Rotary Steerable Systems Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
- 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.
- Filing kept growing through 2024. activity rose 13% from 2021 (102) to 2024 (115), the last year the dataset treats as complete.
- Earth and rock drilling classes dominate the corpus. E21B covers 91.7% of the 1,951 records in scope, while control systems, digital processing and AI-based computing classes each sit under 7%, marking where instrumentation and software claims remain comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (102 records) with 2024 (115) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field.
What the rotary steerable system patent record shows
Rotary steerable systems let operators steer a drill bit while rotating the drillstring continuously, replacing the slide-and-rotate cycle of older directional assemblies. The search behind this page combines system-level terms — push-the-bit and point-the-bit architectures — with control terms such as steering ratio, bias unit, steering pad, closed loop steering, toolface orientation and dogleg severity, capturing both the mechanical actuation and the control logic that decides how the tool steers.
The dataset spans 1,951 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, with receiving offices led by the United States, followed by WIPO PCT filings, the European Patent Office, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia — a filing footprint consistent with a technology whose commercial deployment concentrates in North American and North Sea drilling markets.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,951-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims fall into. Because a single record can carry more than one IPC class, the composition shares sum to well over 100%.
A decade of filing activity
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.
Where the claims sit
E21B (earth and rock drilling) covers 91.7% of the 1,951 records, confirming this is fundamentally a drilling-tool corpus. Control and regulating systems (G05B, 4.3%), digital data processing (G06F, 4.3%) and AI-based computing (G06N, 2.2%) are present but comparatively sparse, which is where software-driven steering logic still has room to be claimed distinctly from the mechanical hardware.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,951 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Rotary Steerable Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about rotary steerable systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA recent claim worth reading closely
Shear pin for deactivating a steering pad of a rotary steerable system
A body of a shear pin can be positioned in a pad stopper of a steering pad of a rotary steerable system. The rotary steerable system can be used to steer a drill in a wellbore. The steering pad can be positioned on the rotary steerable system such that a head of the shear pin is coupled with a lateral pad of the rotary steerable system. The head of the shear pin can deactivate the steering pad by preventing the steering pad from actuating. A fluid pulse can be output in the wellbore to break the shear pin for enabling the steering pad to actuate to cause the rotary steerable system to steer the drill in the wellbore.Filed by Halliburton Energy Services, published 2024-10-15 — illustrates how granular mechanical-actuation claims (a single shear pin geometry) still clear examination inside a heavily worked field.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20040149431A1 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing and monobore | 251 |
| 2 | US7066284B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 233 |
| 3 | US6438495B1 | Method for predicting the directional tendency of a drilling assembly in real-time | 155 |
| 4 | US20140291023A1 | Monitoring of drilling operations with flow and density measurement | 145 |
| 5 | US20120024606A1 | System and method for direction drilling | 139 |
| 6 | US20090000823A1 | Method of Automatically controlling the Trajectory of a Drilled Well | 134 |
| 7 | US20060124360A1 | Methods and apparatus for drilling, completing and configuring U-tube boreholes | 131 |
| 8 | US7225879B2 | Method and apparatus for a monodiameter wellbore, monodiameter casing, monobore, and/or monowell | 123 |
| 9 | US6484825B2 | Cutting structure for earth boring drill bits | 119 |
| 10 | US20130032401A1 | Methods and systems for drilling | 116 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within this searched corpus; read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once volume, growth and technology composition are read together.
A steep drop from the top filer
The leading assignee's record count is more than three times the fifth-place holder's, and the fifth-place count is over four times the tenth. New entrants are not competing against a flat field of equally sized filers — they are competing against one very large portfolio and a long tail of much smaller ones.
Filing activity is still climbing, not cooling
The rise from 102 filings in 2021 to 115 in 2024 is the last comparison the dataset supports without distortion from publication lag. Years after 2024 will look lower simply because filings from 2025 and 2026 have not all published yet, not because interest has dropped.
The corpus is drilling-hardware heavy
Earth and rock drilling claims dominate at 91.7% of records, while control systems, digital processing and AI-based computing classes each sit at or below 6.1%. That gap suggests the mechanical actuation space is thoroughly claimed while the control-software layer built on top of it is comparatively open.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to rotary steerable systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and how momentum is shifting
The ranking spans 100 companies, counted by patent family. Momentum figures compare each company's latest full year against the year before, and several of the largest historical filers show sharp year-over-year declines — a pattern consistent with publication lag rather than an actual pullback.
One filer sets the pace by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee's family count is more than triple the fifth-place holder's, reflecting decades of continuous filing across mechanical steering hardware and its control logic.
A cluster of established oilfield-services filers
Filers around the fifth position are large, multi-entity groups whose portfolios are frequently split across related corporate names for the same underlying technology, which is why co-assignee pairings appear strongly in this dataset.
Recent-year counts are down across the largest historical filers
Every major assignee tracked shows a steep year-over-year drop in the latest year, from -33% to -100%. Given the 18-month publication lag, this reads as incomplete recent data rather than an actual retreat from the technology.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | 8 | -82% |
| Schlumberger Technology B.V. | 4 | -33% |
| Schlumberger | 1 | -92% |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd. | 1 | -91% |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Geoquest Systems B.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Prad Research and Development Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with heavy mechanical coverage and lighter control-software coverage. The next step is usually to narrow from the full corpus down to a specific claim strategy.
Map a freedom-to-operate view around one steering mechanism
Narrow from the full 1,951-record corpus to the specific bias-unit or pad architecture under consideration, and check it against the leading assignee's portfolio before drafting claims.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaDraft around the control-layer white space
Given how thin G06N and G05B coverage is relative to E21B, a control-software claim built on closed-loop toolface correction or AI-driven steering-ratio adjustment is worth drafting and searching before committing engineering resources.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about rotary steerable system patents
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.
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.
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.
The clearest gap sits between the heavily claimed mechanical actuation layer, dominated by E21B filings, and the comparatively sparse control-software layer built on top of it, spanning G05B, G06F and G06N classes. Specific candidates include AI-driven steering-ratio optimisation, closed-loop toolface control software, and real-time dogleg severity prediction models, all of which sit in classes well under 7% of total records despite the mechanical hardware they operate being extensively claimed. A first filer in these areas would want to check citation density and the largest assignees' recent filings before committing to a specific claim scope.
A representative 2024 record from Halliburton, US12116893B2, claims a shear pin mechanism for deactivating a steering pad on a rotary steerable system, using a fluid pulse to break the pin and re-enable pad actuation. This illustrates how granular the mechanical claim space has become: even a single fastener geometry and its failure-triggering mechanism can clear examination in a field with 1,951 published records. It is a useful example of how narrow a workable claim can be once the broader steering architecture is already heavily covered by prior filings.
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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.