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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/vacuum-interrupter-design-for-medium-voltage-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Transformers & SwitchgearVacuum interrupter patents for medium-voltage switchgear: mapping who holds the claim space
- 39.1% of all 1,161 records sit with just five assignees, and 58.9% with ten — a field concentrated at the top with a long tail below.
- Filings peaked in 2017 at 51 and the last complete year (2024, 19 filings) sits 17% below 2021 — a real pullback, not a publication-lag artifact.
- H01H covers 94.8% of records while alloys (C22C, 6.2%) and powder metallurgy (B22F, 2.5%) mark the thinner, less-crowded contact-material branches.
1,161
Published Records
39%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-17%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (23 records) with 2024 (19) — 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 1,161 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 1,161 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine vacuum interrupter or vacuum circuit breaker claims with specific failure-mode or performance language: contact material erosion, welding, axial magnetic field control, dielectric recovery, bellows life, mechanical endurance and capacitive switching restrike. That search construction deliberately narrows the field to design-level engineering disclosures rather than every vacuum switchgear filing, so the dataset skews toward contact geometry, magnetic-field shaping and material composition claims.
The records span six major receiving offices, led by the United States and Europe, with meaningful volume in Japan, China, India and South Korea. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the technology composition below is read against the full record count, not against itself.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,161 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 51 in 2017 and have since declined; the last complete year, 2024, recorded 19 filings, down 17% from 23 in 2021. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up to filing date, so treat the most recent two years as incomplete rather than as evidence of a further slide.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
H01H (switches and relays) covers 94.8% of the 1,161 records, confirming the search is centred on interrupter and contact mechanisms. Alloys (C22C, 6.2%), powder metallurgy (B22F, 2.5%) and connectors (H01R, 1.6%) are present but thin, marking the material-science side of the field as comparatively under-filed against the mechanical side.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,161 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Most-cited records and a representative filing
Representative Filing
US5777287A — Axial magnetic field coil for vacuum interrupter (Eaton Corporation, 1998)
EATON CORPORATION
An electrode assembly for a vacuum interrupter is disclosed having a coil structure that produces an axial magnetic field during operation of the assembly. The electrode coil includes at least one arcuate arm having a radial cross section which provides more material adjacent to a base of the coil than adjacent to a contact plate of the assembly. In a preferred embodiment, the cross-sectional area of the arcuate arm has a trapezoidal shape, giving the assembly improved heat transfer while maintaining a sufficient axial magnetic field.Filed by Eaton Corporation; the trapezoidal arcuate-arm geometry is the specific mechanical detail that narrows the claim.
Most-cited records in the dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6362445B1 | Modular, miniaturized switchgear | 136 |
| 2 | US5917167A | Encapsulated vacuum interrupter and method of making same | 132 |
| 3 | US6198062B1 | Modular, high-voltage, three phase recloser assembly | 115 |
| 4 | US5747766A | Operating mechanism usable with a vacuum interrupter | 90 |
| 5 | US4723589A | Method for making vacuum interrupter contacts by spray deposition | 89 |
| 6 | US4982059A | Axial magnetic field interrupter | 88 |
| 7 | US4871888A | Tubular supported axial magnetic field interrupter | 80 |
| 8 | US4484046A | Vacuum load break switch | 74 |
| 9 | US6172317B1 | Foam encapsulated vacuum interrupter module removably mounted in a housing | 60 |
| 10 | US5438174A | Vacuum interrupter with a radial magnetic field | 60 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; a low count on a recent record does not mean it is unimportant.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three findings that change where a team should and should not put new claim effort.
Concentration
39.1% / 5 assignees
of 1,161 records
Top of the field is tight, not crowded end to end
Five assignees hold 39.1% of all 1,161 records and ten hold 58.9%. That leaves roughly four in ten records spread across a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants, which is where freedom-to-operate work needs the most care because prior art there is scattered rather than concentrated in a few well-known portfolios.
Leader sits at 188 records; tenth place at 42.
Momentum
-17%, 2021→2024
last complete years
Filing volume has genuinely cooled since the 2017 peak
The peak year was 2017 at 51 filings. Between 2021 and 2024 — the last span that is not distorted by publication lag — filings fell from 23 to 19, a 17% drop. That is a real signal about appetite for new interrupter-design filings, not a data artifact of the 2025-2026 gap.
