Liner Hanger Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Liner Hanger and Cementing Accessory Patents: Filing Concentration and Open Claim Space
56.8% of all 2,544 records sit with just five assignees, and the top ten combined reach 69.9% — this is a field where a handful of oilfield service majors hold the bulk of the claim space. Filing peaked at 109 records in 2017. The 2021-to-2024 window, the most recent span that can be read as complete, shows a 59% drop from 78 to 32 records. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent-year counts will rise as more applications publish.
- 1HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC703
- 2WEATHERFORD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC387
- 3BAKER HUGHES CO143
- 4SCHLUMBERGER TECH CORP121
- 5SAUDI ARABIAN OIL CO90
See the full liner hangers and cementing accessories analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most patents on liner hangers and cementing accessories?
Filing in this field is heavily concentrated: the top five assignees together account for 56.8% of the 2,544 records in scope, and the leading single assignee holds 703 records on its own. These are established oilfield service companies with decades of continuous filing around running tools, packers, and setting mechanisms rather than newer entrants. The top ten assignees combined reach 69.9% of all records, leaving a long tail of smaller filers below them.
Is patent filing activity in liner hangers growing or declining?
Filing peaked in 2017 at 109 records and had fallen to 32 records by 2024, a 59% decline over the 2021-to-2024 span. However, patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are understated and should not yet be read as evidence of continued decline. The safest reading is that filing activity cooled meaningfully through the early 2020s, with the most recent trend still to be confirmed.
What technical areas are most under-claimed in this field?
The core technology, classified under E21B earth and rock drilling for wells, covers 94.2% of the 2,544 records, while adjacent classes such as F16L pipe fittings, H02J power and telemetry systems, C22C alloys, and B01D separation processes each sit at or below 1.7% of records. This gap suggests lighter claim density around materials, power/telemetry integration, and downhole filtration aspects of liner hanger systems, though a targeted search is needed to confirm true freedom to operate before relying on any single class share.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Liner Hangers and Cementing Accessories covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.