Non-Terrestrial Network Reliability Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 71 families and has slowed since, with the most recent year understated by publication lag.
- Reliability claims concentrate in transmission and network layers H04B and H04W together account for far more filings than spacecraft hardware subclasses like B64G.
- Only one assignee shows strong current momentum Samsung Electronics leads recent-year filings while several historically prominent filers show none.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (65) — 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 880 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 880 patent families published between 2015 and 2026 that combine non-terrestrial network or satellite communication language with a specific reliability mechanism: link availability, radiation-tolerant payload design, or fault-tolerant satellite link handling. Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 71 families and has since slowed, though the most recent year is understated because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months.
Claim density sits overwhelmingly in transmission and network-layer subclasses rather than spacecraft hardware, and current filing momentum is concentrated in a small number of active assignees rather than spread evenly across the historically prominent names that dominate the most-cited records.
Filing trends and technology composition
Filing activity across the 880-family corpus peaked in 2017 and has since slowed, while the technology composition shows reliability claims concentrated heavily in transmission and network-layer subclasses rather than spacecraft hardware.
Filings rose sharply then slowed after 2017
Filings climbed to a peak of 71 in 2017, fell back to 18 at the 2022 midpoint, and sit at 20 in the most recent year on record — a partial and understated figure given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication.
Reliability claims cluster in transmission and network layers
H04B (transmission, 582 records) and H04W (wireless networks, 292) dominate the composition, with H04L digital transmission close behind at 205. Antenna claims (H01Q, 111) and spacecraft/cosmonautics claims (B64G, 22) trail well behind, indicating the hardware-durability side of the field carries far less claim density than the link-management side.
Shares are the percentage of the 880 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Non-Terrestrial Network Reliability and Durability with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about non-terrestrial network reliability and durability and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
WO2025174123A1 — Managing data delivery in store-and-forward mode within a satellite communication network
The disclosure describes a 5G or 6G communication system in which a ground station detects an event associated with a user equipment, determines feeder-link availability and expected delivery time from satellite constellation availability or time until next connection, and reports both to an application function.Filed by Samsung Electronics, published 2025-08-21.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4495619A | Transmitter and receivers using resource sharing and coding for increased capacity | 452 |
| 2 | US6810527B1 | System and method for distribution and delivery of media context and other data to aircraft passengers | 411 |
| 3 | US6323980B1 | Hybrid picocell communication system | 268 |
| 4 | US6091933A | Multiple satellite system power allocation by communication link optimization | 266 |
| 5 | US7551921B2 | Wireless communications system with parallel computing artificial intelligence-based distributive call routing | 264 |
| 6 | US7680516B2 | Mobile millimeter wave communication link | 239 |
| 7 | US20210114616A1 | Device, system, and method of wireless multiple-link vehicular communication | 216 |
| 8 | US5452294A | Method and apparatus for adaptive route selection in communication networks | 193 |
| 9 | US20170288769A1 | Flexible beamforming for satellite communications | 152 |
| 10 | US20030050008A1 | Scalable satellite data communication system that provides incremental global broadband service using earth-f… | 141 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations within the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of historical influence rather than current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern actually indicates
Three signals stand out once the raw counts are read against filing recency and claim distribution rather than totals alone.
Growth has slowed, not stopped
Filings rose to a 2017 peak of 71, sat at 18 by the 2022 midpoint, and register 20 in the most recent year. Given the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, that last figure will climb further before the picture is final.
Link-layer claims dwarf spacecraft-hardware claims
General transmission claims (H04B) outnumber spacecraft and cosmonautics claims (B64G) by more than 25 to 1. Reliability in this corpus is overwhelmingly a link-management and protocol problem on paper, not a payload-hardware one.
