Industrial Crane Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 3 records and has not recovered since, with the 2022 midpoint at zero — this is a flat-to-declining filing curve, not a growing one.
- China leads receiving offices with 10 filings ahead of the United States at 6 and Japan at 5, showing where applicants are actually seeking protection.
- The most-cited record is from 2008 a laser-pointer overhead crane conveyance system cited 63 times — citation weight here still sits with older art, not recent filings.
A narrow, well-defined technical corner of material handling
This dataset covers 25 patent families at the intersection of overhead and industrial cranes, hoisting equipment, and specific control problems: anti-sway control, load monitoring, wire rope life, positioning accuracy and collision avoidance. The IPC composition is dominated by B66C (cranes & hoists) at 23 of the records, with a thin scatter into winches, non-electric control systems, positioning/radar, and imaging — evidence that most invention activity still concentrates on the core mechanical and control subclass rather than spreading into adjacent sensing or software domains.
Publication naturally lags filing by around 18 months, so any apparent drop in the most recent year understates real activity. Even accounting for that lag, the 2017 peak followed by a flat 2022 midpoint points to a technology area where the core claim space was staked out early and has not attracted a fresh wave of filers since.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Twenty-five families, filed against a search string that ties crane hardware to specific control and safety functions, give a compact but revealing picture of where effort has gone and where it has not.
Filing trend, 2015-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 3 in 2017 and fell back to a flat or declining pattern through the 2022 midpoint of zero, with 2026 partial and understated by publication lag.
IPC subclass composition
B66C (cranes & hoists) accounts for 23 of the records; the remaining activity is split thinly across winches (B66D), non-electric control (G05D), conveying (B65G), gearing (F16H), positioning/radar (G01S) and imaging/audio (H04N, H04R).
Shares are the percentage of the 25 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Industrial Cranes and Lifting Equipment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about industrial cranes and lifting equipment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe prior art carrying the most citation weight
Overhead cranes having collision avoidance capabilities
An apparatus controlling an overhead crane in a manner that reduces the likelihood that the crane and objects suspended therefrom will contact another object. The system pairs a standard control panel for speed and direction with a collision avoidance system built around an ultrasonic transceiver that generates and receives a reflected signal indicating distance to another object, feeding an analog ranging signal back into crane control.Filed by an individual inventor and granted in 1996, this record still carries substantial citation weight decades later, underlining how early ultrasonic-based collision avoidance claims continue to anchor the field.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP2008152380A | Conveyance method of overhead crane using laser pointer and overhead crane system | 63 |
| 2 | US5481248A | Overhead cranes having collision avoidance capabilities | 32 |
| 3 | US20160304326A1 | Overhead crane safety awareness lighting system and method | 21 |
| 4 | JP2020007134A | Hanging load monitoring system for crane | 17 |
| 5 | US9738494B2 | Overhead crane safety awareness lighting system and method | 13 |
| 6 | CN201121095Y | 天车吊车定位器 | 11 |
| 7 | US20190345007A1 | Control of overhead cranes | 10 |
| 8 | JP1996324962A | Bracing device for overhead crane | 8 |
| 9 | EP3566998A1 | Control of overhead cranes | 5 |
| 10 | CN207957538U | 一种起重设备 | 3 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later work, not of current commercial relevance.
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 numbers say about this field
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read against filing dates, receiving offices and citation weight.
The curve peaked early and has not returned
With the 2022 midpoint at zero filings, the growth pattern across this 25-family set is flat or declining rather than expanding. That is consistent with a claim space staked out by a small group of filers rather than one still attracting new entrants.
China leads, but the spread is thin
China's 10 filings sit ahead of the United States (6), Japan (5), the EPO (2) and India (2). No single office dominates overwhelmingly, suggesting applicants are filing close to where they manufacture or deploy rather than pursuing broad multi-jurisdiction coverage.
Influence still sits with 2008-and-earlier art
The most-cited record, a 2008 laser-pointer overhead crane conveyance system, and a 1996 collision-avoidance patent both outweigh anything filed in the last decade in citation count. That is typical of a searched corpus where older records have had more time to accumulate citations, not necessarily proof they remain state of the art.
