Protection Relay Testing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Flat-to-declining filings. activity peaked at 1,197 filings in 2021 and has since eased toward 2022's 1,134, with no clear rebound visible in the record.
- No dominant gatekeeper. the leader holds 5,946 records and the ranked top 5 combine for just 9.7% of all 182,864 records in scope — this is not a field one company controls.
- Software framing dominates the class mix. G06F (electric digital data processing) touches 5.8% of records, more than three times the next largest class, H04L at 1.9%.
What this landscape covers
Protection relay testing and interoperability sits at the intersection of power system protection hardware and the software tooling used to validate it — regression testing, multi-vendor injection, and end-to-end verification of relay behaviour under fault conditions. The dataset spans 182,864 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from assignees ranging from established electronics and computing majors to a long tail of single-filing entrants. Because the search string pairs hardware-testing language with software regression and interoperability terms, the corpus captures both the physical test rigs and the digital validation frameworks built around them.
Filing volume is concentrated in the mid-2010s through early 2020s, with the most recent year understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Reading the trend and the assignee spread together suggests a field where the underlying testing problem is well established but no single approach — or company — has locked down the claim space.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 182,864 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records fall under.
A peak in 2021, then a plateau
Filings rose from 986 in 2017 to a peak of 1,197 in 2021, then held near 1,134 at the 2022 midpoint before easing off. The 2026 figure of 46 is a partial year and should not be read as a collapse — publication lag means recent filings are still arriving in the record.
Software-adjacent classes lead
G06F (electric digital data processing) appears in 5.8% of all records, ahead of H04L digital transmission at 1.9% and G06N AI-based computing at 0.6%. Smaller shares in H04N, G06T, G06Q, H04W and H04B point to imaging, business-process and wireless threads attached to the core testing problem rather than standing apart from it. Classes overlap on individual records, so these shares sum past 100% by design.
Shares are the percentage of the 182,864 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Protection Relay Testing and Interoperability with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about protection relay testing and interoperability and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative record
US9355016B2 — Automated regression testing for software applications
Regression testing of an application may gather performance tests for multiple functions within an application and determine when performance changes from one version of the application to another. The analysis may be broken down by input sequences processed by various functions, with a detailed regression analysis presented as a heat map or other visualization. The system can be launched during a build process, automatically running performance tests against an application under known, consistent conditions.Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC; published 2016-05-31.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6343324B1 | Method and system for controlling access share storage devices in a network environment by configuring host-t… | 1,790 |
| 2 | US20020029032A1 | Fluorescent surgical hardware and surgical supplies for improved visualization | 1,238 |
| 3 | US6357042B2 | Method and apparatus for multiplexing separately-authored metadata for insertion into a video data stream | 972 |
| 4 | US20050195975A1 | Digital media distribution cryptography using media ticket smart cards | 926 |
| 5 | US20190201025A1 | Surgical instrument with a hardware-only control circuit | 898 |
| 6 | US20040165588A1 | Distributed network security system and a hardware processor therefor | 651 |
| 7 | US5569248A | Apparatus for subcutaneous suprafascial pedicular internal fixation | 639 |
| 8 | US5728097A | Method for subcutaneous suprafascial internal fixation | 620 |
| 9 | US5909686A | Hardware-assisted central processing unit access to a forwarding database | 603 |
| 10 | US20130219164A1 | Cloud-based hardware security modules | 601 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat this as a signal of influence, not of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about this field
Three patterns stand out once filing trend, class composition and citation data are read together.
The field has already plateaued
Filings climbed from 986 in 2017 to a 2021 peak of 1,197, then settled near 1,134 by 2022. That trajectory reads as a maturing rather than an expanding filing effort — the core testing approaches have largely been staked out, and new filings are more likely to be refinements than fresh territory.
No single assignee controls the space
The leading assignee holds 5,946 records, but the top 5 combined account for only 9.7% of all 182,864 records in scope, and the top 10 reach 13.1%. That leaves the large majority of filings distributed across a long tail — a structure that favours new entrants over incumbents defending a moat.
