Submetering Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One filer dominates the ranked field. the leading assignee holds 123 records against a fifth-place count of just 2, with a long tail of single-filing entrants behind it.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak of 16. the 2021-to-2024 span (the last complete years) shows a 30% decline, from 10 filings to 7.
- Grid and control classes dominate the claim space. H02J and G05B each cover roughly two-thirds to four-fifths of the 142 records, while billing-software class G06Q sits at just 16.9%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (10 records) with 2024 (7) — 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.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 142 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine submetering, building energy metering or circuit-level metering with a practical constraint: current transformer sizing, installation cost, data granularity, tenant billing, measurement verification or retrofit limitations. That combination narrows the field to filings that address the operational reality of deploying sub-meters in existing buildings, not general smart-grid metering.Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one or two years in any trend understate actual filing activity.
The scope spans hardware-adjacent claims on transformer and sensor placement through to software claims on tenant billing and data granularity, with receiving offices concentrated in the United States and a smaller spread across Europe, Canada, WIPO and other jurisdictions.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 142-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which technical classes the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a cooling curve
Filings peaked in 2017 at 16 and have since pulled back; the 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch of years complete enough to compare, shows a 30% drop from 10 to 7 filings. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continued decline.
Technology composition: power and control classes dominate
H02J (power supply and grid systems) appears in 80.3% of the 142 records and G05B (control and regulating systems) in 69.7%, showing that most filings anchor their claims in power management or control logic rather than pure data handling. G06Q, the business/billing-data class most associated with tenant billing software, covers only 16.9% of records, and G06F general data processing just 3.5% — a narrower footprint than the volume of billing-related search terms might suggest.
Shares are the percentage of the 142 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Submetering and Building Energy Metering with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about submetering and building energy metering and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
Energy-efficiency enhancement platform system based on submetering data
A platform system that connects a demand source needing energy-efficiency improvements with a supply source offering enhancement equipment, energy management systems or analysis consulting, using submetering data collected on a per-equipment basis to drive the matching and analysis.Filed by Retigrid Co., Ltd., published 2020-12-24 as US20200401975A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20140018969A1 | Method and Apparatus for Actively Managing Electric Power Supply for an Electric Power Grid | 508 |
| 2 | US8588991B1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 494 |
| 3 | US20140277788A1 | System, method, and data packets for messaging for electric power grid elements over a secure internet protoc… | 246 |
| 4 | US20140039699A1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 168 |
| 5 | US20140039703A1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 161 |
| 6 | US9465397B2 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 128 |
| 7 | US20140039701A1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 77 |
| 8 | US8761952B2 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 60 |
| 9 | US20170025893A1 | System, method, and apparatus for electric power grid and network management of grid elements | 40 |
| 10 | US20170344045A1 | System, method, and data packets for messaging for electric power grid elements over a secure internet protoc… | 36 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting or searching in this space.
One assignee holds the field, the rest are scattered
The ranked assignee list has only 9 companies, and the leader's count of 123 dwarfs the fifth-place figure of 2. That gap means most of the remaining activity comes from small, single-filing entrants rather than a cluster of mid-size competitors.
Filing volume has cooled from its 2017 peak
After peaking at 16 filings in 2017, the field settled into a lower run rate; the last fully comparable window, 2021 to 2024, shows a 30% decline from 10 to 7 filings. Even the leading assignee's own recent-year count fell year over year.
Power and control claims crowd the core
H02J, G05B and G05F together cover the large majority of records, meaning claim space around grid-side power management and control logic is dense. Filers targeting that core should expect crowded prior art and look instead at the thinner classes.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to submetering and building energy metering, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is thin
The ranked field is short and top-heavy, and recent-year momentum has slowed even for the leader — a signal that the next wave of filings may come from newer entrants rather than incumbents defending existing claim territory.
A single assignee anchors the field
The top-ranked assignee's record count is an order of magnitude above the rest of the ranked list, suggesting a long-running, deliberate filing programme rather than opportunistic patenting.
A short ranking with a steep drop-off
Only nine assignees appear in the ranking at all, and most of them show zero filings in the latest year, pointing to a field where individual inventors and small entities file once rather than build a sustained portfolio.
Co-filing is rare
The strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset appears on only two filings, indicating that most work here is filed by a single entity rather than through joint ventures or research partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| CAUSAM ENERGY INC | 1 | -50% |
| FORBES JR JOSEPH W | 0 | — |
| Siemens Metering | 0 | — |
| Cornell University | 0 | — |
| ZULUAGA MARC | 0 | — |
| WATER SAVERS INC | 0 | — |
| BLOCK JASON | 0 | — |
| Retigrid Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The patterns above point to specific next steps depending on whether you are drafting, searching, or scoping a freedom-to-operate review.
Search the thin classes first
G06Q and G05D cover a small share of the 142 records, making them a faster place to check novelty than the crowded H02J and G05B core.
Run a targeted search in EurekaTrack the leader's recent filings
The dominant assignee's own filing rate has dropped year over year, which may open room for new entrants rather than closing it.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaMap claims against the most-cited records
The highest-citation filings define the boundaries most later filers had to design around; checking new drafts against them early avoids rework.
Compare claims in EurekaCommon questions about submetering patents
The ranked assignee list for this dataset contains only nine companies, and one assignee holds 123 of the 142 records in scope, far ahead of the fifth-ranked entity at 2. That concentration suggests a single long-running filing programme rather than a competitive field of similarly sized portfolios. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work in this space should treat that leading assignee's portfolio as the first thing to clear.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 16 records and has trended down since; the last fully comparable window, 2021 to 2024, shows a 30% decline from 10 to 7 filings. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of a continuing drop. Overall the field looks past its filing peak rather than accelerating.
Most claims sit in power and control classes: H02J (power supply and grid systems) covers 80.3% of the 142 records and G05B (control and regulating systems) covers 69.7%. Business-data class G06Q, which is closest to tenant billing software, appears in only 16.9% of records, and general data processing class G06F in just 3.5%. That split means the hardware and control side of submetering is far more heavily claimed than the billing-software side.
The thinner classes in this dataset, G05D (control of non-electric variables), G08B (signalling and alarm systems) and G06Q (billing and admin data processing), each cover under 17% of the 142 records, well below the 65-80% density in the core power and control classes. That gap points to under-claimed territory in tenant billing allocation, retrofit-constrained hardware and alarm integration with sub-metering data. A first claim there would likely combine a specific data-granularity or verification method with one of these thinner classes rather than compete directly in H02J or G05B.
US20200401975A1, filed by Retigrid Co., Ltd. and published 2020-12-24, claims a platform system that matches demand sources needing energy-efficiency improvements with supply sources offering enhancement equipment or analysis services, using submetering data collected per-equipment as the basis for that matching. It is a software-platform claim rather than a metering-hardware claim, so it sits closer to the G06Q/H04L side of the landscape than to the H02J core. Anyone building a similar data-sharing platform on submetering data should review its claim scope directly rather than rely on this summary.
Research Submetering and Building Energy Metering in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole submetering and building energy metering corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.