Marine Autonomy Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 38.9% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees together hold 138 of the 355 records in scope — a field where a handful of firms have built durable claim density rather than one dominated by a single player.
- Filings kept climbing through 2024. From 19 records in 2021 to 25 in 2024 — up 32% over that span — with 2019 still the single busiest year on record at 45 filings.
- Ships and navigation dominate, propulsion and multi-environment vehicles lag. B63B (ships & marine vessels) touches 39.4% of records and G01C (navigation) 29.0%, while B63H (propulsion) and B60F (multi-environment vehicles) sit under 10% each.
Filing growth compares 2021 (19 records) with 2024 (25) — 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 355 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 355 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine marine autonomy or navigation claims with vessel motion, hull structure, subsea flow or marine engine elements. It captures the overlap between autonomous and assisted navigation systems and the physical marine platforms — hulls, propulsion, launching gear — that carry them, rather than either subject alone.
Filings are concentrated in the United States, with meaningful volume through the EPO, the UK, WIPO's PCT route, Japan and Australia. Because publication trails filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity and should be read as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 355-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year on year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the technical sub-areas of marine autonomy.
A field that peaked in 2019 and kept building
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a high of 45 in 2019, then settled into a steadier band. The 2021-to-2024 span shows genuine growth — 19 records up to 25, a 32% increase — before the most recent two years taper off, an effect of publication lag rather than a real slowdown.
Ships and navigation carry the weight
B63B (ships & marine vessels) and G01C (navigation, gyroscopes) are the two largest classes by a wide margin, each touching well over a quarter of all 355 records. G01S (radar, sonar & positioning) and G05D (non-electric variable control) follow at meaningful but smaller shares, while G06T (image processing), B63H (propulsion), B63C (launch & salvage) and B60F (multi-environment vehicles) each sit under 15% — narrower claim territory that is easier to enter without colliding with dense prior art.
Shares are the percentage of the 355 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Marine Autonomy & Navigation Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about marine autonomy & navigation patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records that anchor this field
US12650308B1 — Marine navigation systems, methods, and user interfaces
Filed by Brunswick Corporation and published 2026-06-09, the patent covers a method of controlling docking for a marine vessel: receiving a global position measurement, defining a navigation pathway between the vessel's position and a target location through a set of geographical waypoints, displaying that pathway on a user interface, and accepting a user input that replaces one of the waypoints with a new through-point before the pathway is redefined.One of the most recent records in the dataset, illustrating how docking-assist UI claims are still being actively filed even as the broader collision-avoidance and depth-contour patents that dominate the citation table age into the background.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160125739A1 | Collision avoidance systems and methods | 135 |
| 2 | US20120232719A1 | System and Method for Automatically Navigating a Depth Contour | 116 |
| 3 | US20180259339A1 | Video sensor fusion and model based virtual and augmented reality systems and methods | 106 |
| 4 | US20070257491A1 | Wave powered generation | 106 |
| 5 | US8645012B2 | System and method for automatically navigating a depth contour | 98 |
| 6 | US20070257490A1 | Wave powered generation using electroactive polymers | 95 |
| 7 | CN111026126A | 一种基于改进蚁群算法的无人艇全局路径多目标规划方法 | 76 |
| 8 | US20190251356A1 | Augmented reality labels systems and methods | 72 |
| 9 | US4457006A | Global positioning system receiver | 66 |
| 10 | US4277170A | Laser beacon and optical detector system for aircraft collision hazard determination | 64 |
Citation counts favour older filings in any searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a ranking of current technical 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 read-throughs of the same corpus, aimed at where to file, who to track, and what is already occupied.
The top of the field is dense but not closed
The five leading assignees hold 138 of the 355 records in scope, and the top ten climb to 53.5% (190 records). That leaves close to half the corpus spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants — room to build a position without competing head-on with the leader's 41-record base.
Hull and platform claims outweigh propulsion claims by four to one
Ships & marine vessels (B63B) and navigation (G01C) each cover roughly a third of records, while marine propulsion & steering (B63H) sits under 10%. Firms building autonomous steering or thrust-control systems face far less occupied claim space than those touching hull structure or navigation logic.
