Offshore Platform Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 16.0% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 358 of 2,232 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Ships and drilling dominate the claim map. B63B (ships & marine vessels) and E21B (well drilling) together anchor the technology mix at 33.2% and 20.5% of records respectively, while corrosion and coatings sit in the single digits.
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak. Activity peaked at 101 records in 2020 and fell 27% from 2021 (48) to 2024 (35) over the last complete three-year span, with 2025–2026 figures still filling in due to publication lag.
Filing growth compares 2021 (48 records) with 2024 (35) — 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 2,232 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 2,232 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine offshore platform or marine vessel structures with a second technical thread — vessel motion, hull integrity, subsea flow, navigation control, or corrosion protection. That pairing narrows the field to structural and operational engineering on floating or fixed marine installations, rather than offshore engineering in general.
The technology mix leans heavily on hull and vessel claims (B63B) and well-drilling hardware (E21B), with hydraulic/waterway engineering, water treatment, coatings and corrosion protection forming a secondary tier. Filing activity is broad across receiving offices, with the United States, Europe and the WIPO PCT route carrying the largest shares.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,232-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 88 in 2017 to a peak of 101 in 2020, then declined to 35 by 2024 — a 27% drop from the 2021 figure of 48. The 2025 and 2026 counts (including 16 for 2026) are understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; they should not be read as a continuing fall.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B63B (ships & marine vessels) covers 33.2% of the 2,232 records in scope and E21B (well drilling) 20.5%, making structural vessel design and subsea drilling hardware the two largest claim areas. Corrosion protection (C23F, 4.9%) and coatings (C09D, 6.0%) are comparatively thin given how central corrosion resistance is to marine structure durability.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,232 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Offshore Platforms & Structures Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about offshore platforms & structures patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
System for corrosion protection of marine structures (US5380131A)
A system of corrosion protection and a method of applying it to items used in marine environments and susceptible to erosion or corrosion. The protection is a coating of polyamine converter and epoxy resin applied to virgin or pre-existing metallic items immersed below sea level, encapsulated in a rigid cladding such as fiberglass-reinforced pipe. On-site restoration can be performed underwater, preceded by abrasive blasting of the surface.Filed by Riserclad International, this 1995 filing predates the bulk of the dataset and anchors the corrosion-protection claim space that later filers have had to work around.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120317058A1 | Design of computer based risk and safety management system of complex production and multifunctional process … | 353 |
| 2 | US20110071963A1 | Method, System and Apparatus for Intelligent Management of Oil and Gas Platform Surface Equipment | 297 |
| 3 | US20090126616A1 | Offshore floating production, storage, and off-loading vessel for use in ice-covered and clear water applicat… | 146 |
| 4 | US20050099010A1 | Wave energy conversion system | 141 |
| 5 | US7199481B2 | Wave energy conversion system | 120 |
| 6 | US7298054B2 | Wave energy conversion system | 111 |
| 7 | US5842312A | Hysteretic damping apparati and methods | 107 |
| 8 | US20050226584A1 | Measurement of large strains in ropes using plastic optical fibers | 101 |
| 9 | US6652192B1 | Heave suppressed offshore drilling and production platform and method of installation | 96 |
| 10 | US6179070B1 | Vacuum tank for use in handling oil and gas well cuttings | 96 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; use them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three readings of the dataset that matter for deciding where to file, litigate or license.
Leadership is modest, not dominant
The five leading assignees hold 358 of 2,232 records — a real lead but far from a lock on the field. Below them, filing spreads thinly across a long tail of entrants with only a handful of records each.
Vessel structure claims lead, drilling hardware close behind
Ships and marine vessel structures (B63B) and well-drilling equipment (E21B) together account for the largest share of records, reflecting the dataset's dual focus on floating platform hulls and subsea access hardware.
Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak
After peaking at 101 records in 2020, annual filings fell from 48 in 2021 to 35 in 2024. That decline sits within the last fully-published window; more recent years are still filling in.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to offshore platforms & structures patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| M-I LLC | EIA JAN THORE | 14 |
| M-I LLC | LOGAN GORDON M | 7 |
| NESS DANNY | BARTLETT ROBERT | 4 |
| MPU ENTERPRISE | SCHIA JOHN | 4 |
| MPU ENTERPRISE | OLSEN TOR OLE | 4 |
| MPU ENTERPRISE | LANDBO TROND | 4 |
| MPU ENTERPRISE | HREID KARE O | 4 |
| MPU ENTERPRISE | HOYLAND KOLBJORN | 4 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest of them recurs across a small number of shared filings — most work here is filed by a single assignee rather than in joint ventures.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
The ranked leaders cover 100 companies drawn from the full assignee ranking; the top of that list controls a modest but real share of the field, leaving substantial room for new entrants in adjacent sub-areas.
One clear leader, no runaway dominance
The leading assignee holds 134 records, well ahead of fifth place at 44 and tenth place at 33 — a gap that narrows quickly rather than staying wide across the ranking.
A wide field of small filers
Beyond the top ten, filing volume per assignee drops off steadily. This spread suggests the field is still accessible to focused entrants rather than gated by a handful of blocking portfolios.
Momentum has shifted away from historical leaders
Several of the assignees with the largest historical counts show zero filings in the most recent year captured, consistent with the broader cooling in filing volume rather than any single company exiting the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| M-I LLC | 0 | — |
| Technip France SA | 0 | — |
| Cameron International Corp | 0 | — |
| Sika Technology AG | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Nauti-Craft Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| Hydralift AMCLYDE, Inc. | 0 | — |
| NESS DANNY | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific questions worth running deeper before committing filing or freedom-to-operate budget.
Map claim boundaries around corrosion protection
C23F and C09D together sit under 11% combined share despite corrosion being a first-order durability problem for marine structures — worth a closer claim-by-claim read.
Explore corrosion protection claimsTrack the leaders' recent-year pullback
Several top assignees show zero filings in the latest year. Confirm whether that reflects genuine strategic pullback or simply publication lag before adjusting competitive assumptions.
Check assignee filing momentumStress-test the white space chips
Under-claimed sub-areas identified here are starting points, not conclusions — run a targeted freedom-to-operate search before drafting claims in any of them.
Run a focused search in EurekaCommon questions about offshore platform patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 134 records, with the top five combined holding 358 records — 16.0% of the 2,232 records in scope. That leadership is real but not dominant: the gap between first and fifth place narrows quickly, and the remaining 84% of records are spread across a long tail of smaller filers. Anyone assessing competitive risk should look at the ranked leaders as a group rather than assuming one company controls the field.
Ship and marine vessel structures (IPC class B63B) cover 33.2% of the 2,232 records, and well-drilling equipment (E21B) covers 20.5%, making these the two densest claim areas. Hydraulic and waterway engineering, water treatment, coatings and corrosion protection form a secondary tier, each under 9% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read individually, not summed.
Filing peaked at 101 records in 2020 and fell to 35 by 2024, a 27% decline from the 2021 figure of 48 over that three-year span. That is the most reliable recent trend, because 2024 is the last year with essentially complete publication data. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a continuing collapse in activity.
US5380131A, assigned to Riserclad International, claims a corrosion protection system combining a polyamine-converter epoxy coating with a rigid cladding such as fiberglass-reinforced pipe, applicable to metallic marine structures including underwater on-site repair. It does not block corrosion protection generally — it blocks this specific coating-plus-cladding combination and the underwater application method described. Work using different coating chemistries, different cladding materials, or purely above-water application would sit outside its literal claim scope, though a full freedom-to-operate check would need to trace its actual claim language and any related family members.
Filing density is thin relative to technical importance in a few specific areas: underwater on-site coating repair, ice-covered FPSO structural adaptation, wave-energy-integrated platform structures, and intelligent subsea equipment monitoring. These sit adjacent to the dense B63B and E21B core rather than replacing it, meaning a first mover could claim specific implementations without contesting the crowded hull-structure and drilling-equipment space directly. Any claim drafted there should still be checked against the corrosion-protection cladding art that already exists, since several white-space areas border it.
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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.