Submarine Power Cables Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings nearly quadrupled between 2021 and 2024, climbing from 4 to 15 records a year (+275%), with 2023 the peak year so far at 15.
- The field is concentrated but not locked up: the top 5 assignees hold 35.6% of all 149 records, and the top 10 hold 55.7% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Installation and cable-body claims dominate the class mix, with H02G (installing power & signal cables) on 52.3% of records and H01B (cables, conductors & insulators) on 32.9%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (15) — 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 149 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What is actually being claimed in this field
Submarine power cable patenting sits at the intersection of cable manufacture, marine installation engineering and, increasingly, digital monitoring. The search set defined here — 149 published records from 2015 to mid-2026 — spans armouring design, factory joints, laying tension control, touchdown fatigue and repair strategy, so it captures both the physical cable and the operational discipline around laying and maintaining it. Filing has accelerated sharply in the last few years, tracking the buildout of offshore wind interconnectors and HVDC links.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown. Patent families, not raw document counts, are the fairer unit for judging real filing activity, because they neutralise continuation practice and multi-jurisdiction duplication — the 149-record base used throughout this page is already counted at the family level.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 149-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A sharp run-up since 2021, still under-counted at the edge
Annual filings rose from 4 in 2021 to 15 in 2024, a +275% increase over that span, with 2023 the highest complete year on record at 15. The 2017 baseline was just 3 filings a year. Because publication trails filing by about 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts are partial and will revise upward.
Installation and cable-body claims dominate; optics and data processing are secondary
H02G (installing power & signal cables) appears on 52.3% of the 149 records and H01B (cables, conductors & insulators) on 32.9%, confirming that laying method and cable construction are the two densest claim areas. G02B (optical elements, 16.1%) reflects fibre-in-cable monitoring, F16L (pipe fittings, 12.8%) reflects protective conduit and repair hardware, and G06F (digital data processing, 6.0%) marks an emerging but still thin layer of software-driven monitoring and route planning claims. Records can carry more than one class, so these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 149 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Submarine Power Cables with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about submarine power cables and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a recent representative filing
Temperature measurement method and device for submarine cable factory joints
The filing describes a method for monitoring temperature at factory joints in submarine power cables by comparing measured values from a reference joint — built and sited identically to a target joint, at a set distance apart — against the target joint's own readings, enabling condition assessment of a critical failure point without direct sensing at every joint.Filed by Electric Power Research Institute, China Southern Power Grid, published 2026-03-26.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030026662A1 | Cable installation | 47 |
| 2 | US20010016103A1 | Cable, especially submarine cable, and method for the manufacture thereof | 22 |
| 3 | US3715068A | Apparatus for the laying or recovery of cables | 22 |
| 4 | GB1315664A | Improvements in or relating to apparatus for toe laying or recovery of cables | 19 |
| 5 | GB1540650A | Cable transferring equipment | 18 |
| 6 | EP1215114A1 | Method of laying an underwater cable | 14 |
| 7 | US6567591B2 | Submarine cable and method for the manufacture thereof | 12 |
| 8 | US8668406B2 | Subsea cable installation | 11 |
| 9 | WO2002043214A2 | Cable installation | 11 |
| 10 | CN106300147A | 带有敷设张力监控功能的海缆下水桥 | 10 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a marker of influence on later design-around work, not of current commercial 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 or freedom-to-operate decision
Four read-outs from the same dataset, each pointing to a different practical question: how crowded a sub-area is, how fast it is moving, and where the geography of protection actually sits.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The top 5 assignees together hold 35.6% of all 149 records and the top 10 hold 55.7%. That leaves close to half the field spread across 54 further ranked companies, many with only one or two filings — a genuine long tail rather than a two-player market.
Growth is recent and steep
Annual filings moved from 4 in 2021 to 15 in 2024, a +275% rise over three years, with 2023 the highest complete year at 15. Anyone benchmarking activity against an older baseline is comparing against a much quieter field.
Filing is split across Asia and Europe, not centred on one office
Japan (37) and China (36) lead receiving-office counts, ahead of the EPO (21), the United States (18), the United Kingdom (10) and WIPO/PCT (7). A freedom-to-operate check limited to one jurisdiction will miss the bulk of active protection here.
