Managed Pressure Drilling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Managed pressure and underbalanced drilling patents: who holds the ground and what's still open
55.6% concentration. The top 5 ranked assignees hold 2,246 of the 4,040 records in scope, most of it built around rotating control device and annulus pressure control claims. Filings rose to a peak of 305 records in 2020, then eased. The clean comparison is 2021 to 2024 — the last year that can be treated as complete — where volume fell from 178 to 112 records, a 37% drop. Years after 2024 are still being backfilled by publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall yet.
- 1WEATHERFORD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC917
- 2HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC673
- 3SCHLUMBERGER TECH CORP253
- 4GRANT PRIDECO LP236
- 5SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY BV167
See the full managed pressure and underbalanced drilling 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in managed pressure drilling and underbalanced drilling?
The ranked leader holds 917 of the 4,040 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 167. The top 5 assignees together account for 2,246 records, or 55.6% of the whole dataset, and extending to the top 10 raises that to 68.5%. This concentration is dominated by large oilfield service companies with portfolios covering rotating control devices, choke manifolds and annular pressure control systems built up over many years.
Is managed pressure drilling patent activity growing or declining?
Filing activity peaked in 2020 at 305 records and has since fallen; from 2021 to 2024, the last year with complete publication data, filings dropped 37%, from 178 to 112. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not yet be read as confirming a continued decline. The honest read is that the field has pulled back from a 2020 high, with the trajectory for the most recent two years still unresolved.
What technology areas dominate the patent claims in this field?
E21B, the earth and rock drilling subclass, appears in 93.3% of all 4,040 records, confirming this is overwhelmingly a wellbore-mechanics field. Adjacent categories such as marine vessels, flow and level measurement, control and regulating systems, geophysics, seals, valves and specialty materials each cover under 3% of records. Because a single patent can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages add up to more than 100%, and they indicate where instrumentation and control claims sit relative to the dominant drilling-mechanics core.
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 Managed Pressure and Underbalanced Drilling 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.