Metering Accuracy Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 43.6% of the field sits with five filers. The top five assignees account for 226 of 518 records in scope, so a handful of portfolios set the terms for anyone entering this space.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. Volume ran 94 records in 2017 and, on the last complete year, fell 23% from 22 records in 2021 to 17 in 2024 — a real slowdown, not a data artefact.
- Wireless and positioning classes dominate over flow metering itself. H04W (wireless networks) and G01S (radar/positioning) each outrank G01F (flow measurement) in class incidence, showing how much of this art is about the communications and sensing layer, not the meter.
Filing growth compares 2021 (22 records) with 2024 (17) — 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 518 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Metering accuracy under distorted waveforms sits at the intersection of measurement science and communications engineering: patents here address how a meter — electricity, gas or flow — keeps its readings correct when the input signal departs from a clean sinusoid, and how that reading is then verified, transmitted or calibrated in service. The search spans 518 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from filings that combine accuracy and error-detection language with terms like sampling rate, reference meter and standard revision.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity. The figures below use patent families and record-level shares to avoid overweighting jurisdictions or continuation filings.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 518-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the underlying technical content.
Filing trend, 2017 peak to date
Filings peaked at 94 records in 2017 and eased through the following years; on the last complete comparison, 2021's 22 records dropped to 17 by 2024, a 23% decline. Treat 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as confirming a further fall.
IPC subclass composition
H04W (wireless communication networks) appears in 36.3% of the 518 records and G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) in 28.8%, ahead of G01F (flow, level and volume measuring) at 13.7% — a reminder that much of the claimed novelty in this dataset lives in signal transport and positioning rather than in the metering element itself. Classes overlap, so shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 518 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metering Accuracy Under Distorted Waveforms with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about metering accuracy under distorted waveforms and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Device for continuous calibration of a gas mass flow measurement device (US7343775B2)
The patent describes a gas test system built from a flow loop, blower system, temperature control system, reference meter system and a unit-under-test system, arranged so the reference meter and the unit under test can be run and compared under controlled, continuously varying flow conditions.Assignee, publication date and full claim scope are shown in the table above.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170331670A1 | Network Architecture, Methods, and Devices for a Wireless Communications Network | 1,307 |
| 2 | US6405132B1 | Accident avoidance system | 1,259 |
| 3 | US20170331577A1 | Network Architecture, Methods, and Devices for a Wireless Communications Network | 1,170 |
| 4 | US7202776B2 | Method and system for detecting objects external to a vehicle | 778 |
| 5 | US7085637B2 | Method and system for controlling a vehicle | 764 |
| 6 | US20200259896A1 | Industrial Automation with 5G and Beyond | 745 |
| 7 | US5757916A | Method and apparatus for authenticating the location of remote users of networked computing systems | 745 |
| 8 | US6370475B1 | Accident avoidance system | 733 |
| 9 | US6526352B1 | Method and arrangement for mapping a road | 701 |
| 10 | US20020198632A1 | Method and arrangement for communicating between vehicles | 657 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate them; use them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of present-day 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 a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
Three findings that change how a team should read this landscape before committing search or drafting resources.
The leader board is short and heavy
One assignee alone holds 138 records, and the top five together account for 226 of the 518 records in scope. A new entrant is not filing into open ground — it is filing against a small number of dense portfolios that likely already cover core calibration and reference-meter architectures.
Growth has cooled from its 2017 high
Filing volume ran at 94 records in 2017, well above any later year, and the last complete three-year comparison shows a 23% decline from 22 records in 2021 to 17 in 2024. That is a genuine slowdown in a mature filing base, not an artefact of publication lag.
Wireless and positioning classes outweigh flow metering itself
H04W (wireless communication networks) touches 36.3% of records and G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) 28.8%, both ahead of G01F (flow, level and volume measuring) at 13.7%. Claim drafting in this field increasingly happens at the communications and sensing layer around the meter, not in the flow-measurement element.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metering accuracy under distorted waveforms, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders span telecom infrastructure, industrial flow instrumentation and automotive sensing — a wider mix than the topic name alone suggests, reflecting how much of this art sits in the communications and positioning layers around a meter.
A single dominant filer
The top-ranked assignee holds 138 of the 518 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 12 and tenth place at 11 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-and-long-tail field rather than an evenly contested one.
A narrow band below the leader
Once past the top filer, records per assignee compress quickly: fifth place holds 12 records and tenth place 11, meaning the next tier of competitors is closely matched rather than clearly differentiated.
Collaboration is limited and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest single pairing recurs across several combinations of related entities within one corporate family, suggesting joint filing here is mostly an intra-group practice rather than cross-company partnership.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Qualcomm Inc. | 2 | +100% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) | 0 | — |
| Micro Motion, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Caterpillar Inc. | 0 | — |
| Origin Wireless, Inc. | 0 | — |
| American Vehicular Sciences LLC | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Fisher Controls International LLC | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing or FTO decision
The figures above describe where the field has been. Deciding where to file next means testing specific claim language against the densest portfolios and the branches still open.
Check freedom to operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 138 of 518 records, any new filing on reference-meter calibration or in-service verification should be checked against that portfolio's claim scope first.
Explore assignee portfolios in Eureka →Draft into the under-claimed branches
Sampling-rate optimisation and standard-revision compliance testing show lower filing density than the wireless and positioning classes — a narrower but more open target for a first claim.
Run a white space search in Eureka →Track momentum, not just historical volume
Several previously active filers show no recent-year activity, while at least one shows renewed filing — a shift worth monitoring before assuming today's leader board holds.
Set up momentum tracking in Eureka →Common questions on this landscape
In this dataset it means filings that combine accuracy or error-detection claims for meters — electricity, gas or flow — with technical elements like non-sinusoidal current handling, sampling rate control, reference meter comparison, or in-service verification against a revised standard. It is a cross-disciplinary category: many records classify under wireless communications or positioning codes because the meter's accuracy claim depends on how its signal is sampled, transmitted or verified, not solely on the sensing element itself. Reviewers should not assume every relevant record sits under a flow- or electricity-specific IPC class.
The dataset ranks 100 companies by record count, with one assignee holding 138 of the 518 records in scope — far ahead of the rest of the field, where fifth place holds 12 and tenth place 11. The leading names span industrial flow instrumentation, telecom infrastructure and automotive sensing, reflecting how broadly this technical area is claimed. This is a ranked list drawn from the data endpoint, not an exhaustive list of every company active in the space.
Filing peaked at 94 records in 2017 and has trended down since; on the most recent complete comparison, volume fell 23% from 22 records in 2021 to 17 in 2024. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as confirming a continued decline. The honest read is a mature filing base that has cooled from an earlier peak, with the very latest trend still unresolved.
H04W (wireless communication networks) appears in 36.3% of the 518 records and G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) in 28.8%, both ahead of the more obviously on-topic G01F (flow, level and volume measuring) at 13.7%. H04L (digital information transmission) and H04B (transmission, general) also feature prominently. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares do not sum to 100%, but together they show that a large share of the claimed novelty sits in how meter data is sampled, transmitted or positioned rather than in the sensing element alone.
The clearest openings sit in branches with real but comparatively low filing density, such as sampling-rate optimisation for non-sinusoidal current, standard-revision compliance testing, and harmonic error correction applied specifically to flow metering rather than electricity metering. These branches appear in the corpus but well below the density of the wireless and positioning classes that dominate the leader portfolios. Any filing strategy here should still be checked against the top assignee's existing claims before assuming the space is genuinely open.
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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.