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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/smart-irrigation-system-environmental-durability-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Agriculture TechnologySmart irrigation systems built for weatherproof, outdoor-rated durability: the patent picture
- Small but accelerating. filings sit at just 15 families total, yet the count is still climbing toward a 2026 peak rather than tapering off.
- Sensor housings dominate citation activity. the most-cited records all cover the same rain-sensing housing lineage out of Rain Bird, suggesting that claim territory is well staked.
- Filing is US-and-India led with academic co-inventors. 11 of the records enter through the United States and 4 through India, and several of the strongest co-filing pairs are university researchers rather than corporate R&D teams.
15
Published Records
US
Leading Jurisdiction
14
Active Filers Ranked
2026
Peak Filing Year
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape isolates patent families at the intersection of irrigation control and environmental durability claims: weatherproof enclosures, dust and water resistance, outdoor durability and UV resistance language layered onto smart or precision irrigation systems. It excludes irrigation patents that make no durability claim, and durability patents that are not tied to irrigation control, so the set is deliberately narrow: 15 published families across just over a decade of activity.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 figure in the trend below is necessarily incomplete and will rise as later filings publish. The composition data points to sensor and environmental-monitoring hardware, not control-software claims, as the centre of gravity in this space.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 15-family dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings moved from zero in 2017 to a midpoint of 2 families in 2022 and a current peak of 3 in 2026. The curve is still rising at the point the data was cut off, which is unusual for a field this small and suggests durability claims are a recent addition to irrigation filings rather than a legacy category.
IPC subclass distribution
Every family in the set touches A01G (horticulture and forestry), and the large majority also carry G01W (meteorology) or G01K (temperature measurement) codes, confirming that durability claims here are being written around environmental sensing rather than mechanical enclosure design alone. Control-systems codes (G05B, G05D) and materials or soil-working codes (A01B, F24S, G01N) appear only once or twice each, marking them as thin, largely unclaimed branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 15 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records
Representative filing
US20170038497A1 — Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation
RAIN BIRD CORPORATION
The family describes a wireless rain sensor housed in a weatherproof enclosure, using a moisture-absorptive material that physically expands and contracts with rainfall to drive a controller and wireless transmitter reporting irrigation-relevant signals.Filed by Rain Bird Corporation; part of a lineage of related sensor-housing families that dominate the citation table.
Highest-cited families in the dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US9500770B2 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 20 |
| 2 | US10345487B2 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 18 |
| 3 | US20170038497A1 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 17 |
| 4 | US20190278004A1 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 13 |
| 5 | US10732320B2 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 12 |
| 6 | US11346981B2 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 8 |
| 7 | US20240085588A1 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 4 |
| 8 | US11822048B2 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 4 |
| 9 | US20220260751A1 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 4 |
| 10 | US20200386910A1 | Sensor device for use in controlling irrigation | 3 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and are skewed toward older publications; a low count on a 2024-2026 filing does not mean the claim is weak.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once family counts, citations and IPC codes are read together.
Concentration
5 of 15 records share one lineage
top-cited records
Citation weight sits on one sensor-housing family
The five most-cited records are all variants of the same Rain Bird 'sensor device for use in controlling irrigation' filing. That concentration means the core moisture-sensing, weatherproof-housing approach is well covered prior art, and a new entrant claiming a similar expand-and-contract rain sensor faces a crowded reference set.
Citation data favours earlier filings; treat as influence, not current relevance.
Composition
12 of 15 also code G01W
meteorology overlap
Durability claims are being written through weather sensing
Nearly all families combine irrigation control (A01G) with meteorology (G01W) or temperature measurement (G01K) codes. Enclosure and material-durability claims are riding alongside sensing claims rather than standing alone, which shapes how a freedom-to-operate search should be scoped.
Based on IPC subclass counts across the 15-family set.
Geography
US 11 · India 4
receiving offices
Filing is concentrated in two offices
All 15 records route through either the United States or India, with no other receiving office represented. That narrows freedom-to-operate exposure geographically but also means the field has not yet been tested through examination in other major markets.
Receiving-office counts from the full dataset.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to smart irrigation system environmental durability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee base is a mix of a single established irrigation manufacturer and a long tail of individual academic co-inventors filing in pairs, a pattern that differs sharply from more mature agtech categories.
