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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/lightning-location-and-detection-networks-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Lightning DetectionLightning Location and Detection Network Patents: Leaders, Trends and Open Claim Space
- Five assignees hold 59.7% of the field. 83 of the 139 records in scope sit with the top five filers, and the next five add another 26 records to bring the top ten to 78.4% — this is a concentrated technology, not a fragmented one.
- Filing peaked in 2018 and has not returned. Annual filings ran at 20 in the peak year, fell to 8 by 2021, and reached 0 by 2024 — a complete drop-off over that three-year span, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in under normal publication lag.
- Meteorology and electrical measurement dominate the claim map. G01W and G01R each cover roughly half of all 139 records, while adjacent classes like grid outage correlation (H02J, 10.8%) and sports-safety alerting (A63B, 7.2%) remain comparatively thin.
139
Published Records
60%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-100%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (8 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 139 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What lightning location patenting actually covers
Lightning location and detection network patents describe how ground-based and space-based sensors triangulate the position of a lightning stroke, estimate its peak current, and reject false detections, then route that information into applications ranging from utility fault correlation to wind-turbine blade protection. The core claim space sits at the intersection of time-of-arrival and direction-finding signal processing (G01S, G01R) and meteorological system design (G01W), with a smaller but persistent set of filings extending the same sensing pipeline into power-grid outage correlation and personal or venue-level lightning alerting.
The dataset spans 139 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawing on receiving offices led by the United States, the EPO and WIPO's PCT route. Because publication trails filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years of activity are undercounted in any trend line and should be read as provisional.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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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Data Snapshot
Filing trends and technology composition
The figures below use the full 139-record dataset. Class shares are measured against total records, not against each other, since a single record can carry more than one IPC class.
A sharp rise-and-fall filing curve
Filings climbed to a peak of 20 in 2018, held near double digits through the following years, then fell to 8 by 2021 and to 0 by 2024 — a complete drop-off over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 counts as incomplete rather than as evidence the field has stopped.
Two classes anchor the field, the rest are secondary
G01W (meteorology) and G01R (electric and magnetic measurement) each appear in close to half of all 139 records, confirming that most filings frame lightning location as either a weather-sensing problem or a signal-measurement problem. G01S (radar and positioning) sits at 23.0%, while grid-integration (H02J, 10.8%) and sports/venue safety (A63B, 7.2%) are present but comparatively under-filed.
Shares are the percentage of the 139 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 Lightning Location and Detection Networks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Lightning Location and Detection Networks with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lightning location and detection networks and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaFoundational Claims
The patents other filings build on
Representative Filing
US5036334A — Lightning direction finder controller (LDFC)
RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, THE
A lightning direction finder controller (LDFC) for use at remote sites in a Lightning Detection Network provides information on lightning return strokes to a network controller. The LDFC digitizes and processes return stroke data from an analogue direction finder unit, time tags each return stroke with an absolute time accurate to the nearest 10-4 second of NIST time, and provides an interface for satellite and/or land line communication of lightning flash data to the network controller.Filed by the Research Foundation of State University of New York, this 1991 filing remains one of the most-cited records in the dataset and underlies much of the time-tagging and network-controller architecture still referenced in later filings.
Most-cited records in the dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5729144A | Systems and methods for determining location of a fault on an electric utility power distribution system | 161 |
| 2 | WO2014179482A1 | Fire urgency estimator in geosynchronous orbit (FUEGO) | 126 |
| 3 | US5771020A | Lightning locating system | 121 |
| 4 | US6246367B1 | Lightning locating system | 102 |
| 5 | US5036334A | Lightning direction finder controller (LDFC) | 97 |
| 6 | US4914444A | System and method for synchronizing lightning detectors | 97 |
| 7 | US20160132714A1 | Fire urgency estimator in geosynchronous orbit (FUEGO) | 81 |
| 8 | US6420862B2 | System and method of locating lightning strikes | 46 |
| 9 | US6552521B1 | Single station system and method of locating lightning strikes | 45 |
| 10 | US9792500B2 | Fire urgency estimator in geosynchronous orbit (FUEGO) | 34 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a measure 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 Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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 data says about where this field is headed
Three patterns stand out once the filing curve, the class composition and the assignee concentration are read together.
Concentration
59.7%
of 139 records held by top 5 assignees
A small group of specialists still sets the claim boundaries
With 83 of 139 records sitting inside the top five filers and the leader alone holding 25, this is not a field with a wide spread of independent inventors. Freedom-to-operate work here has to start with the leading players' portfolios, not a broad landscape scan.
Source: assignee ranking, 43 companies
Momentum
-100%
2021 (8 filings) to 2024 (0 filings)
New filing activity has stopped, at least on the complete-year record
The filing count fell from 8 in 2021 to 0 in 2024, a complete drop across that span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, this reads more as a pause in what has been disclosed so far than a confirmed end to R&D, but it is a real signal that fewer new applications are entering the public record.
