Meter Communication Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Meter Communication and Data Collection Patents
53.5% concentration. The five leading assignees account for 2,991 of the 5,592 records in scope — over half the field sits with a handful of filers. Annual filings rose to a peak of 323 in 2021, then declined to 163 by 2024 — a 50% fall over that three-year span. 2017 filings stood at 295. Years from 2025 onward are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates, so treat the tail of the line as a floor, not a ceiling.
- 1CISCO TECHNOLOGY INC1,759
- 2ITRON INC447
- 3ITRON GLOBAL SARL286
- 4LG ELECTRONICS INC264
- 5TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC235
See the full meter communication and data collection 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
Who holds the most patents in meter communication and data collection?
One assignee leads with 1,759 records in this 5,592-record corpus, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 235 and the tenth-place holder at 125. The top five assignees combined hold 53.5% of all records, and the top ten hold 68.5%, so the field is concentrated at the top with a long tail of smaller filers below that line. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate should check the leader’s portfolio first, since its scale dwarfs every other filer in the ranking.
Is patent filing in this space growing or shrinking?
Filings peaked at 323 in 2021 and had fallen to 163 by 2024, a 50% decline over three complete years, so the recent trend is a pullback rather than growth. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those final years are undercounted and should not be read as continued decline. The safest read is that filing activity cooled from a 2021 high, with the most recent trajectory still unclear.
What technologies dominate meter communication patent claims?
Digital information transmission (H04L) is the largest class, touching 53.2% of the 5,592 records in scope, followed by wireless communication networks (H04W) at 24.3% and power supply and grid systems (H02J) at 15.9%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and each is measured against the full record count rather than against one another. Heavy H04L coverage means transmission-protocol claim space is crowded, not that the underlying communication problem is fully solved.
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 Meter Communication and Data Collection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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.