Managed Pressure Drilling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 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 past peak, not past relevance. 2020 was the peak year at 305 records; 2021 to 2024 (the last complete year) fell 37%, from 178 to 112 — a real pullback, not just publication lag.
- One subclass carries the field. E21B earth and rock drilling covers 93.3% of all 4,040 records; every other IPC subclass, from flow measurement to valves, sits under 3%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (178 records) with 2024 (112) — 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 4,040 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
Managed pressure drilling (MPD) and underbalanced drilling (UBD) share a common engineering problem: controlling annular pressure precisely enough to drill through narrow pore-pressure/fracture-gradient windows without losing circulation or taking a kick. The search behind this page pulls 4,040 published records spanning rotating control devices, choke manifolds, influx detection, backpressure pumping, dual gradient drilling and annular pressure control — the mechanical and control-system building blocks that make constant bottomhole pressure drilling possible.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years of the trend understate actual filing activity and should be read as provisional rather than a sign of decline.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 4,040-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
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.
IPC subclass composition
E21B (earth and rock drilling) appears in 93.3% of the 4,040 records, confirming this is fundamentally a wellbore-mechanics field. The next-largest subclasses — marine vessels (2.7%), flow/level measurement (2.3%), control and regulating systems (1.8%), geophysics (1.4%), seals (1.4%), valves (1.3%) and specialty materials (1.2%) — are all adjacent instrumentation and hardware categories, each covering a small minority of records. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,040 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Managed Pressure and Underbalanced Drilling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about managed pressure and underbalanced drilling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US12644379B2 — Pressure response test to detect leakage of rotating control device
A method for a managed pressure drilling operation that creates a deliberate pressure spike in the wellbore annulus and monitors the differential across multiple pressure sensors positioned relative to the rotating control device's sealing element, to determine whether the RCD itself is leaking.Filed by Schlumberger Technology Corporation, published 2026-06-02 — illustrates that even mature RCD hardware is still generating new diagnostic-method claims rather than only mechanical redesigns.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080060846A1 | Annulus pressure control drilling systems and methods | 364 |
| 2 | US4046191A | Subsea hydraulic choke | 322 |
| 3 | US20130009366A1 | Low Profile Rotating Control Device | 296 |
| 4 | US6065550A | Method and system for drilling and completing underbalanced multilateral wells utilizing a dual string techni… | 263 |
| 5 | US20050092523A1 | Well pressure control system | 261 |
| 6 | US6470975B1 | Internal riser rotating control head | 261 |
| 7 | US6904981B2 | Dynamic annular pressure control apparatus and method | 256 |
| 8 | US6209663B1 | Underbalanced drill string deployment valve method and apparatus | 229 |
| 9 | US20090139724A1 | Latch position indicator system and method | 208 |
| 10 | US6263982B1 | Method and system for return of drilling fluid from a sealed marine riser to a floating drilling rig while dr… | 206 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older filings are structurally favoured — treat this as a map of influence on the field's vocabulary, not a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns worth acting on: where the claim space is dense, where it has thinned, and where citation weight sits relative to recent activity.
The top of the field is tightly held
Five assignees account for 2,246 of the 4,040 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 68.5% (2,767 records). New entrants filing directly on rotating control device or annulus pressure control fundamentals are filing into dense prior art held by a small number of oilfield service majors.
Volume has pulled back from its 2020 peak
2020 was the high-water mark at 305 records. The 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch with complete publication, shows a genuine 37% decline from 178 to 112 filings — separate from the expected undercount in 2025 and 2026 caused by publication lag.
Adjacent instrumentation classes stay thin
Flow/level measurement, control and regulating systems, geophysics, seals, valves and specialty materials each sit at or below 2.7% of records. These are the categories most likely to hold narrower, still-open claim territory relative to the crowded core drilling-mechanics class.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to managed pressure and underbalanced drilling, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology Holdings LLC | Schlumberger Limited | 104 |
| Schlumberger Limited | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 79 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Limited | 77 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 75 |
| Schlumberger Technology Holdings LLC | Schlumberger Canada Limited | 75 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | Schlumberger Technology Holdings LLC | 73 |
| AMERIFORGE GRP | KENNEDY ROLAND | 25 |
| AMERIFORGE GRP | GIDMAN ALEX | 25 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, concentrated among Schlumberger-affiliated entities — consistent with internal corporate restructuring and joint filings rather than cross-company collaboration.
Who is active, and where momentum is fading
The leader board is dominated by large oilfield service companies with long filing histories in rotating control devices and pressure management systems. Recent-year momentum, however, is negative across the board — a sign the current owners are consolidating existing claim territory rather than expanding it.
One assignee dominates the leaderboard
The top-ranked assignee holds 917 records, more than five times the fifth-place total of 167 — an unusually steep drop-off that signals a portfolio built over many years rather than recent aggressive filing.
Even top filers are slowing down
Recent-year filing counts among the Schlumberger-affiliated entities range from 4 down to 0 or 1, with year-over-year declines between -60% and -100%. This tracks the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback rather than signalling any single company's retreat from the field.
Collaboration is largely corporate, not cross-industry
The strongest co-assignee pairings link related Schlumberger entities to one another, suggesting joint filings from group restructuring rather than external partnerships. No cross-competitor co-filing pattern is visible in this dataset.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology Corporation | 4 | -60% |
| Schlumberger Technology Holdings LLC | 1 | -80% |
| Schlumberger Limited | 1 | -83% |
| Schlumberger Canada Limited | 1 | -80% |
| Weatherford Technology Holdings LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Weatherford Lamb, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Managed Pressure Operations Pte. Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to a field with a settled core and a thin, contestable edge. Two directions make sense from here.
Stress-test a claim against the top 5
Before filing on rotating control device or annulus pressure control fundamentals, check draft claims against the portfolios of the concentrated top 5 assignees, who together hold 55.6% of all 4,040 records.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaScope the under-claimed branches
Flow measurement, control-and-regulating systems and specialty seal materials each sit under 3% of records — worth a targeted freedom-to-operate check before committing engineering resources there.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
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.
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.
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.
The clearest under-claimed territory sits in the instrumentation and control classes that trail far behind E21B: flow and level measurement, control and regulating systems, and specialty seal and gasket materials each account for under 3% of the 4,040 records. Dual gradient drilling risers, backpressure pump control algorithms and automated choke manifold regulation are narrower sub-areas within that space worth a freedom-to-operate check before committing to a claim there. These branches show both lower record counts and less citation density than the core rotating control device and annulus pressure control claim territory.
US12644379B2, assigned to Schlumberger Technology Corporation and published 2026-06-02, covers a method for detecting leakage in a rotating control device during a managed pressure drilling operation by deliberately creating a pressure spike in the wellbore annulus and comparing readings across multiple sensors placed relative to the device's sealing element. It is a diagnostic-method claim layered on top of existing RCD hardware rather than a new mechanical design. Anyone developing RCD leak-detection or condition-monitoring features should review its claim scope closely, since it sits within the same crowded core class (E21B) that dominates this dataset.
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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.