Solid-State Circuit Breaker Gate Driver Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
A data-backed look at solid-state circuit breaker gate driver patents: who leads filings, where activity concentrates by IPC class and jurisdiction, and how the field has trended since 2015.
Filing growth = 2021 (6 records) → 2024 (5); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 25 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
Solid-state circuit breakers replace mechanical contacts with power semiconductors, and the gate driver is the circuit that decides how fast and how safely those semiconductors turn off under fault current. This landscape covers 25 published records filed between 2015 and the current data cut-off, spanning gate-drive electronics, protective circuit arrangements and the semiconductor devices that carry them. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent-year counts understate real activity.
The scope pulls from IPC classes H02M (power conversion), H01L29 and H03K17, aligned with search terms for solid-state circuit breakers and their gate driver or gate drive circuits. It is small enough that individual filings matter: a handful of highly cited early patents still anchor the prior art that later filers design around.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 25 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 6 in 2021, the strongest year on record, then eased to 5 by 2024 — a -17% change over that three-year span. Years from 2025 are still incomplete under normal publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H03K (pulse technique and logic circuits) appears in 92.0% of the 25 records, confirming that gate-drive switching logic is the core claim territory. H02H (protective circuit arrangements) follows at 52.0%, with H01L and H02M semiconductor and power-conversion classes each present in 20.0% of records; a record can carry more than one class, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 25 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Solid-State Circuit Breaker Gate Driver Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe record setting the current claim baseline
US20240291478A1 — Enhanced Solid State Circuit Breaker Structure (RTX Corporation, 2024-08-29)
A solid state circuit breaker structure and electronic switching circuit is provided. The solid state circuit breaker structure includes a power substrate, a power die, a plurality of bond wires, and a magnetic body. The power die is mounted on the power substrate. The bond wires extend outwardly from the power die. The magnetic body is attached to the power substrate and disposed to increase a magnetic field produced by a current flowing through the bond wires and thereby produce a first inductance that produces a decrease in an overvoltage at turn off of the power die.Claims a physical structure — substrate, die, bond wires and an added magnetic body — rather than a control algorithm, which shifts the design-around question toward packaging and layout rather than firmware.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030183838A1 | Solid-state DC circuit breaker | 101 |
| 2 | US6952335B2 | Solid-state DC circuit breaker | 42 |
| 3 | KR1020220131732A | Solid state circuit breaker(SSCB) and control method thereof | 9 |
| 4 | US20230074777A1 | Sensor-less overcurrent fault detection using high electron mobility transistors | 5 |
| 5 | KR1020220131731A | Solid state circuit breaker(SSCB) and control method thereof | 5 |
| 6 | US20230188134A1 | Gate driver circuits with independently tunable performance characteristics | 4 |
| 7 | US12334917B2 | Voltage-source gate drive having shunt capacitors and shunt resistors | 2 |
| 8 | US20240204774A1 | Voltage-source gate drive having shunt capacitors and shunt resistors | 2 |
| 9 | CN220273658U | 一种单驱动控制串联IGBT三相桥式交流固态断路器 | 2 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older filings accumulate citations simply by having been public longer, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than of current importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Read together, the assignee ranking and IPC breakdown point to a field with an occupied core and thinner edges.
A leader, then a real second tier
The leading assignee holds 7 of the 25 records in scope, with the top five together at 68.0% and the top ten at 92.0%. That leaves a genuine long tail below tenth place rather than a flat field, so new entrants are competing against a small number of established portfolios, not a crowd.
Gate-drive logic is the busiest class by far
H03K classification appears in the large majority of records, far ahead of H02H protective circuits at 52.0% and H01L/H02M semiconductor and power-conversion classes at 20.0% each. Filing here means overlapping with the densest part of the prior art; the thinner classes are where claim space is comparatively open.
Filing activity is US-weighted, with China second
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 12, followed by China at 5 and the European Patent Office at 4, with South Korea, India and the WIPO PCT route accounting for the remainder. That split suggests the US is still the primary venue for contesting this claim space.
Past the peak, not past relevance
Filings peaked at 6 in 2021 and stood at 5 in 2024, a -17% change across that span. Given the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, 2025 and 2026 counts are not yet complete and should not be read as continued decline.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solid-state circuit breaker gate driver patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The numbers above describe the field as it stands; the next step is usually to test a specific claim or design against it.
Map a specific gate-drive circuit against the cited prior art
Run the proposed circuit topology against the most-cited records in this set to see whether protection thresholds, turn-off timing or sensing methods already overlap with claimed subject matter.
Explore with Patsnap EurekaCheck the thinner IPC branches before filing
H01L, H02M and the smaller aircraft- and measurement-related classes carry far fewer records than H03K, which can mean either open space or simply less mature claiming — worth a closer read before committing a filing strategy.
Explore with Patsnap EurekaTrack the leading assignee's newer filings
With one company holding 7 of 25 records, watching its most recent applications is a faster read on where the core claim territory is moving than tracking the field broadly.
Explore with Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 7 of the 25 records in scope, and the top five assignees together hold 68.0% of all filings. Below that, activity drops off into a long tail — the ranking covers 12 companies in total, with the tenth-place filer holding only 1 record. That pattern means a newcomer is contesting a concentrated core rather than a crowded, evenly split field.
Filings peaked at 6 in 2021 and had eased to 5 by 2024, a -17% change over that three-year span rather than a sharp decline. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and understate real activity. The honest read is that the field cooled slightly off its 2021 peak but has not gone quiet.
H03K, covering pulse technique and logic circuits, appears in 92.0% of the 25 records in scope, making it the dominant classification by a wide margin. H02H protective circuit arrangements follow at 52.0%, with H01L semiconductor devices and H02M power conversion each at 20.0%. Because records often carry more than one class, these figures add to more than 100% and should be read as overlap, not a strict breakdown.
The IPC data shows H03K classifications are the densest, so a claim built purely on gate-drive switching logic is likely to run into substantial prior art. Classes like B64D (aircraft equipment) and G01R (electric and magnetic measurement) each appear in only 1 of the 25 records, suggesting narrower, less-claimed intersections such as breaker gate drivers built for specific platform or sensing contexts. Confirming this requires checking the actual claim scope of those few records, not just the class counts.
US20240291478A1, filed by RTX Corporation and published 2024-08-29, claims a solid-state circuit breaker structure built around a power substrate, a power die, bond wires and an added magnetic body positioned to raise the magnetic field around the current path. That added inductance is used to reduce overvoltage at turn-off of the power die — a packaging and layout solution rather than a control-logic one. It is one of the more recent filings in this dataset and sits alongside older, more heavily cited records like US20030183838A1 that anchor the broader prior art on solid-state DC circuit breakers.
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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.