Software regression logic anchors the corpus
G06F's 5.8% share is more than three times the next class, H04L at 1.9%, confirming that most patent activity frames relay testing as a data-processing and regression problem rather than a pure hardware one. Classes tied to imaging, AI models and wireless transport appear only at the margins.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to protection relay testing and interoperability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the momentum sits
The ranked leaders come from computing and electronics rather than classical relay hardware manufacturing, reflecting how the search terms pull in the software-testing side of the field as strongly as the physical one.
A clear leader, but not a lock
The top assignee's 5,946 records place it well ahead of fifth place at 1,872, yet its share of the total 182,864-record corpus remains modest. Leadership here looks more like sustained filing discipline than exclusive control of any one testing method.
Momentum is cooling across the board
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum shows a decline, from a 70% year-on-year drop at the softest end to several assignees recording zero filings in the latest year. That pattern is consistent with the broader plateau in the trend data rather than any one company pulling back alone.
Collaboration is limited and internal
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest is an internal pairing between a parent company and its own regional IP arm rather than a cross-company alliance. Genuine multi-vendor co-filing — which the interoperability framing might suggest — is not a visible pattern here.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Google LLC | 3 | -70% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 2 | 0% |
| Imagination Technologies Limited | 1 | -86% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 1 | -92% |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 0 | -100% |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Microsoft Corporation | 0 | — |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 0 | -100% |
Where to go from this landscape
The figures above establish where filing activity sits today. The next layer of diligence is claim-level: what specific language the leading records use, and how close a proposed design sits to it.
Check claim scope before drafting
With the top 5 assignees holding only 9.7% of the corpus, a freedom-to-operate check needs to look well past the ranked leaders into the long tail before concluding a route is clear.
Explore claim mapping in EurekaTrack the plateau, not just the peak
A 2021 peak followed by a flattening trend usually means the obvious implementations are already filed; look for the narrower, later filings that refine rather than originate.
Run a trend query in EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset covers 182,864 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that match protection relay testing and interoperability search terms. This includes both hardware test-rig filings and software regression and multi-vendor injection tooling, since the search string spans both. Publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the most recent year's count understates actual filing activity.
The ranking covers 100 assignees, with the top-ranked holder at 5,946 records and fifth place at 1,872. Despite that gap, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 9.7% of all 182,864 records in scope, and the top 10 reach 13.1%. That means the field is led by a handful of active filers but not controlled by them — most records sit outside the ranked group entirely.
Filings rose from 986 in 2017 to a peak of 1,197 in 2021, then eased toward 1,134 at the 2022 midpoint, indicating a plateau rather than continued growth. Recent-year momentum data for tracked assignees shows declines ranging from roughly 70% down to 100% year-on-year, reinforcing that filing intensity has cooled from its 2021 high. The 2026 figure is a partial year and will rise as later filings publish.
G06F, covering electric digital data processing, appears in 5.8% of all 182,864 records, making it the single largest class by a wide margin over H04L digital transmission at 1.9% and G06N AI-based computing at 0.6%. This confirms that most patent activity treats relay testing primarily as a software regression and data-processing problem. Smaller classes tied to imaging, business processes and wireless transport appear only at the margins of the corpus.
The class composition data shows several adjacent branches with comparatively thin coverage relative to the dominant G06F and H04L classes, including AI-assisted fault-scenario regression, cross-jurisdiction conformance certification tooling, and wireless telemetry for field validation. Co-assignee data also shows only 10 identified pairs, nearly all internal to a single corporate group, suggesting genuine multi-vendor interoperability claims are not heavily contested yet. A first claim in these areas would need to tie the testing method explicitly to the underdeveloped class rather than the broad G06F framing most existing filings use.
Research Protection Relay Testing and Interoperability in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole protection relay testing and interoperability corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.