class shares sum to more than 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
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Where filings cluster together
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Borealis AG | NILSSON ULF | 11 |
| Hitachi Cable, Ltd. | Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. | 10 |
| Borealis AG | HAGSTRAND PER OLA | 9 |
| Borealis AG | ENGLUND VILLGOT | 9 |
| Borealis AG | SMEDBERG ANNIKA | 8 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Co., Ltd. | 8 |
| ASEA (General Swedish Electric Company) | NORDBERG PER | 7 |
| ASEA (General Swedish Electric Company) | LEIJON MATS | 7 |
The strongest co-assignee pairings in this dataset link a single materials company with named individual inventors, and separately link a cable manufacturer with a national utility — patterns consistent with in-house R&D teams and joint utility-vendor development programmes rather than broad cross-industry collaboration.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation 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
Next steps
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single answer — these are the ones worth running down next.
Map the white space in polymer compounding
With C08L and C08K sitting well below the hardware classes in share of records, the additive and formulation side of DC insulation looks comparatively under-claimed relative to the structural and cable-hardware side. A targeted search inside those subclasses would show whether that gap is real or simply reflects fewer searchable keywords.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the post-2021 filing uptick by assignee
The rise from 58 to 68 filings between 2021 and 2024 is aggregate; breaking it down by individual assignee would show whether the growth is broad-based or driven by a handful of filers re-entering the space.
Run an assignee trend in EurekaCheck freedom-to-operate against the top concentration
With a third of all records held by the ten largest assignees, any new filing in core insulation composition or structure should be checked against that group's active claims before drafting.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation 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
Common questions on DC cable insulation patents
The ranked leaders in this dataset are cable manufacturers and materials companies with long histories in power cable insulation, alongside national grid operators that file to protect deployment-specific configurations. The single largest assignee holds 340 of the 3,616 records in scope, and the top five combined hold 26.5% of all records. Beyond the top ten, the ranking spreads across many companies with smaller filing counts, so no single company controls the field outright.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 141 records and declined afterward, but it has not disappeared — filings rose 17% between 2021 and 2024, from 58 to 68 records. The most recent one to two years in any chart will look artificially low because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those years should not be read as a genuine slowdown. Taken together, the trend looks like a mature field with a renewed wave of filing rather than one in decline.
Cables, conductors and insulators (IPC class H01B) is the largest single category, covering 34.9% of all 3,616 records. Electric and magnetic measurement (G01R) is second at 17.9%, reflecting how much of the patenting activity is about testing and qualifying insulation performance rather than the insulation material itself. Polymer composition and additive classes are present but smaller, each under 10% of records, pointing to comparatively lighter claim density on the compounding chemistry side.
US8648257B2, filed by LS Cable & System Ltd. and published in 2014, is a useful reference point: it claims an insulation material composition for DC power cable built around surface-modified nano-sized cubic magnesium oxide blended into a polyethylene base resin, at a specified weight ratio. That kind of nano-filler approach targets space-charge suppression, a problem specific to sustained DC stress rather than AC insulation. It illustrates how narrowly composition claims in this space are often drawn — around specific filler chemistry and loading ranges rather than broad material classes.
The clearest signal in this dataset is the gap between hardware-facing classes and compounding-chemistry classes: H01B claims cover over a third of records, while polymer composition (C08L, 9.1%) and additive (C08K, 7.0%) classes trail well behind. That gap suggests formulation-level innovation in DC-specific insulation chemistry may be less densely claimed than the cable and connector structures themselves, though confirming that requires a targeted search inside those subclasses rather than relying on the aggregate share alone.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on High-Voltage Direct Current: DC Cable Insulation 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.