Onboard DC-DC Converter Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2024 at 8 families, then growth flattened rather than accelerating into 2025-2026 — the field is not in a filing surge.
- The core IPC class H02M carries every one of the 50 families, while adjacent classes like B60L and H01M each hold only 1-2 records — vehicle-integration and battery-interface claims are thin.
- US filings (24) outnumber the next office, India (11), by more than 2:1, so a US-only novelty search will miss a meaningful share of the prior art sitting in Indian filings.
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent families addressing onboard DC-DC converter efficiency enhancement — soft-switching topologies, light-load efficiency, and loss-reduction circuit techniques classified under H02M3/158, H02M1/00 and H02M3/00. The dataset spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, covering 50 published patent families across six receiving offices.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend line are understated relative to what has actually been filed. Family counts, not raw document counts, are used throughout so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates do not inflate any single assignee's apparent activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 50-family dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those filings distribute across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings were effectively at zero in 2017, rose through the intervening years, and peaked at 8 in 2024. The 2022 midpoint sits at 7, close to the peak, which points to a flat-to-declining trend rather than sustained growth — 2025 and 2026 figures should be read as partial given publication lag.
IPC subclass distribution
All 50 families sit in H02M, the core power-conversion class. H02J (power supply and grid systems, 10 records) and G05F (variable control, 6 records) are the largest adjacent classes; B60L (EV propulsion), H03K, H01F, H01M and H03F each appear in only one or two families, marking them as thin, under-claimed intersections rather than settled ground.
Shares are the percentage of the 50 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
Hybrid series/parallel piezoelectric-resonator based DC-DC converter
A DC-DC converter for converting an input voltage from a battery source includes a piezoelectric converter and a switched capacitor network between the battery source and the piezoelectric converter. The switched capacitor network provides a flying capacitor configured to be soft-charged and soft discharged due to an inductive operation of the piezoelectric converter such that charge-sharing loss of the flying capacitor is eliminated.Filed by The Regents of the University of California and published 2025-04-24, this record illustrates the direction newer filings are taking: moving loss-reduction mechanisms into the switched-capacitor and piezoelectric-resonator domain rather than refining conventional inductor-based soft-switching.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6977488B1 | DC-DC converter | 89 |
| 2 | US9698674B1 | Timing based approach for efficient switched mode power conversion | 25 |
| 3 | US20050280401A1 | Efficiency improvement of DC-DC converter | 25 |
| 4 | US20170117731A1 | Power source device | 24 |
| 5 | US10305363B1 | Current doubling DC-DC converter with efficient sleep mode | 21 |
| 6 | US20080175025A1 | DC-DC converter and method in wireless communication system | 20 |
| 7 | US8872487B2 | Scalable buck-boost DC-DC converter | 10 |
| 8 | US9425749B2 | DC-DC converter incorporating trim cell | 9 |
| 9 | EP2518855A2 | Switching coordination of distributed DC-DC converters for highly efficient photovoltaic power plants | 9 |
| 10 | US20220399804A1 | Active-clamp forward converter with regenerative snubber | 7 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations within this corpus — treat them as a marker of influence on the field's vocabulary, not as a ranking of current relevance. US6977488B1 leads at 89 citations, well ahead of the next tier clustered around 21-25.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once family counts and IPC composition are read together.
Claim space is concentrated in one subclass
Every family in this dataset touches H02M, and the next largest classes — H02J and G05F — are support and control circuitry rather than alternative conversion topologies. A new filing aimed squarely at H02M3/158 soft-switching claims is entering the most contested part of the landscape.
No single assignee is currently accelerating
None of the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum — including Intel, Dialog Semiconductor, GE, Murata and Delta Electronics — show any filings in the latest tracked year. Combined with the flat 2022-2024 trend, this suggests the field is between filing waves rather than mid-surge.
US and India dominate the filing record
The United States accounts for nearly half of all publications, with India a distant but clear second. China, EPO and PCT filings are comparatively sparse, which matters for freedom-to-operate work focused on Asia-Pacific manufacturing bases.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to onboard dc-dc converter efficiency enhancement, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is active, and where the gaps sit
The assignee set spans large semiconductor and automotive electronics firms alongside university and single-filer entrants; recent-year momentum has stalled across the tracked names.
Large IC and power-management firms hold legacy positions
Firms such as Intel, Dialog Semiconductor and Microchip Technology appear in the assignee set but show no filings in the most recent tracked year, consistent with the broader flat trend rather than any pull-back specific to one company.
Automotive-specific claims remain thin
Hitachi Automotive Systems appears among the assignees, but the B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) overlap sits at just 2 of 50 records — most soft-switching and loss-reduction claims are written as general power-conversion circuits rather than vehicle-integrated systems.
Universities and one-off filers fill the tail
The Regents of the University of California, Catholic University of Leuven, and IIT Kharagpur sit alongside semiconductor components firms — a pattern typical of a field where core topology claims are established but circuit-level refinements are still being filed by smaller or academic teams.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Dialog Semiconductor | 0 | — |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Delta Electronics, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Microchip Technology Incorporated | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The trend and assignee data point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing, or competitor tracking.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on H02M3/158
With all 50 families sitting inside H02M, any new soft-switching filing should be checked against the highest-cited records first, since those define the vocabulary the rest of the corpus builds on.
Explore in EurekaDraft around the thin adjacent classes
B60L, H01M and H03K overlaps each carry only one or two records — that is where a first claim has the most room before running into dense prior art.
Explore in EurekaTrack assignees through the next filing wave
Recent-year momentum is flat across every tracked assignee; a renewed filing wave from any one of them would be an early signal worth monitoring.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The core class is H02M, which covers all 50 families in this dataset and includes power conversion circuits generally. Related subclasses H02M3/158, H02M1/00 and H02M3/00 specifically address DC-DC conversion and its control circuitry. Adjacent classes worth checking are H02J for power supply and grid integration and G05F for variable electrical control, since converter efficiency claims frequently reference control-loop elements classified there.
The assignee set spans large semiconductor and power-management firms including Intel, Dialog Semiconductor and Microchip Technology, automotive electronics specialists such as Hitachi Automotive Systems, and academic institutions including the University of California and IIT Kharagpur. None of the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum show filings in the latest year, indicating the field is between active filing waves rather than led by one accelerating player. This mix of corporate and academic filers is typical of a mature but still-developing circuit technique.
Filing activity peaked at 8 families in 2024, with the 2022 midpoint already at 7 — a pattern that reads as flat rather than growing. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts are understated and should not yet be read as a decline. The safest reading is that filing volume has plateaued after building steadily from near zero in 2017.
The clearest gaps sit at the edges of the core H02M class: B60L (EV propulsion integration), H01M (battery interface) and H03K (pulse-technique control) each appear in only one or two of the 50 families. Piezoelectric-resonator and switched-capacitor soft-charging approaches, illustrated by the University of California's 2025 filing, also represent a less-crowded mechanism compared to conventional inductor-based soft-switching. A first claim in any of these intersections faces materially less prior art than one filed squarely in H02M3/158.
The United States accounts for 24 of the 50 published records, more than double the next office, India, at 11. Europe (EPO), China and WIPO/PCT each contribute a smaller share, 4-5 records apiece. A search or filing strategy focused only on the US and EPO would miss the meaningful India-filed portion of this corpus, so India should be included in any freedom-to-operate review for this technology.
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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.