Transmission Control Unit Patents: Who Leads, Filing Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled, not grown. activity peaked at 30 families in 2018 and had fallen to single digits by the 2022 midpoint, with the most recent full year showing no filings from any of the top assignees tracked here.
- Two OEM-supplier pairings dominate joint filing. the strongest co-assignee link in the dataset pairs a major Japanese OEM with its transmission affiliate at 69 shared families, well ahead of the next closest pairing.
- F16H carries the claim weight. 2,125 of 2,216 records sit in the core gearing subclass, while adjacent hybrid-control and engine-control classes (B60W, F02D) show far thinner coverage relative to filing volume.
Filing growth compares 2021 (17 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 2,216 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 2,216 patent families filed between 2017 and 2026 under a search built around transmission control units, shift control and gear shift strategy, narrowed to documents that also discuss shift quality, clutch pressure control, adaptive learning, fault diagnosis or solenoid valves. The IPC filter (F16H61, F16H63, B60W10) anchors the set to gearing control and hybrid/joint vehicle control rather than mechanical transmission design generally. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the tail end of the trend understates real activity.
The receiving-office split shows the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Patent Office each carrying a substantial share of filings, with Canada and China trailing well behind. That spread points to a contest playing out across the major vehicle-producing regions rather than one jurisdiction acting as the primary gatekeeper.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,216-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how those families distribute across IPC subclasses.
A peak in 2018, then decline
Filings ran at 24 in 2017, rose to a peak of 30 in 2018, then eased down through the years that followed, reaching just 3 at the 2022 midpoint and tapering toward zero by the most recent (partial) year. Read the final one to two years as incomplete rather than as a genuine drop-off, since publication lag hides recently filed applications.
F16H dominates; adjacent classes are thin
F16H (gearing and transmissions) accounts for 2,125 of the 2,216 records, effectively the entire set. B60W (hybrid/joint vehicle control, 420), B60K (vehicle propulsion and drive, 190) and F02D (engine control, 109) appear as secondary classifications rather than as parallel filing programmes, and G06F, F16D, B60L and B60T each sit under 65 records — a sign that software-side control logic, clutch/brake integration and EV-specific shift strategy are still lightly claimed relative to the core gearing art.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,216 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Transmission Control Unit and Shift Strategy with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about transmission control unit and shift strategy and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe documents setting the citation baseline
US9394952B2 — Method and apparatus for clutch pressure control
A method, apparatus and system for controlling transmission clutch system output pressures is provided. A transmission control unit and a pressure control device including an electro-hydraulic valve and a pressure switch cooperate to provide self-calibrating clutch pressure control systems.Filed by Allison Transmission, Inc., published 2016-07-19.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6015359A | Belt type continuously variable transmission | 195 |
| 2 | US20070278022A1 | Drive state shift control apparatus and method for vehicle | 137 |
| 3 | US4208929A | Automatic electronic control for a power shift transmission | 128 |
| 4 | US4653350A | Adaptive direct pressure shift control for a motor vehicle transmission | 125 |
| 5 | US5923093A | Hybrid vehicle drive system adapted to assure smooth brake application by motor/generator or engine | 123 |
| 6 | US5193410A | Range section protection valve assembly | 122 |
| 7 | US4707789A | Adaptive direct pressure shift control for a motor vehicle transmission | 122 |
| 8 | US20080149407A1 | Control apparatus and control method for vehicular drive system | 117 |
| 9 | US5833570A | Vehicle transmission shift control apparatus wherein torque of motor connected to automatic transmission is c… | 116 |
| 10 | US5873426A | Hybrid vehicle drive system having means for using at least engine as drive power source in special vehicle o… | 107 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records that have had more time to accumulate references; treat this table as a map of influence, not of current filing activity.
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 data implies for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, the IPC split and the citation table, aimed at where a new filing would actually land.
The core art is settling, not accelerating
The climb to a 2018 peak followed by a steady decline through the dataset's midpoint suggests the foundational clutch-pressure and shift-control claim space was staked out early. New entrants filing broad claims in core F16H shift-control territory are more likely to run into dense prior art than open ground.
Almost the entire dataset sits in one subclass
With F16H carrying nearly the full corpus and B60W, B60K and F02D trailing far behind in absolute count, the control-logic and cross-domain integration claims (software calibration, EV-specific shift strategy, brake-transmission coordination) are comparatively underbuilt relative to the mechanical and hydraulic control art.
