Hydraulic Actuator System Integration Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2024 at 48 families then began tapering, with 2026 figures still partial due to publication lag — the current dip understates real filing volume.
- China dominates the receiving-office mix with 188 filings more than double the United States (75) and nearly four times Europe (51), a strong signal for where enforcement risk concentrates.
- No assignee shows positive momentum in the latest year every tracked leader, including Parker Hannifin, posted 0 filings or a -100% YoY drop, suggesting a lull rather than a retreat from the field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (40 records) with 2024 (48) — 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 413 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Hydraulic actuator system integration sits at the intersection of fluid-pressure actuation and the electronics and manifolds that make it controllable at a system level. The dataset behind this page pulls 413 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine core actuator or cylinder hardware with electro-hydraulic, manifold, or smart-integration claims, filtered to the F15B actuator subclasses that anchor the field. Families, not raw document counts, are used throughout so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates do not inflate any one applicant’s footprint.
The picture that emerges is a technology with a defined peak behind it rather than ahead of it: filing rose steadily through the late 2010s, crested in 2024, and has since cooled — a pattern more consistent with claim space filling up than with a market still opening.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 413-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which adjacent IPC subclasses the core F15B actuator claims most often pull in.
A decade of filing, front-loaded toward 2024
From 15 families in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2024, with the 2022 midpoint at 18 — growth was neither flat nor explosive but built steadily before rolling over. The 2025-2026 decline should be read cautiously: publication lag of roughly 18 months means the most recent filing year is always the least complete in any corpus like this one.
F15B anchors the field; F16K valves are the largest adjacency
409 of 413 records sit in F15B (fluid-pressure actuators), confirming the search is well-targeted. The next-largest adjacencies are F16K valves (66) and F16D clutches/brakes (18), with aerospace (B64C, 16) and vehicle braking (B60T, 15) forming smaller but distinct application clusters worth tracking separately from the core actuator claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 413 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hydraulic Actuator System Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hydraulic actuator system integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe prior art doing the most citation work
Electro-hydraulic actuator and valve arrangement comprising electro-hydraulic actuator
Disclosed is an electro-hydraulic actuator for providing mechanical actuation. The electro-hydraulic actuator comprises a housing having a first chamber and a second chamber and a gear pump arranged within the first chamber. The gear pump is configured to pump fluid from the first chamber into the second chamber. The piston assembly comprises a piston-head slidably arranged within the second chamber, a piston-rod coupled to the piston-head, and a rack configured as piston-rod, with teeth enabling linear movement corresponding to the piston-rod.Filed by an individual inventor rather than a corporate assignee — a reminder that some of the more granular integration claims in this space originate outside the major hydraulics OEMs.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6575264B2 | Precision electro-hydraulic actuator positioning system | 91 |
| 2 | US5144801A | Electro-hydraulic actuator system | 89 |
| 3 | US20030000765A1 | Precision electro-hydraulic actuator positioning system | 67 |
| 4 | US7434395B2 | Apparatus and method for dual mode compact hydraulic system | 56 |
| 5 | US20160102685A1 | Self-contained energy efficient hydraulic actuator system | 47 |
| 6 | CN102588382A | 一种直接驱动电静液作动器 | 42 |
| 7 | US5950427A | Fail-safe electric hydraulic actuator | 42 |
| 8 | US6209825B1 | Low power loss electro hydraulic actuator | 38 |
| 9 | EP0127027A1 | Electro-hydraulic actuator for turbine valves | 38 |
| 10 | WO2011072502A1 | Integrated electro-hydraulic actuator | 33 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate references — read this table as a map of influence, not of current filing priority.
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 data means for a filing decision
Four read-outs from the trend, geography, and citation data that matter more for strategy than the raw counts do on their own.
The wave has already crested
Filing built from 15 in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2024 before turning down. Because publication lag understates the most recent year, the true peak may sit slightly later than 2024 shows — but the shape of steady build-then-plateau is unlikely to reverse.
China is the primary battleground
China's receiving-office count is more than double the US and nearly four times Europe. Any freedom-to-operate check for manufacturing or sale of integrated hydraulic actuators should start with the Chinese filing set, not treat it as secondary.
