Marine Propulsion Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. the five most active filers hold 30.5% of all 1,358 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Filings have roughly doubled in three years. activity rose from 39 records in 2021 to 81 in 2024, a +108% increase over that span, before the most recent two years (still filling in under publication lag) show fewer counts.
- Steering and hull claims dominate the class mix. B63H marine propulsion & steering and B63B ships & marine vessels together cover the bulk of records, leaving control, filtration and vibration-damping classes comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (39 records) with 2024 (81) — 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 1,358 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 1,358 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off, drawn from filings that combine marine propulsion, ship propulsion or marine drive language with vessel motion, hull structure, subsea or offshore structure terms. That combination captures propulsion hardware alongside the surrounding structural and control disciplines it depends on — steering gear, hull-mounted drives, control systems and the subsea or offshore equipment some vessels interface with.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the counts for 2025 and 2026 in any trend line are understated and should not be read as a slowdown. The clearest signal in this data is the three-year run from 2021 to 2024, which is treated below as the most recent complete picture of filing momentum.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 1,358 records from different angles: one tracks when filings were published, the other tracks what they claim.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 111 records in 2019, cooled, then climbed again from 39 in 2021 to 81 in 2024 — a +108% rise over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 counts as partial: publication lag means later filings in those years have not surfaced yet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B63H (marine propulsion & steering) appears on 48.5% of the 1,358 records and B63B (ships & marine vessels) on 29.4%, making these the two load-bearing classes. Control (G05D, 7.4%), engines (F02B, 5.1%), filtration (B01D, 4.8%), multi-environment vehicles (B60F, 3.9%), aircraft (B64C, 3.6%) and vibration damping (F16F, 3.5%) sit well behind — a record can carry more than one class, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,358 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Marine Propulsion Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about marine propulsion patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative recent filing
US12134454B1 — Marine propulsion system and method with single rear drive and lateral marine drive
A marine propulsion system for a marine vessel includes one steerable rear marine drive positioned along the center line of the marine vessel and a lateral marine drive positioned at a bow region of the marine vessel. The rear marine drive is steerable about a vertical steering axis to a range of steering angles. The lateral marine drive is positioned at a fixed angle with respect to the marine vessel and configured to generate lateral thrust on the marine vessel. A user input device is operable by a user to provide a propulsion demand input commanding surge movement, sway movement, and yaw movement of the marine vessel.Filed by Brunswick Corporation, published 2024-11-05 — illustrates how current claims combine a centerline rear drive with a fixed-angle bow drive to control surge, sway and yaw together.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120227389A1 | Reciprocating machine & other devices | 239 |
| 2 | US20080141921A1 | Reciprocating devices | 197 |
| 3 | US20100094490A1 | Power generation system for marine vessel | 133 |
| 4 | US5531179A | Wheel-retraction apparatus and method for amphibious vehicle | 123 |
| 5 | US4767230A | Shaft coupling | 122 |
| 6 | US20110172858A1 | Joystick controlled marine maneuvering system | 116 |
| 7 | US7984684B2 | Marine hulls and drives | 116 |
| 8 | US6188139B1 | Integrated marine power distribution arrangement | 93 |
| 9 | US20070122667A1 | Fuel cell system with integrated fuel processor | 84 |
| 10 | US20090261599A1 | Power generation system | 82 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them — read this table as a map of influence within the corpus, not as a ranking of current importance.
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 filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the records are broken down by assignee, class and geography.
The field has a clear leading group and a long tail
The five most active filers account for 30.5% of all 1,358 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 40.1%. Beyond that group the ranking thins quickly into single- and few-filing entrants, which means most of the claim space outside the leaders' core areas remains open to a new filer with a genuinely differentiated approach.
Filing activity has roughly doubled since 2021
Records rose from 39 in 2021 to 81 in 2024, a +108% increase over that span, after an earlier peak of 111 in 2019. The 2025 and 2026 figures in the raw trend look lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month publication lag rather than a real drop in filing.