2025 and 2026 counts will still rise as publication catches up.
Composition
6.2% C22C, 2.5% B22F
of 1,161 records
Material-science claims are thin next to mechanism claims
H01H mechanism and switch claims dominate at 94.8% of records, but the alloy (C22C) and powder-metallurgy (B22F) classes that cover contact material formulation sit far lower, at 6.2% and 2.5%. Teams working on contact erosion resistance or novel sintered contact materials are filing into noticeably less occupied space than teams working on mechanism or coil geometry.
Connectors (H01R) and measurement (G01R) classes are thinner still.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vacuum interrupter design for medium voltage, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span established switchgear manufacturers; recent-year momentum has slowed across nearly all of them, which is consistent with the field-wide filing decline rather than any single company retreating.
Leader
188 records
top-ranked assignee
One assignee sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 188 records against a fifth-place figure of 52 and a tenth-place figure of 42 — a steep drop-off after the top handful that signals an established, well-defended core portfolio rather than an even distribution of effort.
Ranking covers 100 companies, counted in records.
Recent activity
1 filing, latest year
most active recent filer
Momentum has slowed across almost every tracked assignee
Recent-year momentum figures show most tracked assignees at zero filings in the latest year, with only one recording a single filing. This mirrors the field-wide 2021-2024 decline rather than pointing to one company stepping back; treat any single -100% YoY figure with caution given how few filings the comparison is based on.
Latest-year counts are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
identified in the dataset
Co-filing is limited and mostly inventor-linked
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairs link a corporate assignee to a named individual inventor rather than to another company. Formal cross-company collaboration is not a meaningful feature of this field based on the current record.
Strongest pairs recur at 3 shared records.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Siemens AG | 1 | — |
| Meidensha Corporation | 0 | — |
| Eaton Corporation | 0 | — |
| LSIS Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| ABB Technology Ltd. | 0 | — |
| S&C Electric Company | 0 | -100% |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing or competitive tracking.
Check freedom-to-operate against the long tail
With roughly four in ten of the 1,161 records held outside the top ten assignees, a targeted FTO search should not stop at the ranked leaders — the scattered tail is where unexpected prior art tends to sit.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkExplore the material-science branches
C22C and B22F classes carry a fraction of the filing density of H01H mechanism claims, suggesting contact-material formulation work has more open claim space than interrupter mechanism design.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack leader activity as filings recover
Because 2025-2026 filings are still being published, a fresh pull in six to twelve months will show whether the 2021-2024 decline continues or reverses among the top assignees.
Set up assignee trackingSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about vacuum interrupter patents
The dataset's leading assignee holds 188 of the 1,161 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 52 and the tenth at 42. That gap indicates a concentrated core portfolio rather than an evenly spread field. The ranking itself covers 100 companies total, so it should be described as the ranked leaders rather than a top-50 or top-100 list of all filers everywhere.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 51 records and has trended down since. Using 2021 and 2024 as the last comparable complete years, filings fell from 23 to 19, a 17% decline. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those two years will rise before the full picture is clear.
H01H, covering switches and relays, appears in 94.8% of the 1,161 records, confirming that most filings are built around interrupter and contact mechanism design. Smaller but distinct clusters exist in alloys (C22C, 6.2%), power switchboards and substations (H02B, 3.2%) and powder metallurgy (B22F, 2.5%), which relate more to contact material composition and fabrication than to mechanism design.
The material-science side of the field is comparatively under-filed: alloy composition (C22C) and powder-metallurgy fabrication (B22F) classes sit at 6.2% and 2.5% of records respectively, far below the 94.8% carried by mechanism-focused H01H claims. Specific branches like sintered contact alloy formulation, bellows fatigue life prediction and capacitive switching restrike suppression show lower filing density relative to the mechanical core of the field.
US5777287A, assigned to Eaton Corporation and dated 1998-07-07, claims an electrode coil assembly that produces an axial magnetic field using an arcuate arm with more material near the coil base than near the contact plate, with a trapezoidal cross-section in the preferred embodiment. That specific geometric detail — the trapezoidal, base-heavy arcuate arm — is what narrows the claim rather than axial magnetic field coils in general. A new design using a different cross-sectional profile or material distribution would need its own freedom-to-operate review rather than assuming this patent covers all axial field coil approaches.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Vacuum Interrupter Design for Medium Voltage covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.