The most-cited documents are foundational, not current
The highest citation counts belong to older belt-CVT and adaptive-pressure-control filings from the 1980s-2000s. Their influence is a function of corpus age and citation accumulation time, not evidence that those specific claim structures remain the ones being actively contested today.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to transmission control unit and shift strategy, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Toyota Motor Corporation | Aisin AW Co., Ltd. | 69 |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | Toyota Motor Corporation | 58 |
| Hyundai Motor Company | Kia Corporation | 48 |
| Aisin AW Co., Ltd. | Toyota Motor Corporation | 14 |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | JATCO Ltd. | 12 |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd. | 5 |
| Hyundai Motor Company | JANG JAE DUK | 4 |
| Hyundai Motor Company | LIM KI BEEN | 3 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset. The strongest links an OEM to its transmission-manufacturing affiliate at 69 shared families, and a second link pairs the same OEM group with a related entity at 58 — a pattern consistent with in-house transmission divisions filing jointly with parent automakers rather than open cross-licensing between competitors.
Who holds the ground, and where it is not yet held
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees reads as flat across the board: every one of the six leading filers shows zero families in the latest year, consistent with the broader publication-lag effect rather than a sudden pullback by any single company.
No single filer is currently pulling ahead
The recent-year momentum table shows the leading OEMs and their transmission affiliates all reporting zero filings in the most recent tracked year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this reflects incomplete recent data more than a genuine stop in R&D, but it does mean the ranking table's top positions were built on filings from earlier years.
OEM-affiliate pairs file together, not across company lines
The strongest co-assignee relationship pairs a major automaker with its transmission-manufacturing affiliate, and the second-strongest pairs entities within the same corporate group. This points to internal divisional filing structures rather than industry-wide collaboration on shift-control technology.
Filing is spread across four major offices
No single jurisdiction holds a majority of filings. The United States leads narrowly, followed by South Korea, Japan and the European Patent Office in a fairly even spread, while Canada and China each account for a small fraction — a sign that transmission control claims are being protected across all major vehicle-producing regions rather than concentrated in one.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Hyundai Motor Company | 0 | — |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Aisin AW Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Honda Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| JATCO Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mazda Motor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Eaton Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and rankings on this page answer who has filed and where the claim density sits. The next questions are usually specific to one company or one claim.
Check freedom-to-operate against a specific claim
Run the exact clutch-pressure or shift-control mechanism you plan to file against the granted claims in this dataset, not just the abstract-level topic match.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack a named assignee's filing cadence
Recent-year momentum here is flattened by publication lag across the board; a company-level pull refreshed against newer filings will show which OEMs are actually still active.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaMap the under-claimed branches to your roadmap
The gaps in EV-specific shift strategy and software-based fault diagnosis may or may not overlap with your product plan — worth a targeted search before assuming open ground.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking table on this page is built from 2,216 patent families, with the strongest co-filing relationship linking a major Japanese OEM to its transmission-manufacturing affiliate across 69 shared families. Filing is concentrated among a handful of large automakers and their transmission divisions rather than spread evenly, but no single assignee shows recent-year momentum above zero in this dataset, which reflects publication lag more than an actual halt in activity. For a current picture, cross-reference the ranking against each company's most recent public filings.
Filing volume in this dataset rose from 24 families in 2017 to a peak of 30 in 2018, then fell steadily to 3 by 2022 and toward zero by the most recent tracked year. Part of that decline is a genuine slowdown in new claim activity around core shift-control and clutch-pressure mechanisms, consistent with foundational claim space having been staked out earlier in the period. Part of it is also an artefact of the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, which always makes the most recent one to two years look emptier than they will eventually be.
F16H (gearing and transmissions) is the dominant classification in this dataset, covering 2,125 of 2,216 records, essentially the whole corpus. B60W (hybrid and joint vehicle control) and B60K (vehicle propulsion and drive) appear as secondary classifications at 420 and 190 records respectively, while F02D (engine control), G06F (digital data processing), F16D (clutches and brakes), B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) and B60T (vehicle brakes) each account for well under 200 records. A filing strategy focused only on F16H risks missing the thinner but potentially more open ground in the smaller adjacent classes.
Relative to the density of core F16H filings, the adjacent classes covering EV-specific shift strategy (B60L), software-based fault diagnosis and shift-quality prediction (G06F), and brake-transmission coordination (B60T) all show comparatively low filing counts. That does not guarantee an easy path to grant, since some of those areas may simply have fewer applicable inventions rather than genuinely open claim space, but it does mark them as areas warranting a closer freedom-to-operate check before assuming they are crowded. Adaptive learning calibration tied specifically to solenoid valve wear also appears less densely claimed than the broader clutch-pressure-control art around it.
Not necessarily. The most-cited records in this dataset, including a belt-type continuously variable transmission patent cited 195 times and an adaptive direct-pressure shift control patent cited 125 times, are older filings that have simply had more years to accumulate citations within the searched corpus. High citation counts are a reasonable signal of historical influence on how the field's terminology and claim structures developed, but they say little about which specific mechanisms are being actively contested or licensed today. Recent, less-cited filings can be more relevant to a current freedom-to-operate question than the oldest, most-cited ones.
Research Transmission Control Unit and Shift Strategy in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole transmission control unit and shift strategy 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.