Solid-State Circuit Breaker Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not accelerated. The trend runs flat from 2017 through 2026, peaking at 12 filings in 2023 with no sustained climb before or after — this is a mature claim space, not a land grab.
- Protective circuit arrangements dominate the IPC mix. H02H accounts for 85 of 86 records, with H01H switches and H03K pulse-technique circuits as the only other subclasses carrying real volume — everything else is thin.
- Momentum has gone quiet across the incumbent bench. Several major industrial assignees show zero filings in the latest year, some down 100% year-on-year, while only one name shows any recent-year activity.
What the solid-state circuit breaker patent record actually shows
Solid-state circuit breaker technology replaces mechanical contacts with semiconductor switching — SiC- and IGBT-based topologies designed to interrupt fault current in microseconds rather than the tens of milliseconds a mechanical breaker needs. The 86 patent families in this dataset span 2015 through the current filing year, concentrated overwhelmingly in H02H (protective circuit arrangements), with secondary claim activity in switch hardware (H01H) and the pulse-control logic (H03K) that drives the switching decision.
The filing curve is flat rather than rising: two filings in 2017, a mid-run peak of twelve in 2023, and no clear upward trajectory into the most recent, still-incomplete year. That pattern — dense IPC concentration paired with a plateaued filing rate — points to a technology where the core topology claims were staked years ago and current filings are refinements rather than a new wave of entrants.
Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the last one or two years in any trend undercount true filing activity — treat the recent plateau as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 86-family dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those filings distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the technical sub-areas of the field.
A flat filing curve with one mid-decade peak
Filings open at 2 in 2017, climb to a peak of 12 in 2023, and sit at 2 again by 2026. The 2022 midpoint of 2 filings confirms this is not steady growth interrupted by a spike — it is a plateau with a single bulge, consistent with a handful of assignees filing defensively around one commercialisation window rather than a broad market ramping up.
Claim density sits almost entirely in one subclass
H02H covers 85 of the 86 records — essentially the entire dataset — meaning nearly every filing touches protective circuit arrangements. H01H (31 records) and H03K (14 records) are the only other subclasses with meaningful volume; G05F, H02J, H02M, B60L and G01R each carry single-digit counts, marking them as adjacent rather than core to this claim set.
Shares are the percentage of the 86 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 Technology Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about solid-state circuit breaker technology landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe documents setting the citation baseline
Novel DC solid-state circuit breaker with self-adapt current limiting capability and the control method thereof
The present invention discloses a DC solid-state circuit breaker with self-adapt fault current limiting capability. The topology is an H-bridge circuit consisting of two unidirectional breakable bridge arms and two series-connected diode bridge arms, with the unidirectional breakable arms connected in series to the diode arms in the same direction to form two parallel series branches. A series branch formed by a DC reactor and a DC biased power supply connects to the point of common coupling between the two unidirectional breakable bridge arms, enabling current limiting without external sensing triggers.Filed by Tianjin University, published 2021-07-22. The abstract is drawn directly from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5224006A | Electronic circuit breaker with protection against sputtering arc faults and ground faults | 442 |
| 2 | US6233128B1 | Data retention in a circuit breaker | 125 |
| 3 | US20030183838A1 | Solid-state DC circuit breaker | 101 |
| 4 | US20020080544A1 | Apparatus and methods for limiting electrical current in circuit breaker applications | 48 |
| 5 | US6952335B2 | Solid-state DC circuit breaker | 42 |
| 6 | US5581433A | Electronic circuit breaker | 42 |
| 7 | EP1186086B1 | Current distribution system | 34 |
| 8 | CN102170103A | 电子断路器及其处理方法 | 32 |
| 9 | US6490141B2 | Power distribution system | 26 |
| 10 | US4853820A | Electronic circuit breaker systems | 26 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings by construction — a document published in the 1990s has had decades to accumulate citations that a 2023 filing has not. Read these as markers of foundational influence, not as a ranking of current technical relevance.
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. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three signals from the dataset that change how a team should read this space before drafting new claims.
The peak has already passed
Filing activity rose to a single peak in 2023 and has not sustained that level since. Combined with a flat start in 2017, this reads as a bounded wave of activity around one topology generation rather than an accelerating field — new entrants are more likely to be filing around existing art than opening new territory.
