Power Inductor Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2023 at 15 records and have since flattened, with the 2022 midpoint at 12 — this looks like a maturing claim space rather than a growing one.
- The top 5 assignees hold 34.2% of all 152 records while the top 10 hold 47.4%, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants competing for the remainder.
- China and the US dominate filing offices with 69 and 56 receiving-office filings respectively, far ahead of WIPO, EPO, Japan and India combined.
What this landscape covers
This dataset covers 152 published patent records filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine power inductor or molded/metal-composite inductor terminology with claims touching saturation current, DC resistance, core loss at high frequency, acoustic noise or shielding, classified under H01F17, H01F27 or H01F1. The scope is deliberately narrow: it isolates the engineering trade-offs that define modern surface-mount power inductors rather than inductive components in general.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend is understated and should not be read as a drop-off. The picture that emerges is one of a technically mature but still actively contested claim space, concentrated around a handful of established magnetics and passive-component manufacturers with a long tail of smaller Chinese suppliers filing narrower, manufacturing-specific claims.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 152 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those records distribute across IPC subclasses.
A flattening filing curve
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 15 in 2023, with the 2022 midpoint at 12 — flat-to-declining momentum rather than sustained growth. Read the final year or two as provisional given publication lag.
Concentrated in H01F, with light spillover
All 152 records in scope carry an H01F classification by construction of the search. Secondary classes are thin: H05K appears on 3.3% of records, H01L, H10D and H10N each on 2.0%, and powder-metallurgy (B22F) and ceramics (C04B) classes each on 1.3% — signalling that most inventive activity stays within core magnetics rather than crossing into semiconductor packaging or materials science.
Shares are the percentage of the 152 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Power Inductors and Molded Chokes with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about power inductors and molded chokes and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US9558881B2 — High current power inductor
A surface mount power inductor includes a preformed conductive winding clip and first and second-shaped core pieces. The core pieces may be configured to reduce unbalanced force experienced in the power inductor in certain types of power management circuitry. Reduction in the unbalanced force reduces vibration of the power inductor in use, and in turn reduces acoustic noise as the power inductor operates.Filed by Eaton Intelligent Power, granted 2017-01-31 — illustrative of how acoustic-noise reduction is claimed through mechanical core-piece geometry rather than material composition.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4047138A | Power inductor and transformer with low acoustic noise air gap | 120 |
| 2 | JP2016025352A | Soft magnetic metal powder and production method thereof | 54 |
| 3 | US20170178794A1 | Modular integrated multi-phase, non-coupled winding power inductor and methods of manufacture | 49 |
| 4 | US20140313003A1 | High current power inductor | 47 |
| 5 | US20130169401A1 | Power inductor and method of manufacturing the same | 40 |
| 6 | US20100308949A1 | Multilayer power inductor using sheets charged with soft magnetic metal powder | 39 |
| 7 | US20140145812A1 | Multilayer inductor and method for manufacturing the same | 32 |
| 8 | US20040108934A1 | Chip type power inductor and fabrication method thereof | 29 |
| 9 | US7069639B2 | Method of making chip type power inductor | 28 |
| 10 | US20180366246A1 | Power inductor | 27 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of longer exposure to the citing corpus; treat this as a signal of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three signals worth weighing before drafting new claims in this space.
The top of the field is set, not open
With just five assignees holding over a third of all records, the core mechanical approaches to acoustic-noise reduction and shielding are well staked out. New entrants are more likely to find room in manufacturing process claims than in structural ones.
Flat trend, not a growth curve
Filing activity climbed from 4 in 2017 to a 2023 peak of 15, then held near the 2022 level of 12. That pattern reads as a technology settling into incremental refinement rather than one still expanding into new claim territory.
China and the US carry the filing volume
China and United States receiving offices together account for the large majority of filings, with WIPO, EPO, Japan and India trailing well behind. Any freedom-to-operate check needs to prioritise these two jurisdictions first.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to power inductors and molded chokes, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
87 assignees are ranked in this dataset — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the full ranking the data returns. The leader holds 20 records; by fifth place that has fallen to 5, and by tenth place to 3, which is the shape of a concentrated head and a long tail.
A single leader well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 20 records against a fifth-place count of 5 — a steep drop-off that suggests one company has built a broad portfolio around core power-inductor structures while others hold narrower positions.
Thin margins beyond the top five
Positions five through ten are separated by only two records, meaning a handful of new filings could reshuffle mid-table rankings. This is where a modestly resourced filer can still move up.
Co-filing is limited and recurring
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with one pairing recurring across three joint records and two other pairings appearing twice. Joint filing is not the norm in this field; most assignees file solo.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Cooper Technologies Company | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Sunlord Microelectronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Moda Innochips Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Guiyang Sunlord Xunda Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hengdian Group DMEGC Magnetics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Sunlord Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature core and a thinner set of adjacent branches. Two directions follow from that.
Scan freedom-to-operate on shielding claims
With shielding named explicitly in the search scope and structural approaches already well claimed by the top five assignees, any new shielding design should be checked against those holders before drafting.
Run a claim scan in EurekaTrack the mid-table for new entrants
The thin gap between fifth and tenth place means new filings can shift rankings quickly. Monitoring this band over the next filing cycle will show whether the field is consolidating further or opening up.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaCommon questions about power inductor patents
Filing in this space is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 20 of the 152 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 5 and the tenth-ranked at 3. The top 5 assignees combined account for 34.2% of all 152 records, and the top 10 for 47.4%. Beyond that, the field spreads across a long tail of 87 ranked assignees, many with only one or two filings, so the picture is one dominant leader plus a fragmented remainder rather than an even split among a handful of firms.
Not strongly. Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 15 in 2023, but the 2022 midpoint of 12 shows growth had already flattened before the peak, and activity has not continued climbing since. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the final year or two in any trend chart will always look lower than it eventually will, but the overall shape is flat-to-declining rather than expanding. That points to a technology in incremental-refinement mode rather than one attracting a wave of new entrants.
US9558881B2, assigned to Eaton Intelligent Power and granted in early 2017, claims a surface-mount power inductor built from a preformed conductive winding clip and shaped core pieces designed to reduce unbalanced force in the assembly. That reduction in unbalanced force is claimed as the mechanism for lowering vibration and, in turn, acoustic noise during operation. It is a structural, mechanical-geometry approach to noise reduction rather than a materials or winding-pattern approach, which matters for anyone trying to design around it — alternatives that change core shape philosophy or move noise control into the winding pattern rather than the core-piece fit sit outside this specific claim mechanism.
China and the United States dominate, with 69 and 56 receiving-office filings respectively out of the records in this dataset. WIPO (PCT) filings trail at 10, European filings at 8, and Japan and India each in single digits. Any clearance or freedom-to-operate work should treat Chinese and US filings as the priority, since together they represent the large majority of documented activity, with PCT filings serving as the main route into broader coverage beyond those two markets.
The IPC composition data shows filing activity concentrated almost entirely in H01F (magnets, inductors and transformers), with only thin spillover into printed-circuit integration (H05K, 3.3% of records), semiconductor-adjacent classes (H01L, H10D, H10N, each 2.0%), and materials-side classes like powder metallurgy (B22F) and ceramics (C04B), each at 1.3%. Those thin branches — powder-core molding, ceramic-substrate core loss, and shielding techniques borrowed from semiconductor packaging — carry real search hits but far less claim density than the core structural space, which makes them worth a closer look for anyone drafting new applications rather than competing head-on with the top assignees.
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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.