Manufacturing Execution Systems Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Manufacturing Execution Systems Patents: Who Leads and Where Filing Is Headed
Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 574 of 1,759 records in scope (32.6%), and the top ten hold 748 (42.5%) — the rest is a long tail spread across a 100-company ranking. Filings rose from 73 in 2017 to a peak of 271 in 2023, then eased to 117 in 2024 (-9% versus 2021's 129) before the 2025-2026 figures — still incomplete due to publication lag — show 50 by the 2026 cut-off.
- 1ROCKWELL AUTOMATION TECH INC13.8%
- 2STRONG FORCE VCN PORTFOLIO 2019 LLC8.7%
- 3SIEMENS AG4.6%
- 4APPLIED MATERIALS INC3.1%
- 5STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC2.5%
See the full manufacturing execution systems patent landscape 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 MES patent activity
Who holds the most manufacturing execution system patents?
One assignee leads the ranking with 242 records, well ahead of fifth place at 44 and tenth place at 26. Together the top five assignees hold 574 of the 1,759 records in scope (32.6%), and the top ten hold 748 (42.5%). Below the top ten, the remaining assignees in the 100-company ranking each hold a much smaller number of records, so the field has one clear leader and a long tail rather than several evenly matched competitors.
Is manufacturing execution system patent filing growing or declining?
Filing rose from 73 records in 2017 to a peak of 271 in 2023, then eased to 117 in 2024, a -9% change from 129 in 2021. That is a plateau after a strong run-up, not a collapse. The 2025 and 2026 figures shown in the data are lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing activity, since recent filings have not all published yet.
What technology areas do MES patents cover most heavily?
The two largest IPC classes are G05B, control and regulating systems, on 43.8% of the 1,759 records, and G06Q, business and administrative data processing, on 39.8%. G06F, electric digital data processing, follows at 32.0%, with G06N, AI-model computing, at 15.6%. Since a single record can carry several IPC codes, these figures overlap rather than sum to a full breakdown, but the ranking shows control logic and business-process data handling as the dominant claim areas over pure AI-model claims.
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 Manufacturing Execution Systems Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.