Inverters & Converters Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2021 at 1,147 and fell 36% to 737 by 2024, the last year the data can treat as complete.
- The field is not concentrated in a handful of hands the ranked leader holds 1,150 records but the top 10 combined account for only 18.6% of all 47,812 records in scope.
- H02M carries more than a quarter of all filings 27.0% of records sit in core AC/DC power conversion, while control, sensing and thermal-adjacent classes each hold single-digit shares.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,147 records) with 2024 (737) — 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 47,812 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the inverters and converters patent record shows
Inverters and converters sit at the point where switching devices, control circuits and current sensing meet, and the claim language in this corpus reflects that: search terms built around power stage, switching frequency and drive circuit return 47,812 records spanning 2015 through the current filing year. The bulk of that volume lands in H02M, the power-conversion subclass, with smaller but persistent activity in motor control, pulse logic and measurement classes that support the core conversion function rather than compete with it.
Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States, with the EPO and WIPO's PCT route as the next largest gateways, and Canada, the UK and Australia forming a smaller secondary tier. That distribution points to a field where US prosecution sets the pace and multi-jurisdiction filing is the exception rather than the rule for most assignees below the leaders.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 47,812-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim volume.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then declined through the last complete year
Annual filings climbed from 1,070 in 2017 to a peak of 1,147 in 2021, then fell to 737 by 2024, a 36% decline over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures in the underlying data are still filling in, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the apparent drop-off in the very latest years should not be read as the field's current trajectory.
H02M dominates; supporting classes stay in single digits
Power conversion (H02M) appears in 27.0% of all records, more than three times the next largest subclass, power supply and grid systems (H02J) at 7.1%. Variable control (G05F), pulse technique (H03K), motor control (H02P), heating circuits (H05B), measurement (G01R) and semiconductor devices (H01L) each sit between 2.0% and 3.5%, indicating that most claim activity outside the conversion core is thin enough to leave room for new filings that combine H02M with one of these adjacent classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 47,812 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Inverters & Converters Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about inverters & converters patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim in synchronization architecture
US8279645B2 — Synchronizing frequency and phase of multiple variable frequency power converters
A power converter system with a plurality of variable frequency power converters and synchronization circuits, each converter having its own switching frequency, coordinated by a control circuit so that the synchronization circuits align the switching frequencies of the converters to one another based on an input signal.Filed by Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC; granted 2012-10-02.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160066913A1 | Local display of tissue parameter stabilization | 2,791 |
| 2 | US9808246B2 | Method of operating a powered surgical instrument | 2,546 |
| 3 | US9757128B2 | Multiple sensors with one sensor affecting a second sensor's output or interpretation | 2,526 |
| 4 | US9690362B2 | Surgical instrument control circuit having a safety processor | 2,507 |
| 5 | US9737301B2 | Monitoring device degradation based on component evaluation | 2,447 |
| 6 | US10013049B2 | Power management through sleep options of segmented circuit and wake up control | 2,407 |
| 7 | US9895148B2 | Monitoring speed control and precision incrementing of motor for powered surgical instruments | 2,353 |
| 8 | US9050083B2 | Motorized surgical instrument | 2,332 |
| 9 | US10045776B2 | Control techniques and sub-processor contained within modular shaft with select control processing from handle | 2,320 |
| 10 | US20150272575A1 | Surgical instrument comprising a sensor system | 2,122 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by having had more time to accumulate them; treat them as a signal of influence within this searched set, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and IPC figures mean for filing strategy
The ranking and the class breakdown point in the same direction: a large field with real headroom below a modest top tier.
No single assignee dominates the field
The leader holds 1,150 records and the top 10 combined reach only 18.6% of all records in scope. That leaves the large majority of filing activity spread across a long tail of assignees, each holding a small slice of a very large field.
Filing volume has pulled back from its 2021 high
Annual filings fell from 1,147 in 2021 to 737 in 2024. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the years immediately after 2024 are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence the field is cooling further.
