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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/onboard-dc-dc-converter-technology-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Power Electronics · Patent LandscapeOnboard DC-DC converter patents: who is filing, what they claim, and where the white space sits
- Filing has cooled since its 2021 peak. 83 families published that year against 55 in 2017 and a partial 20 so far in 2026 — the growth phase is behind this field, not ahead of it.
- China and the US dominate the receiving offices. 303 China filings and 247 US filings dwarf the 99 at the EPO, 75 in India and 55 in South Korea, showing where enforcement actually matters.
- No single assignee is pulling ahead right now. Every leading name in the momentum table — including BYD, ABB, Toyota and Hitachi — shows zero filings in the latest year, a sign the field is between waves rather than mid-surge.
892
Published Records
10%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-17%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What the onboard DC-DC converter patent set actually covers
The search set groups 892 patent families built around bidirectional DC-DC conversion, wide-input converters, high-density topologies and 48V-12V automotive step-down architectures. The IPC anchor is H02M3/158 and H02M3/335 — switching regulators and DC-to-DC converters with galvanic isolation — cross-referenced against B60L58, the electric-vehicle propulsion battery-management class. That combination is deliberate: an onboard converter claim rarely stands alone from either the power-electronics topology or the vehicle-level power architecture it plugs into.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the middle of 2026, with the most recent year necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by about eighteen months. Read the 2025-2026 tail as a floor, not a ceiling, on actual filing activity.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 892-family set: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A field past its filing peak
Filings rose from 55 in 2017 to a peak of 83 in 2021, held near that level through 2022 at 71, and have since trended down toward a partial 20 in 2026. That shape is consistent with a technology whose core topologies are largely claimed and where new filings increasingly target refinements rather than fresh architectures.
H02M dominates, but B60L and H02J are not incidental
H02M (power conversion) appears in 848 of 892 records, effectively the entry ticket for this search. H02J (power supply and grid systems) at 270 and B60L (EV propulsion) at 146 show the converter claims are routinely tied to vehicle-level power distribution rather than filed as standalone circuit topology. Smaller counts in H02H (protective circuits, 30), H01M (batteries, 27) and H02P (motor control, 20) mark adjacent claim territory that is thinner and worth checking for openings.
Shares are the percentage of the 892 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records anchoring this space
Representative Filing
Bidirectional DC-DC converter and method of controlling bidirectional DC-DC converter
TDK CORPORATION
A bidirectional DC-DC converter built around a transformer with two windings, a DC-AC converter on each side, and a controller that switches power in either direction between two DC voltage lines. The distinguishing feature is a light-load mode: the controller periodically halts switching to run an intermittent control operation rather than switching continuously at light loads.Filed by TDK Corporation, published 2013-12-05 as US20130322128A1.
Top-cited patents in the onboard DC-DC converter set
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030142513A1 | Factorized power architecture with point of load sine amplitude converters | 246 |
| 2 | US20090034299A1 | Apparatus and method for high efficiency isolated power converter | 141 |
| 3 | US20050152159A1 | High-frequency DC-DC converter control | 128 |
| 4 | US6320358B2 | Bidirectional energy management system independent of voltage and polarity | 125 |
| 5 | US20160329811A1 | Interleaved multi-channel, multi-level, multi-quadrant DC-DC converters | 119 |
| 6 | US20120163035A1 | Multi-phase interleaved bidirectional DC-DC converter | 96 |
| 7 | CN110401350A | 双有源全桥双向DC-DC变换器的全负载范围ZVS的移相控制方法 | 87 |
| 8 | US20120153729A1 | Multi-input bidirectional DC-DC converter | 83 |
| 9 | US20070139975A1 | Bi-directional DC-DC converter and control method | 78 |
| 10 | US20140334189A1 | Bi-directional DC-DC converter | 71 |
Citation counts are pulled from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a measure of influence on later claims, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the filing pattern signals for teams working in this space
Three read-outs from the trend, geography and citation data that matter more than the raw family count.
Filing Momentum
83 → 20
peak (2021) to latest partial year
The surge has passed
Filing volume climbed from 55 families in 2017 to a peak of 83 in 2021, held near that level in 2022 at 71, then declined. A partial 20 in 2026 will rise somewhat as publications catch up, but the multi-year direction is down, not up.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Jurisdiction Mix
303 + 247
China and US receiving-office filings
Enforcement geography is concentrated
China and the United States together account for the majority of receiving-office activity, well ahead of Europe at 99, India at 75 and South Korea at 55. Freedom-to-operate work that skips either jurisdiction is checking the wrong half of the map.
Receiving offices
Citation Anchors
246 citations
top-cited record in the set
Old architecture patents still set the boundaries
The most-cited record in this set, on factorized power architecture with point-of-load converters, dates back years and still draws the highest citation count in the corpus. Newer filings are building on — and designing around — a small number of foundational topology patents rather than starting fresh.