Growth held through the last complete filing year
Annual filings rose from 19 in 2021 to 25 in 2024, a 32% increase, after peaking earlier at 45 in 2019. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as understated rather than as evidence of a slowdown — publication lag means recent filings are still arriving in the record.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to marine autonomy & navigation patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders in this 355-record corpus include marine electronics and sensor specialists, defense-adjacent research institutes, and vessel manufacturers — a mix that reflects how marine autonomy sits at the intersection of navigation hardware, imaging and the physical hull.
A clear leader without a runaway monopoly
The leading assignee's 41 records sit well ahead of fifth place at 21 and tenth place at 8 — a steep early drop-off that flattens into a long tail. That shape suggests durable but not exclusive control of core claim territory.
Momentum has shifted to newer entrants
Several of the historically largest assignees show zero filings in the most recent year, while a newer entrant in autonomous collision-avoidance shows continued, if modest, activity. This is consistent with publication lag masking recent volume from established filers rather than genuine exit.
Collaboration is limited and concentrated in a few pairs
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest pairing recurs eleven times, well ahead of the next pairings at four each. Most assignees in this field file solo rather than through joint ventures or corporate co-ownership structures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ORCA AI LTD | 2 | 0% |
| Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. | 1 | — |
| FLIR Belgium BVBA | 0 | — |
| NAVICO HLDG | 0 | — |
| SEALEGS INT | 0 | — |
| Teledyne FLIR LLC | 0 | — |
| SRI International | 0 | — |
| Brunswick Corporation | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing decision
The figures above describe where claim density already sits. What they cannot tell you is whether a specific draft claim would clear that density — that requires searching the full text against your own language.
Check a draft claim against this corpus
Run a specific claim through prior-art search across the 355 records in scope, not just the most-cited ones, to see whether the language you are drafting has already been claimed by an assignee ranked in the top ten.
Search prior art in EurekaTrack the assignees still filing
Recent-year momentum shows activity shifting toward newer entrants even as historically dominant filers show zero recent output. Set up ongoing monitoring rather than relying on a single snapshot.
Monitor assignees in EurekaMap the white space before you draft
Under-claimed branches like propulsion-integrated autonomous steering or launch-and-recovery automation carry less prior art than hull or navigation claims — worth mapping before committing drafting resources.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about marine autonomy patents
This dataset contains 355 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine marine autonomy or navigation claims with vessel motion, hull structure, subsea flow or marine engine elements. That figure counts records in the specific search scope used here, not every patent that touches marine technology broadly, so a differently scoped search will return a different total. Publication lag of roughly eighteen months means the 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as more filings publish.
The ranked leaders come from marine electronics and sensor manufacturers, vessel and engine builders, and a handful of defense-adjacent research organisations. The top-ranked assignee holds 41 records in this corpus, well ahead of the field, and the top five together account for 38.9% of all 355 records. Beyond the top ten, filing activity spreads across a long tail of assignees with only a few records each, so the field is led but not monopolised.
Ships and marine vessel structure (IPC class B63B) and navigation, distance-measurement and gyroscope systems (G01C) are the two largest categories, each appearing in well over a quarter of the 355 records. Radar, sonar and positioning (G01S) and non-electric variable control (G05D) follow at smaller but still substantial shares. Propulsion and steering (B63H), launch and salvage equipment (B63C), and multi-environment vehicle designs (B60F) each cover under 10% of records, marking them as comparatively open ground.
Filing activity grew through the last fully complete year in the dataset, rising 32% from 19 records in 2021 to 25 in 2024, after an earlier peak of 45 filings in 2019. The apparent decline in 2025 and 2026 is an artefact of publication lag — patents typically take around eighteen months to publish after filing — rather than a real drop in activity. Any read of the most recent two years as a slowdown would be premature given how the underlying data accrues.
The clearest under-claimed ground sits in propulsion-integrated autonomous steering, multi-environment amphibious hull transitions, and launch-and-recovery automation for unmanned vessels — areas where IPC classes like B63H and B60F show single-digit percentage coverage of the 355-record corpus compared with the roughly 39% and 29% held by hull structure and navigation claims respectively. That gap does not mean those areas are unpatented, only that filing density is thinner, which typically means less prior art to design around for a well-drafted claim.
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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.