Activity is concentrated in the core mechanical subclass
B66C (cranes & hoists) captures the overwhelming majority of records, with only single-digit spillover into winches, non-electric control, positioning/radar and imaging. Dense filing in B66C means that claim space is occupied, not that the underlying problems are solved.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to industrial cranes and lifting equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
A fragmented assignee base with no recent momentum leader
No assignee in this dataset shows filing activity in the latest year, and the strongest co-filing link — Shinto Industry and Toyohashi University of Technology — appears only twice. This is a field of occasional filers rather than a small set of repeat, high-volume applicants.
ABB entities file under separate regional units
ABB appears in this dataset through both its Swiss and Chinese entities, but neither shows filings in the most recent year, consistent with the broader flat trend across the field.
Shinto Industry and Toyohashi University of Technology co-file
This is the single strongest co-assignee pair in the dataset at two shared records, pointing to a university-industry research collaboration on crane control rather than a purely corporate R&D pipeline.
Mazzella Lifting Technologies holds a specialist position
As a dedicated lifting-equipment company rather than a diversified industrial group, Mazzella's presence signals that specialist manufacturers still contribute to this claim space alongside conglomerates, even without recent-year activity.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Oupu Zhiwang Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shinto Industry Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toyohashi University of Technology | 0 | — |
| MAZZELLA LIFTING TECHNOLOGIES INC | 0 | — |
| ABB (China) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Chen Tinghui | 0 | — |
| Newcolon (Xinxiang) Crane Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps for teams deciding where to file or how to design around existing claims.
Map the B66C claim boundaries in detail
With 23 of 25 records in a single IPC subclass, a claim-by-claim comparison of independent claims within B66C is the fastest way to find where genuine white space remains versus where language merely differs.
Explore claim structures in EurekaTrack the ABB and academic-industry filings
Neither the ABB entities nor the Shinto Industry / Toyohashi University pairing show recent-year activity, but both represent identifiable research directions worth monitoring for renewed filing.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaStress-test collision avoidance alternatives
Given the citation weight sitting on ultrasonic-based collision avoidance art from the 1990s and 2000s, evaluate whether radar or fused video approaches offer a clearer path around older claims.
Run a design-around analysis in EurekaCommon questions about industrial crane patents
This dataset of 25 patent families is fragmented rather than dominated by one or two large filers. ABB appears through separate Swiss and Chinese entities, Shinto Industry and Toyohashi University of Technology form the strongest co-filing pair at two shared records, and specialist firms like Mazzella Lifting Technologies also hold positions. No assignee shows filing activity in the most recent year, so there is currently no single momentum leader to watch above the rest.
Based on this dataset, filing activity peaked in 2017 at 3 records and had fallen to zero by the 2022 midpoint, which indicates a flat-to-declining trend rather than growth. Publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the most recent year or two will always look thinner than it eventually turns out to be, but even allowing for that lag the multi-year trajectory here is not expansionary.
China leads as a receiving office with 10 filings in this dataset, ahead of the United States at 6 and Japan at 5, with Europe (EPO) and India each at 2. This spread suggests applicants are prioritising jurisdictions tied to manufacturing and deployment rather than pursuing uniform global coverage, which matters when deciding where freedom-to-operate checks are most necessary.
US5481248A, granted in 1996 to inventor Brian A. Kruh, covers an overhead crane collision avoidance system built around an ultrasonic transceiver that measures distance to nearby objects and feeds that signal back into crane speed and direction control. It remains one of the most-cited records in this dataset, which means later filings in ultrasonic and proximity-based crane safety have repeatedly had to reference or distinguish themselves from it, even though the patent itself is decades old and any original term has long since expired in most jurisdictions.
The technology composition here is heavily weighted toward the core B66C subclass, with only one or two records touching wire rope fatigue-life sensing, radar-based positioning accuracy, fused ultrasonic-and-video collision avoidance, and audio-transducer-based sway detection. These thinly claimed branches are where a specific, well-drafted first claim is more likely to clear prior art than in the crowded core mechanical and control claims that dominate the dataset.
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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.