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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/lightning-protection-of-structures-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Lightning ProtectionLightning Protection of Structures Patents: Who Leads and Where the Filing Gaps Sit
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 48.9% of all 186 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 69.4% — a narrow group has shaped the claim landscape.
- Wind turbines dominate the IPC mix. F03D (wind motors) touches 45.7% of records, well ahead of cable installation (H02G) at 26.3% and aerospace structures (B64C) at 11.8%.
- Filing activity is rebuilding, not fading. Filings dropped from a 2017 peak of 21 but grew 33% from 2021 (9) to 2024 (12), the last year with reliable published-record coverage.
186
Published Records
49%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+33%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (9 records) with 2024 (12) — 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 186 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this patent landscape covers
Lightning protection of structures spans a defined set of engineering problems: intercepting a strike with an air termination device, carrying the current safely to earth through a down conductor, and managing separation distance and bonding so the discharge does not jump to nearby services. The dataset in scope pulls records that combine these system-level terms with risk-assessment and design-method language such as the rolling sphere method and material selection criteria, which is how the field is defined in the IEC 62305 series and its national equivalents.
186 patent records fall within scope across the 2015–2026 window, ranked into 54 distinct assignees. The technology composition skews heavily toward wind turbine structures and building/cable installation, with a meaningful secondary cluster in aerospace, reflecting where lightning strike risk carries the highest cost of failure.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Protection of Structures 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
The Numbers
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 186 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend: rebuilding after the 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 21 in 2017, then eased before climbing again — 2021 (9) to 2024 (12) marks a 33% increase over that three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year with dependable published-record coverage; 2025 and 2026 figures will keep rising as publication catches up with roughly an 18-month lag from filing.
Technology composition: wind and cable installation lead
F03D (wind motors) appears in 45.7% of the 186 records, more than any other subclass, with H02G (cable and signal installation) close behind at 26.3%. B64C aircraft structures, H02H protective circuits, H05F static-electricity handling, G01R measurement, H01T spark-gap devices and B64D aircraft equipment each cover a smaller but distinct slice — records often carry more than one class, so these shares sum above 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 186 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 Protection of Structures covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Lightning Protection of Structures with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lightning protection of structures and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaFoundational Filings
Key patents shaping the field
Representative Record
Fluid Turbine Lightning Protection System (US20130189099A1)
FLODESIGN WIND TURBINE CORP.
The filing describes an air termination device mounted on a fluid turbine shroud, electrically linked through a down-conduction system to an earth-termination system so a lightning strike is intercepted and carried safely into the ground rather than through the turbine structure.Filed by Flodesign Wind Turbine Corp., published 2013-07-25 — a structure-specific application of the classic air termination / down conductor / earth termination chain, adapted to a wind turbine shroud.
Most-cited records in scope
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US3906308A | Aircraft lightning protection system | 113 |
| 2 | US4760493A | Lightning protection system for composite material aircraft structures | 81 |
| 3 | US5043527A | Dissipation array systems for lightning protection | 65 |
| 4 | WO1998018186A1 | An improved lightning downconductor | 54 |
| 5 | US20040181764A1 | Conductor trace design to reduce common mode cross-talk and timing skew | 52 |
| 6 | US20080095624A1 | Lightning protection of wind turbines | 44 |
| 7 | US20130028739A1 | Wind turbine blade and a lightning measurement system therein | 38 |
| 8 | US20080105443A1 | Fire And Explosion Protection Method In A High-Bay Warehouse In Which Chemical Hazardous Materials Are Stored… | 37 |
| 9 | US5073678A | Spline ball terminal (SBT) | 35 |
| 10 | US20150029053A1 | One Way Time of Flight Distance Measurement | 32 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of foundational status, not of current filing priority.
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 Protection of Structures 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 means for filing strategy
Reading the concentration, technology mix and citation data together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is thinner.
Concentration
48.9% held by top 5
of 186 records
A narrow group sets the baseline claims
Just five assignees account for close to half of all records in scope, and the top ten account for 69.4%. New entrants filing air termination or down-conductor claims should expect to design around this group's existing coverage rather than filing into open space.
Ranking covers 54 assignees total
Technology skew
45.7% F03D wind motors
of 186 records
Wind turbine structures carry the densest claims
Nearly half of all records touch wind motor classifications, reflecting how turbine blade and nacelle lightning exposure has driven filing activity. Aerospace (B64C, B64D) and cable installation (H02G) form smaller but still substantial clusters.