Momentum
1 family in the latest year
per active filer
No single filer is pulling ahead
Recent-year momentum is evenly spread: each of the named assignees, including Venugopal Lenin Kalyanasundaram, Seshadri Rao Gudlavalleru Engineering College, Sampathkumar Karthikeyan Moothampalayam and Sage University, shows exactly one filing in the latest year. Nobody has yet built a multi-filing streak.
Momentum reflects latest-year counts only.
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
across 15 families
Co-filing is common but shallow
Ten co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, each pair linked by a single shared filing. The strongest pairings, such as Venugopal Lenin Kalyanasundaram with Sampathkumar Karthikeyan Moothampalayam, and Seshadri Rao Gudlavalleru Engineering College with its named co-inventors, look like academic research partnerships rather than sustained corporate collaboration.
Co-assignee pair counts from the full dataset.
Incumbency
5 top-cited records, 1 assignee
Rain Bird lineage
One corporate filer anchors the prior art
Rain Bird Corporation is the only party in this set with a citation-heavy, multi-generation family, giving it the clearest incumbent position on rain-sensing housing claims. Everyone else in the ranking is a recent, single-filing entrant.
Based on the most-cited records table.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| VENUGOPAL LENIN KALYANASUNDARAM | 1 | — |
| SESHADRI RAO GUDLAVALLERU ENG COLLEGE | 1 | — |
| SAMPATHKUMAR KARTHIKEYAN MOOTHAMPALAYAM | 1 | — |
| SAGE UNIV | 1 | — |
| DR MALLADI R CH SASTRY | 1 | — |
| DR L R SRINIVAS | 1 | — |
| DR G V S N R V PRASAD | 1 | — |
| DR G KEERTHI | 1 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow but still-forming field. Two directions are worth pursuing before committing to a filing strategy.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the Rain Bird lineage
Before drafting claims around weatherproof rain or moisture sensing, review the five most-cited records in detail; they share enough structural overlap that a new filing needs to differentiate clearly on mechanism or material.
Explore prior art in EurekaScope claims toward the thinly-covered branches
Soil-material durability, UV-stabilised housings and combined sensing modules each carry only one or two families. That is where drafting a defensible first claim is most realistic given current coverage.
Map white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
This landscape identifies 15 published patent families that combine irrigation control claims with environmental durability language such as weatherproof enclosures, dust and water resistance, outdoor durability or UV resistance. It is a narrow, purpose-built search rather than a count of all irrigation patents, since it excludes irrigation filings that make no durability claim and durability filings unrelated to irrigation. Filing activity is still rising toward 2026, so the true total once later filings publish will be somewhat higher.
Rain Bird Corporation holds the most influential filings in this set, based on citation counts, through a lineage of related families covering a wireless rain sensor in a weatherproof housing that uses a moisture-absorptive material to detect rainfall. The five most-cited records in the dataset all belong to this lineage. Every other assignee in the ranking appears with a single, more recent filing, so Rain Bird is the clearest incumbent to check against before drafting new claims in this specific mechanism.
Yes. Filings moved from zero in 2017 to a midpoint of two families in 2022 and a peak of three in 2026, with the curve still climbing rather than flattening. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 figure is likely undercounted and the actual growth rate is probably higher than the raw numbers show. This is a small dataset overall, so year-to-year swings should be read as directional rather than precise.
All 15 families in this dataset entered through just two receiving offices: the United States with 11 records and India with 4. No other jurisdiction appears, which is notable for a technology area with global agricultural relevance. That concentration suggests freedom-to-operate exposure is currently limited to these two markets, but it also means the category has not yet been tested through examination elsewhere.
The IPC composition shows heavy concentration in horticulture (A01G), meteorology (G01W) and temperature measurement (G01K) codes, while control-systems codes and materials-testing codes each appear in only one or two families. That points to under-claimed branches such as UV-stabilised enclosure polymers, solar-powered sensor housings, and combined soil-and-moisture sensing modules, where a first, well-drafted claim has more room to stand without colliding with the dense Rain Bird sensor-housing lineage.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Smart Irrigation System Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.