One subclass, almost the whole dataset
Nearly every filing in this dataset sits in H02H. That level of concentration means the core protective-circuit claim space is heavily occupied; differentiation is more likely to come from the switch hardware (H01H) or control logic (H03K) layers, where filing volume is a fraction of H02H's.
The incumbent bench has gone quiet
Several of the largest historical filers in this space show no filings in the most recent year, some down 100% year-on-year. Only one assignee in the tracked momentum set shows any recent-year activity, which is a thinner active field than the historical citation leaders would suggest.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solid-state circuit breaker technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| SHEN ZHENG JOHN | ZHOU YUANFENG | 2 |
| SHEN ZHENG JOHN | Illinois Institute of Technology | 1 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM UNITED KINGDOM LTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT | 1 |
Only 3 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pairing links two individual inventors rather than two corporations — cross-company joint filing is not a feature of this field.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
The assignee set skews toward established electrical-equipment manufacturers, but recent-year momentum data shows most of them have gone quiet even as the underlying claim space stays dense.
Historical leaders, current inactivity
Assignees with strong historical filing records — including several household-name electrical equipment manufacturers — show zero filings in the latest tracked year, with some registering a full year-on-year drop. That does not mean they have exited the technology; it means their patent activity in this specific claim set has paused.
One name still filing
Schneider Electric Industries is the one assignee in the tracked set showing filings in the most recent year. That relative activity, against a backdrop of peers at zero, is worth watching as a signal of where near-term prosecution activity is likely to continue.
Filing is largely solo
Joint filings are the exception here. The strongest co-assignee pairing links two named inventors rather than two organisations, and the one clear corporate pairing involves a parent and its IP-department subsidiary rather than an external collaboration — this is not a field built on cross-company R&D partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Schneider Electric Industries | 2 | — |
| Ellenberger & Poensgen GmbH | 0 | — |
| Siemens Industry, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| ABB (Switzerland) Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Scania CV AB | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
| SHEN ZHENG JOHN | 0 | — |
| BAE Systems Controls Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy, or identifying where to file next.
Map the H01H and H03K layers in detail
With H02H saturated, the switch-hardware and control-logic subclasses carry a fraction of the filing volume but sit directly adjacent to the core claims — a family-level review of these two subclasses would show exactly how much room remains.
Explore in EurekaTrack Schneider Electric's active filings
As the one assignee showing recent-year momentum against a quiet field, its filings are the clearest signal of where near-term prosecution in this space is heading.
Explore in EurekaBuild a citation map around the top five documents
The most-cited records anchor the foundational claims in this field; understanding what they block, and what has been filed around them since, is the starting point for any freedom-to-operate review.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about solid-state circuit breaker patents
This dataset tracks 86 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 under a search focused on solid-state and electronic circuit breakers with fast fault interruption, current limiting and hybrid breaker features. That is a modest-sized field, concentrated heavily in one IPC subclass, which suggests a technically well-defined niche rather than a broad, fragmented category. The true figure for the most recent year is understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months.
The dataset's citation and filing data point to a mix of established electrical equipment manufacturers alongside academic filers such as Tianjin University. However, recent-year momentum data shows most of the historically active assignees at zero filings in the latest tracked year, with Schneider Electric Industries the notable exception still filing. A ranking table sits alongside this analysis with the full assignee breakdown.
The core classification is H02H (protective circuit arrangements), which covers 85 of the 86 records in this dataset — essentially the entire field. H01H (switches and relays) and H03K (pulse-technique and logic circuits) carry secondary volume, covering the switching hardware and control logic respectively. Adjacent classes like H02J, H02M, B60L and G01R appear only in single digits, marking them as peripheral rather than core to solid-state breaker claims.
Not on the evidence of this dataset. Filing activity opened at 2 records in 2017, peaked at 12 in 2023, and had fallen back to 2 by 2026, with the 2022 midpoint also sitting at 2 — a pattern consistent with a bounded filing wave rather than sustained growth. Combined with several major assignees showing no filings in the latest year, the data reads as a plateaued rather than an expanding field, though the most recent year is always undercounted due to publication lag.
The clearest white space sits outside the dominant H02H protective-circuit core, in areas like SiC-based bridge-arm switching, DC reactor-based current limiting, and breaker interfacing for EV propulsion systems — all subclasses with single-digit filing counts in this dataset. These lower-density branches are adjacent to, rather than inside, the heavily claimed protective-circuit space, making them more realistic targets for a first-to-file claim than the H02H core itself.
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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.