HVDC Fault Breaker Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (7 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 203 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the HVDC fault breaker patent record shows
HVDC fault breakers sit at the intersection of protection engineering and power conversion: a fault on a direct-current line propagates far faster than on AC, so the breaker has to sense, communicate and interrupt within milliseconds. That constraint shows up directly in the classification data — protective circuit arrangements (H02H) cover two-thirds of the 203 records in scope, ahead of grid-level power supply systems and power conversion hardware. The field is also structurally top-heavy: a handful of large industrial players account for a substantial share of filings, while a long tail files once or twice.
Filing activity rose through the mid-2010s, peaked in 2018, and has since pulled back — a pattern consistent with an early wave of foundational filings followed by consolidation around a smaller set of proven architectures. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be.
Filing trend and technology composition
The 203 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, classified across eight IPC subclasses and filed through six major receiving offices. The figures below use the exact denominators given for this dataset — record counts, not raw document counts inflated by continuations.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings climbed to a peak of 25 in 2018, then declined; by 2024 — the most recent year that can be treated as complete — filings had dropped to 4, down 43% from 2021's 7. The 2025-26 figures are understated because of the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, so they should not be read as confirming a continued decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H02H (protective circuit arrangements) appears in 66.0% of records and H02J (power supply and grid systems) in 42.9%, together framing fault detection and grid integration as the dominant claim areas. H02M (power conversion) at 23.6% and H01H (switches and relays) at 17.2% cover the hardware side, while measurement classes (G01R, G01D, G01K) and wind-turbine integration (F03D) each sit in single digits — smaller, more specialised branches rather than core claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 203 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on High-Voltage Direct Current: HVDC Fault Breaker Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Method for fault protection in HVDC grid, HVDC node of HVDC grid, and HVDC grid system
The present invention concerns a node of an HVDC grid composed of HVDC nodes and of a plurality of links interconnecting the HVDC nodes, each HVDC node being interconnected to at least one HVDC node of the HVDC grid by a link composed of conductive cables for high voltage direct current transportation and one optical fiber, at least one HVDC node being interconnected to at least two HVDC nodes, each HVDC node comprising, for each link connecting the HVDC node to the at least one other HVDC node, a link module comprising a fault sensing device, a breaker, and an optical transceiver for communicating through the optical fiber of the link.Filed by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, published 2022-02-17 — describes a node-level architecture that pairs fault sensing, a breaker and optical-fiber communication into a single link module.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140129195A1 | Real time dynamic physics simulation device of flexible DC transmission system | 93 |
| 2 | US20130193766A1 | Control and protection of a DC power grid | 81 |
| 3 | US20150233976A1 | Method for sensing a fault in a power system based on travelling wave currents | 46 |
| 4 | WO2014053174A1 | Method for sensing a fault in a power system based on travelling wave currents | 39 |
| 5 | US20130088802A1 | Fault protection of HVDC transmission lines | 39 |
| 6 | WO2011157305A1 | Fault protection of HVDC transmission lines | 38 |
| 7 | CN107069795A | 一种多端MMC‑HVDC双极短路故障电流计算方法 | 37 |
| 8 | WO2015185096A1 | High voltage DC circuit breaker unit | 36 |
| 9 | US20180241202A1 | Fault current managing branch for surge-less current interruption in DC system | 33 |
| 10 | WO1998029932A2 | A device and a method for protecting an object against fault-related over-currents | 33 |
Citation counts are drawn from within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not 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.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation data mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the assignee ranking, IPC composition and citation counts are read together: a steep concentration curve, a protection-class-heavy claim landscape, and an early wave of foundational filings that still draws the most citations.
The field is led, not fragmented
The leading assignee alone accounts for 22 records, and the top five combined hold 43.3% of all 203 records in scope — rising to 66.0% across the top ten. That leaves a long tail of single- or double-digit filers competing for the remaining share, which matters for freedom-to-operate work: clearing the leaders' portfolios covers most of the crowded ground.
Protection circuitry is the busiest claim territory
Two-thirds of records touch protective circuit arrangements, making H02H the single densest classification in the dataset. Power conversion hardware (H02M, 23.6%) and switches and relays (H01H, 17.2%) are comparatively less crowded, which is useful context when scoping novelty searches or deciding where a new filing has room to differentiate.
Activity has cooled since the 2018 peak
Filings peaked at 25 in 2018 and by 2024 — the last year treatable as complete — had fallen to 4, a 43% drop from the 7 filed in 2021. That is consistent with a maturing field where the core architectures are largely claimed, though the 2025-26 numbers will fill in further as publication catches up.
The earliest travelling-wave and control patents still anchor citation counts
The most-cited records in this corpus concern real-time DC grid simulation and travelling-wave fault sensing, filed well before the 2018 peak. High citation counts here reflect years of accumulated influence within the searched corpus, not a claim that these remain the most active area of new filing.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to high-voltage direct current: hvdc fault breaker patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what a team needs to decide.
Map freedom-to-operate against the leaders
With 66.0% of records held by the top ten assignees, a freedom-to-operate review that starts with those portfolios will cover most of the crowded claim space before expanding to the long tail.
Run an FTO search in EurekaStress-test claim scope in H02H
Protective circuit arrangements carry the highest record density in this field. Before filing there, a claim-chart comparison against the existing H02H filings will show how narrow a workable claim needs to be.
Build a claim chart in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches
Wind-turbine integration and temperature measurement each sit at 2.0% of records — small enough to be genuine white space rather than an oversight in the search string.
Explore adjacent branches in EurekaFrequently asked questions
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 92 companies across 203 records, with the leading assignee holding 22 records on its own. The top five combined account for 43.3% of all records in scope, and the top ten reach 66.0%, so the field is led by a small group of large industrial and grid-equipment companies rather than evenly spread across many filers. Beyond the top ten there is a long tail of companies with only one or two filings each, which is typical of a technology still attracting new entrants even as core claim space fills up.
An HVDC fault breaker interrupts fault current on a high-voltage direct-current line fast enough to prevent cascading damage across a DC grid, a much harder problem than AC breaking because DC current has no natural zero-crossing to exploit. That is why protective circuit arrangements (H02H) show up in 66.0% of the 203 records in this dataset — sensing and isolating the fault is the dominant engineering problem, ahead of the power conversion and switching hardware that actually carries the current.
Filings peaked at 25 in 2018 and declined to 4 by 2024, a 43% drop from the 7 filed in 2021 — the most recent three-year span that can be read reliably. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as proof of a continued slowdown. The safest reading is that the field cooled after an initial wave of foundational filings around 2017-2019, with 2024 being the last year the trend can be treated as settled.
The classification data shows several branches with only a handful of records: wind-turbine integration (F03D) and temperature measurement (G01K) each sit at 2.0% of the 203 records, and general measuring and recording (G01D) at 3.4%. These are small enough, relative to the dominant H02H and H02J classes, to represent genuinely under-claimed intersections — such as fault breaker designs specific to renewable-generation interconnection — rather than gaps that simply reflect a narrow search string.
The most-cited records in this corpus concern real-time DC grid simulation and travelling-wave-based fault sensing, with citation counts as high as 93 and 81 within the searched set. These are older filings, and citation counts inside any fixed corpus tend to favour records that have had more years to accumulate references, so high citations here signal historical influence on how the field's detection methods developed rather than a claim that these techniques are still the most actively filed area today.
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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.