Most-cited records
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to onboard dc-dc converter technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Co-filing is rare in this field
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | YAO DAWEI | 2 |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | YANG XIAOBO | 2 |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | FAN GUOXING | 2 |
| Hyosung Corporation | Hyosung Heavy Industries Corporation | 2 |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | ZONG SHENG | 1 |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | YUEN KUENFAAT | 1 |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | CANALES FRANCISCO | 1 |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | Hitachi Air Conditioning Home Appliance Co., Ltd. | 1 |
Only 8 co-assignee pairs appear across the 892-family set, and the strongest pairs link a single corporate assignee to individual named inventors rather than to another company — this is a field of solo corporate filers, not joint ventures.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Assignees
Who holds the claims, and where the gate sits for new entrants
Filing leadership spans automotive OEMs, industrial power electronics majors and component specialists, but the recent-year momentum table shows none of them pushing hard right now.
Automotive OEMs
0 in latest year
momentum for BYD and Toyota
Vehicle makers filed early, not recently
BYD and Toyota both appear among the leading assignees by cumulative family count, but both show zero filings in the most recent year in the momentum data. Their claim positions were built earlier in the trend and are being maintained rather than extended.
Recent-year momentum
Industrial Power Electronics
0 in latest year
momentum for ABB and Hitachi
Established suppliers hold breadth, not recent volume
ABB and Hitachi hold some of the broadest historical filing footprints in the set, including the corpus's only recurring co-assignee pairings with named inventors. Their latest-year momentum is also flat, consistent with a mature portfolio being defended rather than expanded.
Co-assignee pairs
Component Specialists
27 families
H01M battery-adjacent overlap
Battery-interface claims are a smaller, separate cluster
Specialists filing into the H01M overlap — where DC-DC conversion claims touch battery and cell architecture directly — represent a much smaller slice of the corpus. This is where component-level suppliers rather than OEMs or industrial majors are more likely to hold defensible ground.
IPC composition, H01M
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BYD Company Limited | 0 | — |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Hyosung Corporation | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hyosung Heavy Industries Corporation | 0 | — |
| Delta Electronics, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Hitachi Computer Peripherals Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next Steps
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion.
Check freedom-to-operate against the citation anchors
The handful of highly-cited foundational patents in this set, several over a decade old, still shape what later claims can cover. Any new filing in bidirectional or point-of-load topology should be checked against them specifically, not just against recent publications.
Explore prior art in EurekaWatch for a re-acceleration signal
Filing has declined from its 2021 peak, but the leading assignees' zero-momentum status could reverse quickly if a new vehicle voltage standard or charging architecture shifts requirements. Track quarterly filings rather than relying on the annual trend alone.
Set up monitoring in EurekaMap the H02H and H02P overlaps in more depth
Protective-circuit and motor-control adjacencies show meaningfully lower filing density than the H02M core. A focused search inside those overlaps may reveal claim space that a broad keyword search like this one understates.
Run a focused search in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about onboard DC-DC converter patents
The leading assignees by cumulative family count include automotive OEMs such as BYD and Toyota, industrial power-electronics majors such as ABB and Hitachi, and specialist filers such as Hyosung. None of these leaders show filing activity in the most recent year according to the momentum data, which suggests the field's current leadership was established over the prior decade rather than being actively contested right now. A freedom-to-operate review should still treat their portfolios as live, since granted claims from earlier years remain enforceable.
No — filing peaked at 83 families in 2021, held roughly steady through 2022 at 71, and has declined since, with only a partial 20 recorded so far for 2026. Because publication typically lags filing by about eighteen months, the final 2025 and 2026 counts will rise somewhat as more records publish, but the multi-year direction is clearly downward from the 2021 peak. This pattern is more consistent with a maturing claim landscape than an emerging one.
China and the United States lead by a wide margin, with 303 and 247 receiving-office filings respectively, compared with 99 at the European Patent Office, 75 in India, 55 in South Korea and 52 filed through the PCT route. Any competitive or freedom-to-operate analysis that excludes China risks missing the majority of the documented filing activity. Europe, India and South Korea each represent a meaningfully smaller but still non-trivial share of the total.
US20130322128A1, assigned to TDK Corporation and published in December 2013, claims a bidirectional DC-DC converter built on a transformer with two windings, a DC-AC converter stage on each side, and a controller that switches power in either direction. Its distinguishing feature is a light-load intermittent switching mode, where the controller periodically halts continuous switching to reduce losses at low load. It matters because bidirectional topology with this kind of load-dependent control mode is a recurring claim element across the corpus, making it a useful reference point for design-around analysis.
The IPC composition data shows H02M (power conversion) present in the large majority of records, but adjacent classes such as H02H (protective circuits, 30 records), H02P (motor control, 20 records) and G01R (measurement, 16 records) appear far less often. That gap suggests thinner claim density where DC-DC conversion intersects protective circuitry, motor-control coordination, or integrated measurement — areas worth a targeted search rather than assuming they are as crowded as the H02M core.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Onboard DC-DC Converter Technology Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.