Installation method is the most contested claim space
More than half of all 149 records carry an H02G classification for installing power and signal cables, well ahead of H01B cable-body claims at 32.9%. New filings on laying method, tension control or touchdown handling are entering the densest part of the map.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to submarine power cables, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has gone quiet
The ranked leaders come from cable manufacturing, telecoms infrastructure and, more recently, Chinese state-linked grid and marine-engineering entities. Recent-year momentum is uneven even among the established names.
A single filer sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 19 of the 149 records in scope, noticeably ahead of the fifth-place holder at 8 and tenth place at 5 — a steep drop-off rather than a gentle taper.
Joint filings cluster around a small set of relationships
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest pairs each recurring three times — evidence of repeated joint-venture or supplier-customer filing rather than one-off collaboration.
Recent activity is thin even among established names
Several long-standing assignees show zero filings in the latest year, including one with a -100% year-on-year change; only one tracked filer recorded as many as 2 filings in the same window, so recent momentum should be read from multi-year trend rather than the single most recent year.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Far East Submarine Cable Co., Ltd. | 2 | — |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Level 3 Communications, LLC | 0 | — |
| Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation | 0 | — |
| Nexans SA | 0 | — |
| NKT HV Cables AB | 0 | -100% |
| FULGOR GREEK ELECTRIC CABLES | 0 | — |
| Sumiden Transmission & Distribution Systems Products Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a fast-growing but unevenly protected field. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, sourcing new claim territory, or tracking a specific competitor.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on installation claims
With 52.3% of records touching H02G, any new laying-tension or touchdown-handling method should be checked against this subclass specifically, across Japan, China, the EPO and the US offices where most filings sit.
Explore installation claims in EurekaMap the under-claimed monitoring layer
G06F digital-processing claims sit at only 6.0% of records despite growing sensor and fibre-monitoring activity — a candidate area for a first-mover claim rather than a crowded design-around.
Search white space in EurekaTrack momentum, not just rank
Several top-ranked assignees show no filings in the latest tracked year; pairing the assignee ranking with year-by-year momentum gives a truer read of who is currently active.
Build a momentum watchlist in EurekaCommon questions on submarine power cable patents
The dataset's top-ranked assignee holds 19 of the 149 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 8 and the tenth-ranked holder at 5. That said, the top 10 assignees together account for only 55.7% of all records, so a large share of the field is held by companies with just one or two filings each. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at both the leader's count and the size of that long tail, since a steep drop after the leader does not mean the rest of the field is empty.
Filings rose from 4 records in 2021 to 15 in 2024, a +275% increase over that three-year span, with 2023 the strongest complete year on record at 15. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the raw data are understated and will rise as more records publish. Treat any year within the last 18 months as provisional rather than a sign of slowing activity.
Installation method (IPC class H02G) is the single densest area, appearing on 52.3% of the 149 records in scope, followed by cable construction itself (H01B) at 32.9%. Optical elements (G02B, 16.1%) reflect fibre-integrated monitoring, F16L (12.8%) covers pipe and conduit hardware used in protection and repair, and digital data processing (G06F, 6.0%) marks a much thinner but growing layer of software and monitoring claims. Because a single record can carry several classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should not be read as a strict pie chart.
Japan leads with 37 filings routed through its receiving office, closely followed by China at 36, then the EPO at 21, the United States at 18, the United Kingdom at 10 and the WIPO/PCT route at 7. This spread means a filing or freedom-to-operate strategy focused only on the US or Europe would miss the majority of documented activity, most of which sits in Japan and China. Companies planning global offshore wind or interconnector projects should budget search and clearance work across all of these offices, not just the largest Western ones.
The class-level data suggests digital monitoring and processing (G06F, 6.0% of records) and fibre-integrated sensing (part of the G02B share) are thinner than the dominant installation and cable-body claim areas, which together cover well over half the field. Factory-joint condition sensing, touchdown fatigue prediction and automated repair-route survey are specific sub-areas where filing density looks lower relative to core installation method claims. These are reasonable starting points for a novelty search, but a formal freedom-to-operate opinion should confirm the gap before committing to a claim strategy.
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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.