Rotary Steerable System Patents: Filing Trends and Where the Claim Space Still Opens Up
One filer dominates the field. the leading assignee holds 569 records against 185 at fifth place and 44 at tenth — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one. Annual filings ran from 115 in 2017 to a peak of 135 in 2018, moderating afterward but still posting 102 filings in 2021 and 115 in 2024 — a 13% rise over that span. Counts for 2025 and 2026 read low only because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months; they are not evidence of a slowdown.
- 1HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC569
- 2SCHLUMBERGER TECH CORP468
- 3SERVICES PETROLIERS SCHLUMBERGER SA239
- 4SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY BV211
- 5SCHLUMBERGER CANADA LTD185
See the full rotary steerable systems analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about rotary steerable system patents
Who holds the most patents on rotary steerable systems?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 569 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 185 and the tenth-ranked company at 44. This is a steep concentration rather than a gradual one, meaning the leader's portfolio covers a disproportionate share of the mechanical steering and control architectures documented in this dataset. Large oilfield-services groups such as Halliburton and Schlumberger and its related corporate entities account for much of this concentration, which is also why co-assignee pairings between related company names appear frequently in the data.
Is filing activity in rotary steerable systems still growing?
Yes, based on the most recent complete comparison available: filings rose from 102 in 2021 to 115 in 2024, a 13% increase. Counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower in the raw trend, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a genuine drop in activity. Any claim that filing is slowing should be treated cautiously until those later years have had time to fully publish.
What technology areas do rotary steerable system patents cover?
The overwhelming majority, 91.7% of the 1,951 records in scope, fall under IPC class E21B, earth and rock drilling, covering the mechanical steering hardware itself. Smaller but notable shares sit in geophysics and surveying (G01V, 6.1%), control and regulating systems (G05B, 4.3%) and digital data processing (G06F, 4.3%), with AI-based computing methods (G06N) at 2.2%. Because a single patent can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive shares of the corpus.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Rotary Steerable Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.