Planetary Gear Tooth Contact Interface Patent Snapshot
This is a highly concentrated, specialist niche: 11 patent families in scope, with Genesis Advanced Tech holding the plurality position and the top five filers collectively accounting for 94% of activity among the hundred largest filers. Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has since declined, signalling a field that has moved past its primary invention phase.
Genesis Advanced Tech leads a heavily consolidated niche
Genesis Advanced Tech Inc commands the leading position in this niche, followed by Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp in second place. The ranking is steeply tiered, with a significant gap between these two leaders and the remaining applicants.
The top five filers account for 94% of combined activity among the ranked applicants visible in this query — an unusually high concentration that reflects a narrow, specialist application domain rather than a broad technology platform. The remaining applicants each hold only one or two patent records.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Genesis Advanced Tech Inc | 7 | |
| 2 | PRATT & WHITNEY CANADA CORP | 4 | |
| 3 | United Technologies Corporation | 2 | |
| 4 | JATCO Ltd | 2 | |
| 5 | Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd | 1 | |
| 6 | RTX Corporation | 1 |
The leaders’ positions imply that meaningful IP coverage in planetary gear tooth contact interfaces is effectively controlled by two principal actors — Genesis Advanced Tech and Pratt & Whitney Canada — with secondary participation from United Technologies (now part of the RTX family), JATCO, and Sumitomo Heavy Industries. A new entrant faces an established, if compact, incumbency.
The most recent filing years should be treated as under-counted due to standard patent publication lags of 18–24 months; however, the absence of filings from 2022 onwards across the trend data is consistent with the lifecycle assessment of a field past its peak.
A 2018 peak followed by quiescence; gearing fundamentals dominate the technology mix
The filing trend and technology composition together describe a field that had a brief, concentrated burst of activity around 2018–2021, with gearing and transmission classifications accounting for the large majority of coverage.
Annual filing trend
Activity spiked in 2018 with five filings, eased to two in 2020 and four in 2021, then fell to zero from 2022 onwards. Given publication lag, the post-2022 period may be marginally under-counted, but the overall pattern is consistent with a field past its primary invention peak. The 2018 spike likely corresponds to the concentrated filing programme of the leading applicant.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
F16H (Gearing & transmissions) is the visible IPC class with 20 patent records, reflecting the core mechanical focus of the field. F02C (Gas-turbine plants) and F16D (Clutches & brakes) form a secondary tier with four and three records respectively. Several adjacent classes — including powder metallurgy, gear cutting, metal working, abrasive blasting, aircraft equipment, coatings, turbine engines, and lubrication — each appear only once, indicating sparse but technically relevant peripheral coverage.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Differential planetary gearbox
A torque transfer device has plural planets arranged for planetary rotation about one or more sun gears and within one or more ring gears. Each planet includes at least one planetary gear set comprising plural planetary gears connected to rotate together, but having a different diameter to form a differential gear system. To improve load sharing, the plural… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lubrication system for aircraft engine reduction g… | 32 |
| 2 | Epicyclic gear | 12 |
| 3 | Epicyclic gear | 10 |
| 4 | Surface treatment method for pinion gear of planet… | 7 |
| 5 | Lubricating structure for epicyclic gear device an… | 7 |
| 6 | Differential planetary gearbox | 3 |
| 7 | Internal planetary gear structure | 3 |
| 8 | Lubrication system for aircraft engine reduction g… | 2 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Genesis Advanced Tech Inc
Genesis Advanced Tech holds seven patent records — the largest position in this niche — concentrated across F16H1 (gearing fundamentals), F16H48 (differential gearing), and F16H55 (gear tooth geometry). This focus on core gear mechanics and differential planetary architectures reflects a systematic effort to protect the foundational contact interface design space. Applicant momentum data is not available for the recent period.
patent records: 7Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp
Pratt & Whitney Canada holds four patent records, with emphasis split between F02C7 (gas-turbine plant ancillaries) and F16H57 (gearing lubrication and housings), plus one record in B64D35 (aircraft propulsion). This combination signals an application-driven approach: tooth contact interface solutions developed specifically for aircraft engine reduction gearboxes. The top-cited patent in the corpus — a lubrication system for aircraft engine reduction gearboxes — is consistent with this applicant’s technical focus.
patent records: 4Frequently asked questions
The corpus comprises 11 patent families in scope. This is a narrow, specialist niche rather than a broad technology platform, and the small corpus size reflects the precision of the search scope rather than a data gap.
Genesis Advanced Tech Inc holds the largest position with seven patent records, focused on gearing fundamentals (F16H1), differential gearing (F16H48), and gear tooth geometry (F16H55). Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp is the second-ranked filer with four patent records.
Europe (EPO) and the United States each host six patent records, making them the dual primary jurisdictions. Japan holds three records, and Canada holds two. Any freedom-to-operate assessment should prioritise EPO and US coverage.
The field is assessed as in decline. Annual filings peaked in 2018 and have eased back substantially since, with no recorded activity from 2022 onwards in the trend data. The primary invention phase for core tooth contact interface architectures appears to be complete.
Five IPC branches each hold only one patent record: powder metallurgy (B22F), gear and thread cutting (B23F), general metal working (B23P), abrasive blasting (B24C), and aircraft equipment (B64D). These represent observations of relative sparsity adjacent to the visible F16H gearing classification.
No co-applicant or collaborative patent activity is detected in the evidence for this corpus. All identified filers have operated independently within this niche.
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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.
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