Tower Crane Systems Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- A leader with 8 records sits atop a field of 69 ranked assignees, but the top 5 combined account for only 29.1% of the 110 records in scope — concentration without dominance.
- Filing peaked at 15 records in 2021 and fell to 7 by 2024, a -53% swing over that span, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in under the usual publication lag.
- Cranes & hoists (B66C) covers 69.1% of records, while foundations, scaffolding and digital-control classes each sit under 13% — a sign of where claim density thins out.
Filing growth compares 2021 (15 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 110 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the tower crane patent record shows
Tower crane systems sit at the intersection of heavy mechanical engineering and, increasingly, digital safety control. The search scope used here pairs core structural terms — jib deflection, tie anchorage, foundation load, telescoping cage — with mechanism and safety terms including anticollision system and hoisting speed, against a base of tower crane, climbing tower crane and slewing mechanism records. That combination surfaces 110 published records spanning 2015 through the 2026 cut-off.
The assignee field is wide rather than narrow: 69 companies appear in the ranking, and even the top 10 combined reach only 44.5% of all records in scope. Filing activity is not steadily climbing — it peaked in 2021 and has since declined through the last complete year, 2024 — which points to a technology area where structural mechanics claims were staked early and recent activity is shifting toward software-adjacent control and safety features.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 110 records: how filing activity has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2015-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 15 records in 2021, then fell to 7 by 2024 — a -53% change over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 are shown but should be read as incomplete, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B66C (cranes & hoists) covers 69.1% of the 110 records, far ahead of B66D winches (12.7%) and B66B lifts (10.0%). Foundations (E02D, 5.5%), specialised structures (E04H, 4.5%) and metal working (B23P, 2.7%) each carry a small fraction of records, marking them as thinner claim territory rather than empty territory. Records can carry more than one class, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 110 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Tower Crane Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about tower crane systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
On-site safety control method for tower crane, controller and computing device
The method controls a hook to move through planned path points in axial space across multiple control cycles, obtaining current hook coordinates in each cycle, deriving a current maximum allowable speed in each direction from luffing length, hoisting weight and a working parameter, and computing arrival position coordinates accordingly.Filed by Kyland Technology Co. Ltd., published 2025-10-22 (EP4635893A1).
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100044332A1 | Monitoring crane component overstress | 64 |
| 2 | US20100039319A1 | Automated recordation of crane inspection activity | 61 |
| 3 | US20080275610A1 | Crane and Controller Thereof | 41 |
| 4 | US20130240297A1 | Motorized height access device for tower cranes | 39 |
| 5 | US8224518B2 | Automated recordation of crane inspection activity | 37 |
| 6 | CN103043534A | 一种塔机起升调速控制系统及其调速控制方法 | 31 |
| 7 | JP1991284599A | Perpendicular off-ground control device of hanging load on crane | 27 |
| 8 | US20220119234A1 | Winch fitted with planetary gear transmission having function of automatic gear shifting | 20 |
| 9 | EP1652810A1 | Crane and controller for the same | 20 |
| 10 | JP2001151469A | Boom hoisting device for tower crane | 20 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial 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. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern means for strategy
The numbers point to a field with an established mechanical core and a newer, less crowded control layer.
Leadership without lock-up
The leading assignee holds 8 records and the top 5 combined reach 29.1% of the 110 records in scope. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants, which means no one assignee's claim set defines the field.
A cooling structural-claims cycle
Filing activity peaked at 15 records in 2021 and had fallen to 7 by 2024, a -53% change. That pattern is consistent with a mechanical core (jib, tie anchorage, foundation load) where the obvious claim space was staked earlier in the period, pushing new activity toward adjacent control and monitoring features.
One dominant class, several thin ones
B66C (cranes & hoists) anchors the field at 69.1% of records, but digital-control class G06F appears in only 7.3% and foundations (E02D) in 5.5%. That gap between the mechanical core and the digital/foundation layers is where claim density is lightest.
Filing spread across four major offices
China, Japan and the United States each receive a similar volume of filings, with Europe and South Korea following and Germany a distant sixth. That spread suggests tower crane innovation is being protected across multiple major markets rather than concentrated in a single jurisdiction.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to tower crane systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
A wide field of 69 ranked assignees with a modest leader and several under-claimed technical branches beneath the mechanical core.
A modest, not dominant, top filer
The leading assignee's 8 records set the pace, but that is a small share of 110 records in scope. No single company's portfolio forecloses the field, which leaves room for differentiated claims even around core lifting mechanisms.
Fragmented ownership
With 69 companies appearing in the ranking against 110 total records, most assignees hold only one or two filings. That fragmentation is typical of a mature mechanical category being extended into new control and safety features by many smaller entrants.
Limited co-filing activity
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, the strongest linking a Japanese industrial filer with an individual inventor across six records. Joint filing is not a major feature of this field; most assignees file independently.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tadano Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Sintokogio, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Manitowoc Crane Group France | 0 | — |
| Fujitec Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| TERASHIMA KAZUHIKO | 0 | — |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| IHI Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a mechanical core that is well-claimed and a control layer that is not. Two directions follow from that.
Map the control-layer white space
With G06F appearing in only 7.3% of records against 69.1% for B66C, the software and sensor layer around anticollision, hoisting speed and safety control is the least crowded part of the field. A focused search on that layer alone would sharpen where a new filing could stand.
Explore this in Eureka →Track the leading assignees' recent filings
Recent-year momentum for the top assignees shows no new records in the latest year across the names checked, which is consistent with the broader publication lag rather than a genuine stop in activity. Re-checking momentum in a few months will separate real slowdown from lag.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Common questions on tower crane patents
The dataset ranks 69 assignees across 110 records, with the leading company holding 8 records and the top 5 combined reaching 29.1% of all records in scope. That means leadership exists but is not dominant — most of the field is held by companies with only one or two filings each. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should look at the full ranked list rather than assume a handful of large players control the space.
Filing peaked at 15 records in 2021 and had fallen to 7 records by 2024, a -53% change over that span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 should not be read as a further decline, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months and those years are still filling in. The honest read is a cooling mechanical-claims cycle rather than a shrinking field.
B66C, the cranes and hoists subclass, appears in 69.1% of the 110 records in scope, making it by far the dominant category. Winches (B66D, 12.7%) and lifts (B66B, 10.0%) follow well behind, with foundations, specialised structures, digital data processing and metal working each under 10%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures overlap and do not sum to 100%.
The clearest gap sits between the heavily-claimed mechanical core (B66C) and the thinly-claimed control and foundation layers, including digital data processing (G06F, 7.3%) and foundations (E02D, 5.5%). Specific under-claimed branches include anticollision sensing across multiple cranes on shared sites, telescoping cage climbing sequences, and hoisting speed governance tied to real-time luffing length. These are areas where fewer prior filings mean more room for a distinct first claim.
EP4635893A1, filed by Kyland Technology Co. Ltd. and published 2025-10-22, claims an on-site safety control method that moves a hook through planned path points across multiple control cycles, deriving a maximum allowable speed in each direction from luffing length, hoisting weight and a working parameter. It sits squarely in the safety-control layer rather than the core mechanical structure of the crane. It would most directly affect anyone designing a similar coordinate-based hook-speed-limiting control loop, but does not by itself block work on structural elements like tie anchorage or foundation load.
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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.
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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.