Side Stick and Inceptor Design Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
Side stick and inceptor design patents: who leads and where the claim space is still open
Concentrated at the top. The leading assignee alone accounts for 63 of 196 records in scope, and the top 5 combine for 64.8% of the field. Filings climbed to a peak of 42 in 2020, then settled into a lower but still active band; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a 75% rise (8 to 14) before publication lag makes the last two years look artificially thin.
- 1BAE SYSTEMS PLC63
- 2SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORP24
- 3BOMBARDIER INC23
- 4HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC9
- 5SKYRYSE INC8
See the full side stick and inceptor design 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in side stick and active inceptor design?
One assignee leads with 63 of the 196 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 8. The top 5 assignees together hold 64.8% of all records, and the top 10 reach 82.1%. Below that line, activity spreads thinly across a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, so a new entrant is more likely to compete against that long tail than against the leader directly.
Is filing activity in this field growing or slowing down?
Filing rose 75% from 8 records in 2021 to 14 in 2024, after an earlier peak of 42 in 2020. The years after 2024 currently show lower counts, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than a real drop in filing, so it is too early to call the field slowing based on the most recent two years alone.
What technology areas do these patents actually cover?
The bulk of records, 71.4% of the 196 in scope, sit under B64C, the IPC subclass for aeroplanes and helicopters, meaning most claims are anchored to an aircraft-level implementation rather than a standalone mechanism. Control-mechanism claims under G05G appear in 28.6% of records, and control of non-electric variables (G05D) in 17.9%. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares overlap rather than sum to 100%.
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 Side Stick and Inceptor Design 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.