Measurement While Drilling Sensors Patents: Who Leads 2026
- Filing activity jumped 467% from 2021 to 2024, climbing from 6 to 34 in the peak year so far, well before publication catches up on the most recent filings.
- The ranking spans 84 assignees, with the leader at 155 families against a fifth-place figure of 82 and a tenth-place figure of 34 — a steep drop after the top few, then a long tail.
- E21B drilling and G01V geophysics dominate the class mix, while control systems (G05B), digital processing (G06F) and vibration sensing (G01H) remain comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (6 records) with 2024 (34) — 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.
What this landscape covers
Measurement While Drilling (MWD) sensor patents cover the instrumentation that tells a drilling crew where the bottom-hole assembly is pointed and what it is experiencing: triaxial magnetometers and accelerometers for toolface and inclination, downhole shock sensors for vibration and stick-slip detection, pressure-while-drilling transducers, and the high-temperature electronics that let all of it survive downhole conditions. The search scope pulls together MWD tools, downhole survey tools and downhole directional sensors, cross-referenced against these specific sensing and packaging technologies rather than drilling mechanics in general.
The dataset spans 117 published records filed or published between 2015 and the July 2026 cut-off, ranked across 84 assignees. Filing counts for the most recent one to two years understate true activity because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months — a filing made in late 2025 may not yet appear in this corpus.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 117-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the technical weight.
A sharp acceleration into 2024
Annual filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 34 in 2024, with the 2021-to-2024 span alone showing +467% growth. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
Drilling and geophysics classes carry the volume
E21B (earth and rock drilling) and G01V (geophysics and gravity surveying) account for the bulk of class assignments, consistent with MWD sensors being claimed primarily as drilling-string and survey subsystems. Control systems (G05B), digital processing (G06F), electric/magnetic measurement (G01R), velocity/acceleration sensing (G01P), digital transmission (H04L) and vibration measurement (G01H) each appear far less often — these are the classes worth checking for open claim space rather than assuming they are covered.
Shares are the percentage of 911 class assignments (one record can carry several), not of the record count.
Go deeper on Measurement While Drilling Sensors with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about measurement while drilling sensors and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6138774A | Method and apparatus for drilling a borehole into a subsea abnormal pore pressure environment | 279 |
| 2 | US20040149431A1 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing and monobore | 251 |
| 3 | US20110186353A1 | System and Method for Monitoring and Controlling Underground Drilling | 235 |
| 4 | US7066284B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 233 |
| 5 | US7172038B2 | Well system | 228 |
| 6 | US5200705A | Dipmeter apparatus and method using transducer array having longitudinally spaced transducers | 195 |
| 7 | US6923273B2 | Well system | 176 |
| 8 | US4958125A | Method and apparatus for determining characteristics of the movement of a rotating drill string including rot… | 146 |
| 9 | US9696198B2 | System and method for monitoring and controlling underground drilling | 144 |
| 10 | US20140251688A1 | System and method for monitoring and controlling underground drilling | 137 |
Citation counts accumulate over time and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on subsequent art, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs of the trend, class and assignee data that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
Activity accelerated sharply, not gradually
The jump from 6 filings in 2021 to 34 in 2024 is a step change, not a steady climb — consistent with sensor packages moving from lab-stage instrumentation to fieldable products across several operators at once.
A steep drop after the top few filers
The leading assignee's family count is nearly double the fifth-place figure, and by tenth place the count has fallen to 34 — a pattern of a small group holding most of the claim density while a long tail of 84 ranked assignees files occasionally.
Shock and vibration sensing is thin next to drilling mechanics
E21B and G01V carry the bulk of class assignments, but G01H (vibration and sound measurement), G01P (velocity/acceleration) and H04L (digital transmission) each sit in single or low double digits — signal processing and telemetry layers around the sensor, rather than the sensor claim itself, look comparatively open.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to measurement while drilling sensors, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
The ranked leaders sit almost entirely inside a small number of corporate families and their affiliated entities, with a long tail of occasional filers behind them.
One group's affiliated entities dominate the top of the ranking
Several of the highest-ranked names in this corpus are affiliated filing entities of the same oilfield-services group, filing under distinct corporate names across jurisdictions — a common pattern for majors that route filings through regional or functional subsidiaries.
Recent-year filing counts have gone quiet across the top names
Every assignee with visible year-over-year figures in this corpus shows flat or negative movement in the latest year, including drops to zero for several major affiliated entities. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this reads as incomplete data rather than a genuine pullback.
A wide field of single- or low-count filers
Below the small group of high-volume filers, the ranking runs to 84 assignees, many likely holding only one or a handful of families — smaller service companies, sensor specialists and a directional-drilling technology firm among them.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Motive Drilling Technologies, Inc. | 1 | 0% |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp. | 0 | -100% |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology B.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 0 | -100% |
| Weatherford Technology Holdings, LLC | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to decide.
Check freedom-to-operate before drafting
The steep drop from the leader to the tenth-ranked assignee suggests dense prior art near the top sensor claims but thinner coverage in adjacent telemetry and control-loop areas — worth a targeted search before committing claim language.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in Eureka →Watch the affiliated-entity filing pattern
Several top-ranked names are affiliated entities of one group; tracking their combined filing activity, rather than any single entity, gives a more accurate read on that group's real filing momentum.
Track assignee families in Eureka →Revisit the 2025-2026 trend once publication catches up
The apparent flattening in the most recent one to two years is a publication-lag artefact, not a real signal yet — re-run this view in six to twelve months for a fairer read.
Set a monitoring alert in Eureka →Common questions about MWD sensor patents
The ranking in this dataset is led by an assignee with 155 families, well ahead of the fifth-ranked entity at 82 and the tenth-ranked at 34. Several of the highest-ranked names are affiliated filing entities of the same major oilfield-services group, filing under distinct corporate names in different jurisdictions. Below that leading cluster, the ranking runs to 84 assignees in total, with many holding only a small number of families each, so the field is concentrated at the top but has a long tail beneath it.
This landscape covers triaxial magnetometers and accelerometers used for toolface and directional measurement, downhole shock sensors for vibration and stick-slip detection, pressure-while-drilling transducers, and the high-temperature electronics that let these components operate downhole. The IPC class breakdown shows most records sitting in E21B (drilling) and G01V (geophysics), with smaller but still present activity in control systems, digital processing and vibration measurement classes.
Filing activity grew sharply, up 467% from 2021 to 2024, with 2024 standing as the peak year so far at 34 filings. The apparent dip in 2025 and 2026 is not a real slowdown — patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any filing trend are always undercounted until later data catches up.
Based on IPC class density, digital transmission (H04L), vibration and sound measurement (G01H), and control and regulating systems (G05B) show noticeably lower filing counts than the core drilling and geophysics classes. That pattern suggests the telemetry, signal-conditioning and control-loop layers around MWD sensors carry lighter claim density than the sensor hardware itself, making them worth a closer freedom-to-operate look for new entrants.
The most-cited record in this corpus is US6138774A, covering drilling into subsea abnormal pore pressure environments, cited 279 times within the searched scope. Several other highly cited records relate to monodiameter wellbore and casing systems and downhole drilling monitoring and control, reflecting how foundational drilling-system patents accumulate citations from later, narrower sensor filings. High citation counts favour older patents and should be read as a measure of influence on subsequent filings rather than current commercial weight.
Research Measurement While Drilling Sensors in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole measurement while drilling sensors corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.