Core conversion claims dominate the classification mix
H02M outweighs every other subclass by a wide margin, while H02J, G05F, H03K, H02P, H05B, G01R and H01L each sit in the low single digits. New filings that pair H02M with a thin adjacent class face less crowded prior art than pure H02M filings.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to inverters & converters patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where activity has slowed
The ranked field spans semiconductor suppliers, automakers and industrial electronics firms, with year-over-year momentum data showing broad pullback among several named leaders in the most recent period.
Component-level suppliers hold the largest individual shares
Suppliers of switching devices and control ICs occupy the top positions in the ranking, consistent with a field where the underlying components, not just system integration, generate a large share of claims.
Vehicle manufacturers file steadily but do not lead
Automotive assignees appear well inside the ranked field but below the top component suppliers, reflecting inverter and converter work tied to electrified drivetrains rather than standalone power-electronics products.
Grid and industrial-scale filers round out the top tier
The tenth-ranked position still carries over 600 records, showing that meaningful filing activity extends well past the first few names before tapering into the long tail.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Infineon Technologies Austria AG | 1 | -91% |
| Power Integrations, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| General Electric Company | 0 | -100% |
| Texas Instruments Incorporated | 0 | -100% |
| Mitsubishi Electric Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Adda Corporation | 0 | — |
| Excelliance MOS Corporation | 0 | — |
| Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe the field as it stands; the questions below are where a filing or freedom-to-operate decision actually gets made.
Map a specific converter topology against the ranked field
Cross-reference a target circuit architecture against the assignees holding the densest H02M positions before drafting claims in that space.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack momentum shifts among named leaders
Several top assignees show sharp year-over-year pullback in the most recent period; confirm whether that reflects a real strategy shift or incomplete recent-year data before acting on it.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTest claim language against thin adjacent classes
G05F, H03K and H02P each carry a small share of records relative to H02M, suggesting room for claims that bridge core conversion with one of these control or logic functions.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about the inverters and converters patent landscape
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 1,150 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 939 and the tenth at 615. Even so, the top 10 combined account for only 18.6% of all 47,812 records in scope, so no single company controls a dominant share of the field. This means freedom-to-operate work needs to look well beyond the first few names, since a large majority of filings sit with assignees outside the top ranks.
Filings rose from 1,070 in 2017 to a peak of 1,147 in 2021, then declined to 737 by 2024, a 36% drop over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and beyond are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years understate real activity rather than proving a continued decline. Anyone using this trend to time a filing decision should treat 2024 as the last reliably complete data point.
H02M, the power-conversion subclass covering AC/DC and related circuits, appears in 27.0% of all 47,812 records, far ahead of any other class. The next largest, H02J for power supply and grid systems, holds 7.1%, and several supporting classes covering motor control, pulse logic, measurement and semiconductor devices each sit between 2.0% and 3.5%. Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed together.
US8279645B2, assigned to Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC, claims a system of multiple variable-frequency power converters whose switching frequencies are synchronized to one another via dedicated synchronization circuits under a coordinating control circuit. It is relevant to anyone building systems with several independent power converters that need frequency or phase alignment, rather than to single-converter designs. Designing around it typically means avoiding a shared control circuit that actively coordinates multiple converters' switching frequencies, or using a fundamentally different synchronization mechanism such as independent free-running converters with output-side filtering instead of frequency alignment.
The clearest gaps sit in the classes adjacent to the crowded H02M core: G05F variable control, H03K pulse-technique logic, H02P motor control and G01R measurement each carry only 2.0% to 3.5% of records. Combining core power-conversion claims with a specific mechanism in one of these thinner classes, such as adaptive-switching pulse logic or sensor-fused current control, is likely to face less dense prior art than a pure H02M filing. That said, thin filing density in a class is not proof the technology is unclaimed elsewhere, so a targeted prior-art search on the specific mechanism is still necessary before drafting.
Research Inverters & Converters Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole inverters & converters patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.