One filer is visibly active, most are not
Samsung shows 7 filings in the latest year against 1 each for Viasat and Huawei, while Hughes Network Systems, DirectTV and the European Space Agency register zero. Current competitive pressure is concentrated, not spread evenly across historical filers.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to non-terrestrial network reliability and durability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where it is open
Recent-year filing momentum is concentrated in one active assignee, while several names associated with the field's most-cited historical patents show no current filings — a gap between historical influence and present competitive pressure.
Samsung is the only high-volume current filer
Samsung Electronics shows 7 filings in the latest year, well ahead of any other named assignee, concentrated around store-and-forward link-availability and delivery-time reporting mechanisms.
Smaller, targeted filing rather than broad platform claims
Viasat and Huawei each register 1 filing in the latest year, both associated with individually named co-inventors rather than large in-house teams, suggesting narrower claim scope.
Historical influence has not translated to current filing
Hughes Network Systems, DirectTV and the European Space Agency show zero filings in the latest year despite historical prominence, including ESA's strongest co-assignee pairing with a university partner.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 7 | 0% |
| Viasat, Inc. | 1 | 0% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 1 | — |
| HUGHES NETWORK SYST | 0 | — |
| DirecTV Group, Inc. | 0 | — |
| European Space Agency | 0 | — |
| Kratos Integral Holdings, LLC | 0 | — |
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and claim-distribution patterns above point to specific next checks depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space targeting or competitor tracking.
Check freedom-to-operate against active filers
Samsung's current filing pace makes its store-and-forward and feeder-link claims the most relevant starting point for any new link-management filing.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTarget the spacecraft-hardware gap
B64G and G06F filing volume is a fraction of the H04B/H04W cluster, indicating room for a well-drafted onboard-hardware reliability claim.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack dormant historical assignees for re-entry
Names like Hughes, DirectTV and ESA hold influential older patents but show no recent filings — worth monitoring for renewed activity or acquisition.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on NTN reliability patents
In this dataset it means a filing that combines NTN, satellite communication or general non-terrestrial network language with a specific reliability mechanism — link availability determination, radiation-tolerant payload design, or fault-tolerant satellite link handling. That combination is what the underlying search string targets across 880 patent families published between 2015 and 2026. A patent that only mentions satellite communication without one of those reliability elements would not be captured here.
Recent-year momentum data shows Samsung Electronics with the highest current filing count at 7 in the latest year, well ahead of Viasat and Huawei at 1 each, while several historically prominent filers including Hughes Network Systems and the European Space Agency show zero filings in the latest year. That pattern suggests the field's most active current filer is concentrating on link-layer and store-and-forward mechanisms rather than payload hardware. Older, heavily-cited foundational patents belong to different assignees entirely, which is a reminder that citation counts favour age over current relevance.
Patent applications are typically published around 18 months after they are filed, so any year within that window is structurally incomplete in the data at the time of the count. The filing trend here shows 20 records in the most recent year, but that number will rise as later publications catch up. Readers should treat the last one to two years of any trend chart as a floor, not a ceiling, and rely on the multi-year pattern rather than the final data point alone.
The clearest gap is spacecraft-side hardware durability: B64G (cosmonautics and spacecraft) accounts for only 22 of 880 records and G06F (data processing) for 27, versus 582 for general transmission and 292 for wireless network claims. That imbalance means radiation-tolerant onboard processing and fault-tolerant payload electronics are thinly claimed relative to link-management and protocol-level reliability logic. A claim that ties a specific onboard hardware fault-detection mechanism to a defined link-availability outcome sits in less crowded territory than another feeder-link signalling claim.
The co-assignee data shows only 10 joint-filing pairs across the whole corpus, and the receiving-office spread across the United States, Europe, WIPO, India, Israel and Canada indicates filings are distributed across many jurisdictions rather than locked into one regime. Filing momentum is currently led by one company at meaningfully higher recent volume than the rest, but the historical most-cited records belong to different, often older assignees. That combination — an active current leader plus a long tail of smaller and dormant filers — points to a field that is not yet locked down by any single company.
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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.