OPC UA Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Flat filing curve. activity peaked at 6 families in 2019 and the 2022 midpoint sits at 5, so the field is not accelerating the way the standard's adoption might suggest.
- H04L dominates over G05B. 22 of 31 records sit in digital information transmission versus 16 in control and regulating systems, meaning the contested ground is data exchange, not controller logic.
- Citations cluster on configuration, not security. the most-cited record addresses configuring an industrial automation system, while security profile and semantic interoperability claims appear thinner in the corpus.
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent families that combine OPC UA and related industrial interoperability claims with implementation detail — companion specifications, publish-subscribe transport, security profiles, semantic interoperability, and device onboarding. The scope is narrow by design: it excludes generic industrial-automation filings that never touch these specific mechanisms, and it is built around IPC classes covering control systems (G05B19) and network transport (H04L67, H04L69).
31 patent families are in scope, published between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in the trend understates actual filing activity and should be read as incomplete rather than as a genuine drop-off.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 31 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A flat curve since the 2019 peak
Filings rose to 6 in 2019, the high point across the whole window, then settled near the 2022 midpoint of 5 with no clear renewed acceleration through to the partial 2026 count. That pattern reads as a standard whose core mechanisms were claimed early, with incremental filing since rather than a second wave.
Transport and control split
H04L (digital information transmission) accounts for 22 of 31 records, ahead of G05B (control and regulating systems) at 16 — many families are tagged to both. G06F appears in 8 records, and B25J (manipulators and robots) and H01R (connectors) each register in single digits, marking them as adjacent rather than core to this corpus.
Shares are the percentage of the 31 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on OPC UA and Industrial Interoperability with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about opc ua and industrial interoperability and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Method for linking objects of a control program with OPC UA node sets
The method reads an OPC UA node set from a companion specification, generates OPC UA instances of the corresponding object types, combines them into an instance node set, and links those instances to PLC objects inside a controller's program code — closing the gap between a published companion specification and a working automation program.Filed by Beckhoff Automation; published 2022-08-11.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200409340A1 | Method for configuring an industrial automation system | 14 |
| 2 | US20210405624A1 | A method for transforming a data model for automation purposes into a target ontology | 9 |
| 3 | CN112130528A | 用于配置工业自动化系统的方法 | 5 |
| 4 | US20240064059A1 | OPC UA-based centralized user configuration method and system for time-sensitive network | 4 |
| 5 | US20220345354A1 | System and Method for Exchanging Data Between a Server and a Client in an Industrial Data Network | 3 |
| 6 | US20220255987A1 | Method for linking objects of a control program of a control unit of an automation system, and development en… | 2 |
| 7 | DE102019131814A1 | Verfahren zum Verknüpfen von Objekten eines Steuerprogramms einer Steuereinheit eines Automatisierungssystems… | 2 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of what earlier work later filers had to design around, not as a measure of current 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. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the trend, the IPC split and the citation table, translated into what they imply for anyone deciding where to file next.
Core mechanisms were claimed early
The peak in 2019 and the flat trajectory since suggest the foundational configuration and data-modelling mechanisms were staked out in the standard's earlier adoption years. Later filers are working around, not into, open ground.
Transport claims outnumber control claims
More families sit in digital information transmission than in control and regulating systems, indicating that data exchange mechanisms — not controller-side logic — are where the denser prior art sits.
Configuration patents anchor the field
The most-cited record concerns configuring an industrial automation system, and a second highly-cited family addresses transforming a data model into a target ontology. Both point to configuration and semantic mapping as the sub-areas later filers most often had to cite around.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to opc ua and industrial interoperability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum has stalled
The assignee ranking spans established automation vendors and a handful of Chinese research and enterprise filers. Recent-year momentum, however, is uniformly flat.
Filing is concentrated in the US and Europe
The United States receives the largest single share of records, followed by the European Patent Office, with China, Austria, Germany and India each holding smaller counts. That split points to the US and EPO as the offices where prior art is thickest.
No assignee shows recent-year growth
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including Siemens, Schneider Electric, Beckhoff, and ABB, shows zero filings in the latest year, with some registering a full -100% year-on-year drop. That is consistent with the flat overall trend rather than a sign any one filer has pulled back specifically.
Established vendors sit alongside academic filers
Alongside the automation majors, a Chinese university research institute and an enterprise IT filer appear in the ranking, suggesting interest in OPC UA interoperability extends into academic and adjacent-industry filers, not only equipment vendors.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Siemens AG | 0 | — |
| Schneider Electric Industries | 0 | — |
| Beckhoff Automation GmbH | 0 | -100% |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications Industrial Internet Research Institute | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Hualong Xunda Information Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to specific next steps rather than a single conclusion.
Check freedom to operate on configuration claims
The two most-cited records both address configuring or transforming data models for automation systems. Any new filing touching configuration workflows should be checked against these first.
Run a freedom-to-operate searchLook closer at the under-claimed branches
Security profile negotiation and semantic interoperability mapping show thinner claim density than core configuration mechanisms, which may leave room for a defensible first filing.
Explore white space with EurekaCommon questions on OPC UA patent activity
The assignee ranking in this dataset includes established automation vendors such as Siemens, Schneider Electric, Beckhoff and ABB, alongside a Chinese university research institute and an enterprise IT filer. No single assignee shows growth in the most recent tracked year — every filer in the momentum data registers zero filings in that year, some with a full year-on-year drop. That flatness across the whole assignee set, rather than one company pulling ahead, is the more notable pattern in this corpus.
Not on the evidence here. Filing peaked at 6 families in 2019, the midpoint year of 2022 sits at 5, and the most recent tracked years show no renewed acceleration. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the very latest year in any such dataset will always look artificially low, but the multi-year flatness before that point is a genuine pattern, not a data-lag artifact.
Digital information transmission claims (IPC class H04L) account for 22 of the 31 records in this corpus, ahead of control and regulating systems (G05B) at 16, meaning data exchange and transport mechanisms carry more claim density than controller-side logic. Within that, the most-cited records concern configuring an industrial automation system and transforming a data model into a target ontology, marking configuration and semantic mapping as the two most heavily anchored sub-areas.
Relative to configuration and data-modelling claims, this corpus shows thinner representation in security profile negotiation for publish-subscribe transport, semantic interoperability mapping to target ontologies, device onboarding for time-sensitive networks, and cross-vendor companion specification conformance testing. These are not empty categories, but they carry noticeably less claim density than the core configuration mechanisms that dominate the most-cited records, which is where a first, carefully scoped filing is more likely to find open ground.
Both happen in this corpus. Companion specifications themselves are published as open standards, but the representative filing here — a Beckhoff Automation patent on linking OPC UA node sets from a companion specification to PLC control-program objects — shows that the implementation bridge between a published specification and a working automation program is actively patented. That distinction matters for anyone assuming companion-specification compliance alone keeps them clear of prior claims.
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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.