More Electric Aircraft Power Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled hard. annual filings fell from 117 in 2021 to 34 in 2024, a 71% drop over that three-year span, in the last years the data treats as complete.
- The top of the field is not a monopoly. the five most active assignees combine for just 24.6% of all 2,313 records in scope, and the leading ten reach only 36.7% — a long tail does the rest of the filing.
- Power supply and protection dominate the claim space. H02J and H02H together touch a majority of records, while control/regulating (G05B) and switches/relays (H01H) sit far behind at 10.8% and 6.2%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (117 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 2,313 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 2,313 published records at the intersection of more electric aircraft power distribution and the switching, protection and fault-management systems that keep it safe under load. The search combines core power-distribution terms with specific failure-mode and hardware language — load shedding, solid state switching, bus tie contactor, voltage transient, feeder cable, generator bus — so the corpus is weighted toward architecture and protection claims rather than the wider electric-propulsion literature.
Filing runs from 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off, with the 2019 peak of 194 filings the high point of a cycle that has since receded. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one or two years in any chart will always understate real activity and should not be read as a decline on their own.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,313 records: how filing activity moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A filing cycle that peaked in 2019 and has since cooled
Annual filings rose to a peak of 194 in 2019, then fell across the following years; the 2021-to-2024 window alone dropped from 117 to 34, a 71% decline. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as continued decline in their own right.
Power supply and protection carry the claim density
H02J (power supply and grid systems) appears in 42.2% of records and H02H (protective circuit arrangements) in 20.5%, together anchoring the field. G06F and G01R, covering digital processing and electrical measurement, each clear 14% or more, showing how much of this architecture is now claimed alongside its monitoring and control logic rather than as bare electromechanical hardware.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,313 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on More Electric Aircraft Power Architecture with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about more electric aircraft power architecture and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited prior art
US11018521B2 — Power and data distribution module for airborne vehicles (Airbus Operations GmbH, 2021-05-25)
A power and data distribution module includes a plurality of first power supply interfaces, configured to be connected to a plurality of power supply lines, a data bus interface configured to be connected to a data bus, a plurality of power output interfaces, configured to be connected to an electrical load and to supply electrical power from a first power supply interfaces to the connected electrical loads, a plurality of voltage distribution modules coupled between the first power supply interfaces and the power output interfaces and configured to provide AC or DC voltage via the power output interfaces, a load shedding module configured to receive load shedding information via data communAbstract excerpted as published.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5572438A | Engery management and building automation system | 1,286 |
| 2 | US5696695A | System for rate-related control of electrical loads | 719 |
| 3 | US6944555B2 | Communications architecture for intelligent electronic devices | 583 |
| 4 | US20050144437A1 | System and method for assigning an identity to an intelligent electronic device | 521 |
| 5 | US20110106321A1 | Dynamic distributed power grid control system | 494 |
| 6 | US20040193329A1 | System and method for securing energy management systems | 490 |
| 7 | US20010010032A1 | Energy management and building automation system | 459 |
| 8 | US6961641B1 | Intra-device communications architecture for managing electrical power distribution and consumption | 430 |
| 9 | US6751562B1 | Communications architecture for intelligent electronic devices | 384 |
| 10 | US20030204756A1 | Push communications architecture for intelligent electronic devices | 375 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older records lead this table by construction; treat them as markers of foundational influence rather than current relevance.
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 readings of the same corpus, framed around what an R&D or IP team actually needs to decide.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The five most active assignees hold 24.6% of all records in scope and the leading ten reach 36.7%. That leaves nearly two-thirds of the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, which means freedom-to-operate analysis has to look well past the named leaders.
The cycle has turned down from its 2019 peak
Filing peaked at 194 in 2019 and dropped 71% from 2021 to 2024, the last window the data treats as complete. That is consistent with a technology area where core architecture claims were staked out early and activity is now concentrated in refinement rather than first-filing.
Power supply and protection classes crowd the center
H02J and H02H between them touch a majority of records, while H01H (switches and relays) sits at just 6.2%. Dense IPC coverage signals occupied claim space, not that the underlying hardware problem is solved — it tells a filer where the prior art is thick, not where it is good.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to more electric aircraft power architecture, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has gone quiet
Recent-year momentum across the named leaders points the same direction: filing has slowed even among the assignees that built the largest portfolios.
The largest single portfolio still trails the tail
Even the leading assignee's 183 records amount to a fraction of the full 2,313-record field, reinforcing that this is a fragmented landscape rather than one dominated by a single house.
Recent-year activity has cooled across the named leaders
Several of the most active assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year, and one shows a 50% year-on-year drop. That pattern, combined with the field-wide 71% decline from 2021 to 2024, suggests the core architecture is now largely staked out rather than actively contested.
Collaboration is limited and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, and the strongest pairing is far denser than the rest. Most filing in this field is done by a single assignee alone rather than through joint development structures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ELECTRO INDUSTRIES GAUGE TECH | 2 | -50% |
| Schneider Electric USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| EDSA MICRO CORP | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| GE Aviation Systems Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Rolls-Royce plc | 0 | -100% |
| Power Measurement Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this landscape
The numbers above answer what has been filed. The next questions are what to do with that picture.
Map freedom-to-operate against the long tail
With 63.3% of records held outside the leading ten assignees, a freedom-to-operate check needs to go past the named leaders and into the fragmented tail before committing a design.
Explore assignee detail in EurekaWatch the under-claimed sub-areas
Solid-state switching control logic and feeder-cable fault isolation show thinner filing density than the core power-distribution classes, which is where a well-drafted first claim carries more weight.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking covers 100 assignees, and the leader holds 183 records out of 2,313 in scope, with the fifth-ranked assignee at 84 and the tenth at 46. The top five together hold 24.6% of all records and the top ten hold 36.7%, which means the majority of filing activity sits outside the most active names. A freedom-to-operate review in this field needs to look at the long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, not just the largest portfolios.
Filing peaked at 194 in 2019 and has declined since, with the 2021-to-2024 window alone dropping 71%, from 117 filings to 34. That is the most recent period the dataset treats as complete, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and later years are still filling in. The pattern is consistent with a field where foundational architecture claims were staked out earlier in the cycle.
Power supply and grid systems (IPC class H02J) appear in 42.2% of the 2,313 records, and protective circuit arrangements (H02H) in 20.5%, making these the two densest claim areas. Digital processing (G06F) and electrical measurement (G01R) each exceed 14%, reflecting how much modern power architecture is claimed together with its monitoring and control software. Switches and relays (H01H), by contrast, sit at just 6.2%, a comparatively thin area given how central switching hardware is to the underlying engineering problem.
US11018521B2, assigned to Airbus Operations GmbH and issued in 2021, claims a power and data distribution module combining multiple power supply interfaces, a data bus interface, voltage distribution modules that can output AC or DC, and a load-shedding module that acts on load-shedding information received over the data bus. The claim ties physical power routing to a data-driven load-shedding decision within a single module, which is the structural feature to check against before designing a similar combined power-and-data distribution unit for an airborne vehicle. Reviewing the full claim set, not just the abstract, is necessary before relying on this characterisation for a design-around.
Filing density is comparatively thin in solid-state bus tie contactor control logic, feeder-cable fault-transient isolation, and load-shedding prioritisation algorithms relative to the dense core classes of power supply (H02J) and protection (H02H). These are sub-areas within an otherwise crowded field, so a first claim drafted specifically around one of them stands a better chance of clearing prior art than a broad power-distribution claim. Confirming this requires a targeted prior-art search on the specific sub-area, since class-level density figures only indicate where the crowding is, not where every individual claim already sits.
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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.