Steering and hull structure carry the claim density
B63H (marine propulsion & steering) and B63B (ships & marine vessels) between them touch the majority of records, which means core drive and hull-mounted propulsion mechanisms sit on the densest prior art. Control systems (G05D), filtration (B01D) and vibration damping (F16F) each cover under 8% of records, suggesting comparatively less-crowded claim territory around how propulsion is controlled and stabilised rather than how it is built.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to marine propulsion patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Filing activity clusters around a small group of established marine propulsion manufacturers, with collaboration between named co-inventors appearing occasionally rather than as a structural pattern.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's count is nearly seven times the fifth-place total of 31, and more than ten times tenth place at 23. That gap suggests a filer with a broad, defensively built portfolio across multiple propulsion sub-areas rather than a narrow specialist position.
Collaboration is limited and inventor-anchored
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pairing appearing 10 times between one company and a named individual inventor. This points to filing built mostly around single-company ownership rather than joint-venture or cross-licensing patterns.
Recent-year activity has cooled among established filers
Several of the more established assignees show year-on-year declines in the latest year, including one at -50% and multiple others at -100% (zero filings). Given the publication lag affecting the most recent years, this is as likely to reflect filings still in the pipeline as a genuine pullback, but it is worth watching before assuming continued dominance.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Volvo Penta AB | 1 | -50% |
| Brunswick Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Biofouling Tech Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. | 0 | — |
| HINDERKS MITJA VICTOR | 0 | — |
| Total Marketing Services SA | 0 | — |
| YELLOWFIN | 0 | — |
| Gibbs Tech Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape points to a few concrete follow-ups depending on what a reader needs to decide.
Check freedom-to-operate around lateral and bow-drive claims
The representative filing here combines a centerline rear drive with a fixed-angle lateral bow drive to control surge, sway and yaw together. Anyone designing multi-drive steering systems should map claims in this specific combination before committing to a similar architecture.
Explore in EurekaWatch the leading assignee's next filing cycle
With 230 records, the top filer's next moves will likely set the direction for steering and hull-mounted drive claims. A drop to zero in the latest partial year could reverse once the publication lag closes.
Track assignee activityTest claim scope in under-claimed control and filtration classes
G05D, B01D and F16F each cover under 8% of the 1,358 records, well behind the two dominant classes. That gap is a reasonable place to look for a defensible first claim rather than crowding into steering or hull structure.
Run a white space searchCommon questions about marine propulsion patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 230 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 31 and the tenth-placed filer at 23. The top five assignees combined hold 30.5% of all 1,358 records in scope, and the top ten hold 40.1%. Beyond that group filing activity spreads across a long tail of companies and individual inventors with far fewer records each, so most of the claim space outside the leaders' core areas is still contestable.
Filing activity grew substantially in the most recent complete period, rising from 39 records in 2021 to 81 in 2024, a +108% increase. The raw counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that is a publication-lag artefact — filings typically take around 18 months to surface in public data — not evidence of a real slowdown. The technology also saw an earlier peak of 111 records in 2019, so growth in this field has not been steady but has clearly resumed since 2021.
Marine propulsion & steering (IPC class B63H) appears on 48.5% of the 1,358 records in scope, and ships & marine vessels (B63B) appears on 29.4%, making these the two dominant claim areas by a wide margin. Control systems (G05D), engines (F02B), filtration (B01D), multi-environment vehicles (B60F), aircraft (B64C) and vibration damping (F16F) each cover under 8% of records. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100%, but the relative ranking is a reliable guide to where claim density sits.
The classes furthest behind the two dominant ones — control systems, filtration, multi-environment vehicle design and vibration damping — each sit under 8% of the 1,358 records, compared with 48.5% and 29.4% for the two leading classes. That gap does not guarantee an easy filing, but it indicates comparatively thinner prior art around how propulsion systems are controlled, filtered or damped rather than how the drive hardware itself is built. A narrower search inside those specific subclasses, combined with a freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignees' portfolios, is the practical next step.
The most-cited record in this dataset is US20120227389A1, covering reciprocating machinery and related devices, with 239 citations. Several other highly cited records also relate to reciprocating mechanisms, marine vessel power generation and shaft coupling, reflecting how foundational mechanical patents accumulate citations over time. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older records simply because they have had longer to be cited, so this list should be read as a map of historical influence rather than current commercial importance.
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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.