A field-wide pause, not a single company's retreat
Every assignee with recent-year momentum data, from Parker Hannifin to smaller Chinese specialists, shows zero filings or a -100% YoY drop in the latest year. That pattern across unrelated players points to a lull tied to the filing lag window rather than any one company exiting.
Influence sits with older US filings
The most-cited records in this corpus are US filings from the 1990s and early 2000s on electro-hydraulic positioning. Their citation counts reflect decades of accumulation, not present-day relevance — newer filings simply have not had time to catch up.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hydraulic actuator system integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
413 families split across a mix of established hydraulics OEMs, aerospace and automotive suppliers, and a long tail of Chinese university and single-entity applicants. Co-assignee activity is sparse — only 10 pairs total — suggesting most work here is done in-house rather than through joint filing.
Parker Hannifin (Parker Hannifin Corporation)
Appears in the co-assignee data paired with individually named inventors rather than corporate partners, consistent with an established hydraulics OEM protecting incremental improvements through its own engineering staff.
Zhejiang University + Zhejiang Qiyu Technology
The strongest co-assignee pair in the dataset links Zhejiang University with Zhejiang Qiyu Technology Co., Ltd., a pattern typical of university research being commercialised through a spin-out or licensing partner.
A cluster of narrow Chinese specialists
Firms such as Shenyang Northeast Electric Power Regulation Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhangjiagang Airo Actuator Co., Ltd. show concentrated but currently paused filing, typical of specialists that file in bursts around specific product launches rather than continuously.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Parker Hannifin Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Ganno Co., Ltd. (Japan) | 0 | -100% |
| Shenyang Northeast Electric Power Regulation Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Messier-Dowty Limited | 0 | — |
| Miya Corporation | 0 | — |
| Zhangjiagang Airo Actuator Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Amedei S.p.A. | 0 | — |
| Dana Incorporated | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing decision
The trend and assignee data narrow down where to look; the next step is checking specific claim language against what is already blocked.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on China filings first
With 188 of 413 receiving-office filings in China, any product plan involving manufacture or sale there needs its own claim chart before the US or EP filings get a second look.
Check claim overlap in EurekaWatch for the next filing wave, not the current lull
The field-wide zero-momentum reading in the latest year is most likely a publication-lag artefact. Re-run the assignee momentum view in six to twelve months before concluding any competitor has exited.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaTest claims against the under-claimed sub-areas
Self-contained energy-efficient units and manifold-level diagnostics show activity without a dominant claimant — a first-filer advantage may still be available there.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset shows filing concentrated among a handful of established hydraulics OEMs and aerospace suppliers, alongside a long tail of Chinese universities and single-product specialists. No single assignee shows a dominant, growing share in the most recent years — every tracked leader, including Parker Hannifin, reported zero filings or a steep year-over-year drop in the latest period. This points to a mature, distributed field rather than one controlled by a single player.
Filing volume rose from 15 families in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2024, then began falling. Part of that decline is real — claim space in the core F15B actuator subclass is filling up — but part of it is an artefact of publication lag, since patent applications typically take around 18 months to publish after filing. The 2025 and 2026 figures in particular should be treated as undercounts until later data cuts fill them in.
The IPC composition shows real but comparatively thin activity in areas like self-contained energy-efficient actuator units, manifold-level fault diagnostics, and smart signal integration between actuators and valves. These adjacencies sit next to the dense F15B core but have no single dominant claimant yet. A first-filer with a specific, well-drafted claim in one of these areas has a better chance of clearing prior art than one filed squarely in core actuator geometry.
China leads by a wide margin with 188 filings in this dataset, more than double the United States (75) and nearly four times the European Patent Office (51). This has direct implications for freedom-to-operate work: a company planning to manufacture or sell integrated hydraulic actuator systems should check Chinese filings first, not treat that jurisdiction as an afterthought to a US or European search.
US20210080023A1 claims an electro-hydraulic actuator built around a two-chamber housing, an internal gear pump, and a piston-rod configured as a toothed rack for linear actuation. It is a relatively specific mechanical arrangement rather than a broad functional claim on electro-hydraulic actuation generally, so designs using different pumping or piston-drive mechanisms are unlikely to be blocked outright. That said, any design using a gear-pump-fed, rack-configured piston-rod in a similar two-chamber housing should be checked against this filing's exact claim language before proceeding.
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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.