Magnetic Bearing Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2017. The peak year logged 54 families; by the 2022 midpoint annual filings had halved to 20, and the trend has not recovered since.
- Claims cluster hard in two IPC classes. 514 of 562 families sit in F16C (bearings) and 218 in H02K (motors/generators) — control-layer classes like G05B (20) and H02P (31) are comparatively open.
- The US is the dominant filing venue. 149 records were filed at the USPTO versus 111 at the EPO and 99 in Japan, with China (43) and WIPO (44) trailing well behind.
What the magnetic bearing patent record shows
Magnetic bearing technology — rotors suspended and controlled without mechanical contact — has generated 562 patent families in the window covered by this dataset. The core claim territory is mechanical: F16C (shafts, bearings and couplings) accounts for the large majority of records, with H02K (electric motors and generators) as the next-largest overlapping class, reflecting how tightly magnetic bearing design is bound to the rotating machinery it supports. Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has since declined toward a flatter, lower baseline.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will understate real filing activity — treat the tail of the curve as provisional, not as evidence of a sudden drop-off.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 562 families from different angles: one tracks filing volume over time, the other breaks the corpus down by IPC subclass to show where claim density actually sits.
A 2017 peak followed by a decline to a flatter baseline
Annual filings ran at 54 in 2017, fell to 20 by the 2022 midpoint, and have not returned to peak levels since — consistent with a technology whose core mechanical claim space is now well occupied rather than one still in early growth.
Concentration in F16C and H02K, with thinner control-layer coverage
F16C (514 records) and H02K (218) dominate; F04D (pumps, 99) and F01D (turbines, 32) show where magnetic bearings are claimed as applied to specific rotating equipment, while H02P (31), G05B (20), C23C (18) and F16F (18) mark thinner, more open control- and materials-adjacent territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 562 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Magnetic Bearing Technology Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about magnetic bearing technology landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this corpus
Method for constructing active magnetic bearing controller based on look-up table method
Filed by Jiangsu University, this record builds finite element models of an active magnetic bearing and derives universal Kriging prediction models linking suspension force to displacement eccentricity and control current along the X and Y axes, then converts those models into look-up tables for controller construction rather than relying on real-time computation.Abstract condensed from the original filing text.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5347190A | Magnetic bearing systems | 124 |
| 2 | US20100327687A1 | Systems, Devices, and/or Methods for Managing Magnetic Bearings | 98 |
| 3 | US5355042A | Magnetic bearings for pumps, compressors and other rotating machinery | 88 |
| 4 | US5021697A | Auxiliary bearing design for active magnetic bearings | 79 |
| 5 | US6310414B1 | Shaft bearing system | 72 |
| 6 | US20030038553A1 | Permanent magnet turbo-generator having magnetic bearings | 65 |
| 7 | US5710469A | Magnetic bearing element for a rotor shaft using high-TC superconducting materials | 63 |
| 8 | US5231323A | Vibration isolated backup bearing for magnetic bearing | 62 |
| 9 | US5126612A | Active radial magnetic bearing combined with a back-up bearing | 62 |
| 10 | CN101046692A | 一种磁悬浮反作用飞轮开环高精度不平衡振动控制系统 | 61 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate references — read this table as a map of foundational art, not of current commercial importance.
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 mean for a filing decision
Three patterns in the data matter more than the raw counts on their own: where claims are dense, where offices differ, and where the timeline suggests the field is heading.
The growth phase has passed
Annual filings roughly halved between the 2017 peak and the 2022 midpoint and have stayed at that lower level since. New entrants filing broad mechanical claims on rotor suspension are more likely to run into existing art than to find open ground.
F16C is the crowded core
Nearly all records touch F16C, the bearings and couplings class. A filer targeting the rotor-suspension mechanism itself is filing into the densest part of the landscape; differentiation is more likely to come from control strategy or application-specific integration.