IPC subclasses can overlap on a single record
Momentum
+33% 2021 to 2024
9 to 12 filings
Activity is rebuilding from the 2017 peak
After the 2017 high of 21 filings, activity eased before turning upward again through 2024, the last year with dependable published-record coverage. Later years will read low simply because publication has not caught up with filing.
18-month publication lag applies to 2025 onward
Foundational IP
113 citations
on the top-cited record
Aerospace filings anchor the citation graph
The most-cited records in scope are aircraft lightning protection filings from decades past, underscoring that structural lightning protection concepts for composite aircraft predate and inform much of the later wind-turbine filing activity.
Citation counts favour older filings
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 protection of structures, 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 Protection of Structures 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 Landscape
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list covers 54 companies drawn from the 186 records in scope. Filing is concentrated among a handful of turbine, aerospace and dedicated lightning-protection specialists, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
Leader
45 records
top-ranked assignee
A single filer leads by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee holds 45 records, well ahead of fifth place at 10 and tenth place at 6 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-and-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
54 assignees in the full ranking
Sector mix
Wind, aerospace, specialists
core filer types
Turbine OEMs sit alongside dedicated protection vendors
The ranked leaders mix wind turbine OEMs, aerospace manufacturers and companies whose business is specifically lightning protection hardware, each bringing different claim priorities — structural integration for OEMs, dedicated air-termination and down-conductor hardware for specialists.
Cross-sector filing activity
Momentum
0 in latest year
several leading assignees
Recent-year filings are quiet across leading assignees
Several of the highest-ranked assignees show no filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the publication lag rather than necessarily a slowdown in R&D — recent applications from active filers will still surface as they publish.
18-month lag affects 2025-2026 reads
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Vestas Wind Systems A/S | 0 | — |
| Lightning Protection International | 0 | -100% |
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
| Saab AB | 0 | — |
| Enterprise Science Fund LLC | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Gamesa Innovation & Technology, S.L. | 0 | — |
| Erico International Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Protection of Structures 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 figures above frame the field at a glance. Turning them into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific claims and specific competitors.
Check claim scope before drafting
Run the specific air termination, down-conductor or bonding claim language you plan to file against the most-cited records in this field to see what is already blocked.
Explore claims in EurekaTrack the leading assignees directly
Set up ongoing monitoring on the top-ranked filers so newly published applications surface as soon as they clear the publication lag.
Set up tracking in EurekaMap the white space in detail
Use the under-claimed sub-areas identified here as a starting list, then verify claim density in each before committing engineering effort.
Analyse white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Protection of Structures 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 protection patents
This dataset identifies 186 patent records in scope, published between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off, matching search terms covering air termination, down conductors, rolling sphere method, separation distance, bonding of services, risk assessment and material selection. These are ranked into 186 patent families spread across 54 distinct assignees. The figure will keep growing for the most recent two years as publication catches up with filing, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The ranking covers 54 assignees, with the leader holding 45 of the 186 records in scope — a much larger share than fifth place, which sits at 10. The top 5 assignees combined hold 48.9% of all records, and the top 10 hold 69.4%, showing a field concentrated at the top rather than evenly distributed. The mix includes wind turbine OEMs, aerospace manufacturers and companies specialising specifically in lightning protection hardware.
F03D, the IPC subclass for wind motors, appears in 45.7% of the 186 records in scope, the largest single technology cluster in this dataset. Wind turbine blades and nacelles are tall, isolated structures with high lightning strike exposure, and blade damage from an unprotected strike is costly to repair, which drives sustained filing around air termination and down-conductor integration specific to turbine geometry. This is distinct from, though related to, general building and aerospace lightning protection claims.
Filing peaked at 21 records in 2017, eased over the following years, then grew again from 9 filings in 2021 to 12 in 2024, a 33% increase over that span. 2024 is the most recent year with dependable published-record coverage in this dataset; 2025 and 2026 numbers currently read lower but should not be read as a decline, since publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months. The honest read is a field rebuilding activity after its 2017 peak, not one that is fading.
Relative to the dense coverage around core air termination and down-conductor claims, this dataset points to thinner combined coverage in areas such as bonding of buried services, test joint accessibility design, automation of the rolling sphere method calculation, static charge dissipation arrays, separation distance calculation tools and down-conductor integration specific to composite structures. These are candidate areas for a first-mover claim, though each should be checked individually against the most-cited records before drafting, since citation counts in this field favour older aerospace filings that may still constrain adjacent claim language.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lightning Protection of Structures 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
Research Lightning Protection of Structures in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole lightning protection of structures corpus yourself, in your own scope.
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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.