Source: filing-year trend, 2017-2026
Composition
48.2% / 46.8%
share of records in G01W and G01R
Two framings dominate: weather system vs. measurement system
Filers overwhelmingly describe lightning location either as a meteorological sensing network (G01W) or as an electrical/magnetic measurement problem (G01R), with radar-style positioning (G01S, 23.0%) a distant third framing. That leaves the outage-correlation and consumer-safety framings comparatively open.
Source: IPC subclass distribution, 139 records
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lightning location and detection networks, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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
Competitive Set
Who holds the claim space
The ranking below covers all 43 companies the data endpoint returns for this search — it is the complete ranked set, not a top-50 or top-100 cut.
Leader
25
records held by the top-ranked assignee
One filer holds nearly a fifth of the entire dataset
The top-ranked assignee alone accounts for 25 of the 139 records in scope, roughly six times the record count of the fifth-placed filer. That gap suggests a genuine first-mover advantage in core detection-network architecture rather than a crowded field of comparable-sized competitors.
Source: assignee ranking
Mid-field
9
records held by the fifth-ranked assignee
The drop-off after the leader is steep, then it flattens
Fifth place holds 9 records and tenth place holds 4 — the gap between fifth and tenth is far smaller than between first and fifth. Below the top ten, filing activity spreads across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, including university and wind-energy players extending the technology into new applications.
Source: assignee ranking
Collaboration
7
co-assignee pairs identified
Co-filing is rare and concentrated in one university-industry link
Only seven co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest by a clear margin links a national university with a lightning-network operator on five shared records. Most other filers, including the leading commercial players, patent independently rather than through joint filings.
Source: co-assignee pairs
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Whisker Labs, Inc. | 3 | — |
| Earth Networks, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Vaisala | 0 | — |
| Locator IP | 0 | — |
| GLOBAL ATMOSPHERICS | 0 | — |
| Vestas Wind Systems A/S | 0 | — |
| AWS Convergence Technologies | 0 | — |
| AIRBORNE RES ASSOCS | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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 depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or new filing strategy.
Map the leader's full portfolio
With one assignee holding 25 of 139 records, any freedom-to-operate review should start by pulling that portfolio's claim scope in full before assessing the rest of the field.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest claim language against the under-filed branches
Grid outage correlation and venue-level alerting show meaningfully lower filing density than the core detection classes, which is where a new claim is less likely to collide with existing art.
Run a white-space search in EurekaTrack whether filing activity resumes
The 2021-2024 drop to zero complete-year filings is a real signal, but 2025-2026 data is still incomplete under normal publication lag — worth revisiting once those years settle.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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 about lightning detection patents
The dataset's assignee ranking covers 43 companies, and it is top-heavy: the leading assignee alone holds 25 of the 139 records in scope, while the top five combined account for 59.7% of the field. Below the top ten filers, activity spreads into a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, including universities and wind-energy manufacturers applying the technology to new use cases. Anyone assessing this space should treat the top few filers as the ones whose portfolios matter most for freedom-to-operate purposes.
Filings peaked at 20 in 2018 and fell steadily afterward, reaching 8 by 2021 and 0 by 2024, a complete drop across that three-year span. Part of this reflects normal publication lag: patents typically publish about 18 months after filing, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as a confirmed end to activity. The decline nonetheless indicates that fewer new applications have entered the public record recently compared with the 2017-2019 period.
Two IPC classes dominate: G01W (meteorology) appears in 48.2% of the 139 records and G01R (electric and magnetic measurement) in 46.8%, meaning most filings frame the problem as either weather-sensing or signal-measurement. G01S, covering radar and positioning methods, appears in 23.0% of records as a secondary framing. Smaller but real clusters exist around power-grid integration (H02J, 10.8%) and sports or venue safety alerting (A63B, 7.2%), both of which carry noticeably lower filing density than the core classes.
US5036334A, the Lightning Direction Finder Controller filed by the Research Foundation of State University of New York, is one of the most-cited records in the dataset at 97 citations and covers the architecture for digitizing return-stroke data at remote sensor sites, time-tagging strokes to sub-millisecond accuracy, and relaying that data to a network controller over satellite or landline links. Anyone building a new remote sensor node with precise time-tagging and centralized network reporting should review this filing's claim scope directly rather than assume it has lapsed into open art. Its influence shows up across later filings that reuse similar network-controller framing.
The clearest under-claimed areas sit in the lower-share IPC classes: grid outage correlation using stroke data (H02J, 10.8% of records), sports and venue-level lightning alerting (A63B, 7.2%), and wind-turbine strike attribution (F03D, 5.8%). These are real application areas already represented in the dataset, just thinly, which makes them more promising territory for new claims than the crowded G01W and G01R core. A first claim in these branches should tie the existing sensor-network detection methods to a specific downstream action, such as automated grid-fault correlation or turbine-blade inspection triggering, rather than re-claiming the detection method itself.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Location and Detection Networks 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.