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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/manufacturing-execution-systems-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Industrial Automation & ControlManufacturing 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.
- Control and data-processing classes dominate. G05B (control & regulating systems) appears on 43.8% of records and G06Q (business/admin data processing) on 39.8%, showing MES patents skew toward orchestration logic as much as shop-floor control.
- Filing has plateaued, not collapsed. Activity peaked in 2023 at 271 filings; from 2021 (129) to 2024 (117) the change is -9%, a mild pullback after a multi-year run-up, not a downturn.
1,759
Published Records
33%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-9%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (129 records) with 2024 (117) — 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 1,759 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What the dataset covers
This landscape covers 1,759 published records matching manufacturing execution system terminology combined with shop-floor signal terms such as process temperature, tool geometry, material feed and equipment monitoring. The scope spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawing on receiving offices led by the United States, followed by Europe, China, the WIPO PCT route, India and Australia. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate actual filing activity.
The assignee ranking returned by the data endpoint lists 100 companies, counted by patent family — the fairer unit when a single invention is filed as several continuations or across multiple jurisdictions. Read the concentration figures against the full 1,759-record base, not against the ranked subset, since a ranked company's share of the ranking is a different number from its share of the field.
Filing activity and technology mix, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,759-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across International Patent Classification subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
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.
IPC subclass distribution
G05B (control & regulating systems) and G06Q (business/admin data processing) are the two largest classes at 43.8% and 39.8% of records respectively, followed by G06F (electric digital data processing) at 32.0%. Because records commonly carry multiple IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should be read individually against the 1,759-record total, not against each other as a breakdown.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,759 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. 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.
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Most-cited records in the corpus
Representative Filing
Manufacturing execution system and method of determining production metrics for a line
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SOFTWARE, LLC
A manufacturing execution system (MES) for providing an indication of the performance of the line. The MES includes a configuration module for modeling entities and lines containing the entities. The MES also includes a runtime module configured to determine the entities on the line whose production can be extrapolated to evaluate the performance of the line. In some cases, the MES determines which of the entities on the line limits the performance of the line; in other cases, the MES determines which of the entities has a production amount that best represents that of the line. The MES is operatively connected to field inputs associated with the entities that provide production data for the...US10054936B2 · Schneider Electric Software, LLC · filed as published 2018-08-21
Highest-citation records
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170032281A1 | System and Method to Facilitate Welding Software as a Service | 576 |
| 2 | US20030158795A1 | Quality management and intelligent manufacturing with labels and smart tags in event-based product manufactur… | 542 |
| 3 | US6745095B1 | Detection of process endpoint through monitoring fluctuation of output data | 518 |
| 4 | US6952656B1 | Wafer fabrication data acquisition and management systems | 479 |
| 5 | US20060149407A1 | Quality management and intelligent manufacturing with labels and smart tags in event-based product manufactur… | 361 |
| 6 | US20220187847A1 | Robot Fleet Management for Value Chain Networks | 341 |
| 7 | US20230123322A1 | Predictive Model Data Stream Prioritization | 338 |
| 8 | US20130212420A1 | Time-stamping of industrial cloud data for synchronization | 331 |
| 9 | US20220197306A1 | Job Parsing in Robot Fleet Resource Configuration | 327 |
| 10 | US20110071963A1 | Method, System and Apparatus for Intelligent Management of Oil and Gas Platform Surface Equipment | 297 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Reading concentration, class mix and citation patterns together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is thinner.
Concentration
32.6% of 1,759
held by the top 5 assignees
The top of the field is dense, the rest is scattered
Five assignees hold just under a third of all records in scope, and the next five add another ten points to reach 42.5%. Below that the ranking of 100 companies thins quickly, meaning most filers hold a handful of records each rather than a defensible position.
Basis: 574 of 1,759 records (top 5); 748 of 1,759 (top 10).
Technology mix
43.8% vs 15.6%
G05B control claims vs G06N AI-model claims
Control logic still outweighs AI-model claims
G05B (control & regulating systems) sits on 770 records versus 275 for G06N (computing based on AI models). MES filings remain anchored in deterministic control and business-process logic even as AI-model language grows, which suggests AI-specific MES claims are not yet as crowded as core control claims.
Basis: IPC subclass shares of the 1,759-record total; a record may carry more than one class.
Momentum
-9% (2021 to 2024)
three-year filing change on the last complete years
A plateau after the 2023 peak, not a decline
Filings rose steadily to a 2023 peak of 271 before settling to 117 in 2024, a modest three-year pullback from 2021's 129. The 2025-2026 counts are still filling in under normal publication lag, so this should be read as a cooling from a high point rather than a fading category.
Basis: annual filing counts 2017-2026; 2021 and 2024 used for the growth comparison.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to manufacturing execution systems patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where activity is cooling
Recent-year momentum diverges sharply from the leaderboard: several of the largest historical filers show little or no activity in the latest year, while smaller entrants keep filing at a slower, steadier pace.
Leader
242 records
records from the top-ranked assignee
A single filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's 242 records sit well above fifth place at 44 and tenth place at 26, a gap that marks a genuine leader rather than a statistical tie at the top.
Basis: assignee ranking by patent family count.
Momentum
-43% YoY
latest-year change for a top-ranked filer
Even large filers are pulling back
Recent-year momentum data shows several previously active assignees filing at zero or near-zero in the latest year, including one top filer down 43% year-on-year to 4 records and another down 75% to a single record. This is consistent with the broader plateau rather than isolated to one company.
Basis: latest-year filing counts and year-on-year change by assignee.
Collaboration
10 pairs
co-assignee pairings identified
Collaboration is limited and mostly intra-group
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest of these link entities that share a parent organisation rather than independent co-development between unrelated companies.
Basis: co-assignee pair frequency across the 1,759-record set.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. | 4 | -43% |
| STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC | 1 | -75% |
| BASF SE | 1 | — |
| Strong Force VCN Portfolio 2019, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Siemens AG | 0 | — |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Tokyo Electron Ltd. | 0 | — |
| BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with an entrenched leader, a cooling filing curve, and specific claim branches that remain comparatively open.
Map the white space against your own claims
Compare a candidate filing against the under-claimed branches identified here — tool geometry, material-feed coupling and dimensional-tolerance feedback — before committing drafting resources to the denser G05B and G06Q territory.
Explore white space in Eureka →Track the leader's recent filings
The top assignee's scale is not matched by recent-year momentum; watching what it files next, rather than its historical total, is a better signal of where the field moves.
Set up assignee tracking in Eureka →Verify freedom to operate against the most-cited records
The highest-citation records in this corpus date back over a decade; check current status and jurisdictional coverage before assuming they still block a given claim.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on MES patent activity
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.
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.
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.
Comparatively thin filing density shows up in branches adjacent to the core MES claim space, including tool-geometry-driven process adjustment, material-feed rate coupling to scheduling logic, dimensional-tolerance feedback loops, and robot-integrated MES built on manipulator and robotics classifications. These sit next to heavily filed control and data-processing claims but have not attracted the same volume, which makes them worth checking specifically before assuming the space is closed.
The United States leads with 811 filings in scope, followed by the European Patent Office at 269 and China at 192. The WIPO PCT route accounts for 171 filings, with India at 82 and Australia at 38. This distribution reflects where applicants have chosen to seek protection within this dataset's coverage window, not necessarily where the underlying R&D took place.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. 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.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.