Three offices carry most of the volume
The US, Europe and Japan together account for the bulk of filings, with China (43) and PCT (44) notably smaller. A freedom-to-operate review focused only on China would miss most of the documented prior art in this field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to magnetic bearing technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Ebara Corporation | Ebara Densan Ltd. | 4 |
| EL SHAFEI ALY | ALY EL SHAFEI | 4 |
| WATTSUP POWER AS | Noble Drilling LLC | 4 |
| Synchrony, Inc. | IANNELLO VICTOR | 3 |
| Synchrony, Inc. | FIELD ROBERT JETT | 3 |
| Ebara Corporation | Ebara Research Co., Ltd. | 2 |
| Ebara Corporation | SHINOZAKI HIROYUKI | 2 |
| EL SHAFEI ALY | EL SHAFEL ALY | 2 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings look like corporate-group filings (related entities under one parent) rather than arm's-length joint development — cross-company collaboration is not a major feature of this landscape.
Who holds the claims, and where momentum has stalled
Ranking by family count identifies who has built the deepest claim position; recent-year filing counts show that the leading assignees are not currently active in the most recent data.
Mostly single-assignee filings
The low count of co-assignee pairs indicates that most families in this dataset were filed by a single entity rather than through joint ventures, and the strongest pairs look like related corporate entities rather than external partners.
Leaders show no recent-year activity
Every assignee in the recent-year momentum tracking shows zero filings in the latest year, which given publication lag may reflect filings still working through the pipeline rather than an actual halt — but it means current activity cannot be read directly from top-assignee rankings.
The US is the primary filing venue
With 149 records at the USPTO against 111 at the EPO and 99 in Japan, the US remains the largest single venue for magnetic bearing filings, making it the first place to check for blocking art before committing to a design.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Ebara Corporation | 0 | — |
| SKF Magnetic Mechatronics | 0 | — |
| EL SHAFEI ALY | 0 | — |
| Synchrony, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Koyo Seiko Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| WATTSUP POWER AS | 0 | — |
| Edwards Japan Limited | 0 | — |
| GLACIER METAL | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape data points to a few concrete next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace filing, or competitive tracking.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on F16C claims
Given that 514 of 562 families sit in F16C, any new rotor-suspension mechanism should be checked against this class first, prioritising the US, EPO and Japan filings that make up most of the corpus.
Explore F16C prior art in EurekaScope a first filing in the thinner control-layer classes
H02P and G05B show materially lower record counts than F16C and H02K, which is where a control-strategy-first claim is less likely to collide with existing art.
Map white space in EurekaTrack assignee activity beyond the latest year
Because every top-ranked assignee shows zero filings in the most recent year, verify current activity against full filing history rather than the latest-year snapshot alone.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about magnetic bearing patents
This dataset identifies 562 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that match active magnetic bearing, magnetic levitation bearing and related controller claims under IPC classes F16C32/04, H02K7/09 and F16C39. Families are the more reliable unit than raw document counts because they collapse continuations and multi-jurisdiction filings of the same invention into one entry. The true figure for the most recent one to two years will be higher once publication catches up, since filing-to-publication lag typically runs around 18 months.
The ranking in this dataset is led by a small group of assignees with the deepest family counts, but every one of them shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, which is more likely a publication-lag artefact than a genuine exit from the field. Co-assignee activity is limited to 10 pairs total, and the strongest pairings are related corporate entities rather than external joint ventures. Anyone tracking a specific competitor should check its full filing history rather than relying on the most recent year alone.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 54 families and had fallen to 20 by the 2022 midpoint, a pattern consistent with a decline rather than continued growth. That said, the final year or two of any patent trend understates real activity because of the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, so the true 2025-2026 numbers will move up once that data settles. Taken together, the shape points to a technology whose core mechanical claims are largely staked out, with new activity more likely in adjacent control and integration layers.
The core mechanical claim space in F16C is heavily occupied, with 514 of the 562 families in this dataset touching that class. Thinner coverage appears in control-adjacent classes such as H02P (motor/generator control, 31 records) and G05B (control and regulating systems, 20 records), plus materials-adjacent classes like C23C (coatings, 18 records). A first filing targeting adaptive control strategy, coating treatments for rotor-stator gaps, or backup-bearing failure handling is less likely to run into dense prior art than one targeting the suspension mechanism itself.
The United States leads with 149 records, ahead of the European Patent Office at 111 and Japan at 99; China (43) and PCT/WIPO filings (44) are noticeably smaller by comparison. This means a freedom-to-operate search limited to Chinese filings alone would miss most of the documented prior art in this field. Applicants planning global protection should prioritise US, European and Japanese searches first given where the bulk of existing claims sit.
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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.