Vehicle to Grid Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 39.0% of all 372 records sit with just five assignees, while a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants fills out the remaining ranked leaders.
- Filings grew 17% from 2021 to 2024, the most recent year with complete published data — momentum has not stalled, it is still being reported.
- Power and comms classes overlap heavily: 63.7% of records touch B60L propulsion and 53.2% touch H02J grid systems, but only 11.0% reach H04L digital transmission claims.
Filing growth compares 2021 (35 records) with 2024 (41) — 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 372 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent filings at the intersection of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) power exchange and the charging communication protocols that make it controllable — contract certificates, session negotiation, power line communication, metering data integrity, grid load balancing and charging authorization. It spans records published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawing on 372 patent families in scope.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity; 2024 is the last year that can be read as complete. The field sits at the seam between automotive propulsion engineering and grid-facing power electronics, which is why the IPC composition below shows heavy overlap between electric-vehicle and power-supply classes rather than a single dominant category.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 372 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 31 in 2017 to a peak of 44 in 2022, then continued at a high level; 2021 to 2024 grew 17%, the most recent span that can be treated as complete given publication lag. 2025 and 2026 figures will fill in as more records publish.
IPC subclass composition
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) and H02J (power supply & grid systems) each cover more than half of all 372 records, confirming this is fundamentally a power-electronics field with communication protocol claims layered on top — only 11.0% of records reach H04L digital transmission and 4.6% reach H04W wireless networking, the two subclasses that carry the actual protocol logic.
Shares are the percentage of the 372 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vehicle to Grid and Charging Communication with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vehicle to grid and charging communication and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing
Power line communication cable, and electric vehicle charging system and electric vehicle applying the same
A power line communication cable is formed in a spiral shape including a single-stranded PLC signal transmitting line transmitting a PLC signal and a ground line being mutually intercrossed, thereby to enhance signal quality of power line communication.Filed by LG Innotek, published 2016-09-01, this record sits squarely in the power line communication branch that underpins charging session signalling between vehicle and charger.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110254503A1 | Wireless power antenna alignment adjustment system for vehicles | 736 |
| 2 | US20110254377A1 | Wireless power transmission in electric vehicles | 695 |
| 3 | US20100076615A1 | Systems, devices and methods for electricity provision, usage monitoring, analysis, and enabling improvements… | 546 |
| 4 | US20090139781A1 | Method and apparatus for an electrical vehicle | 514 |
| 5 | US20130029595A1 | Communications related to electric vehicle wired and wireless charging | 304 |
| 6 | US20080312782A1 | Electric vehicle communication interface | 241 |
| 7 | US7698078B2 | Electric vehicle communication interface | 221 |
| 8 | US20090021385A1 | Electric Vehicle Communication Interface | 216 |
| 9 | US8849471B2 | Systems, devices and methods for electricity provision, usage monitoring, analysis, and enabling improvements… | 145 |
| 10 | US20120249068A1 | Power Grid Control System Using Electric Vehicle, Power Grid Control Apparatus, Information Distribution Appa… | 120 |
Citation counts reward older, earlier-published records and should be read as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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 decision
Reading concentration, growth and class overlap together points to where claim space is already dense and where it is still open.
The top of the field is dense, the tail is long
Five assignees hold 39.0% of all 372 records, and the top ten hold 59.9%. That leaves a wide tail of entrants with one or a handful of filings each — a sign that core V2G control and charging-authorization concepts are already well claimed by incumbents, while adjacent implementation detail is still open to new entrants.
Growth is real, not a plateau
Filings rose 17% from 2021 to 2024, the most recent year with complete published data. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the apparent dip in 2025-2026 numbers reflects reporting lag rather than a slowdown in actual filing activity.
Power electronics dominates, protocol claims lag behind
B60L and H02J between them touch the majority of records, while H04L digital transmission reaches only 11.0% and H04W wireless networking only 4.6%. The communication-protocol layer that actually negotiates a charging session is comparatively thin, which is notable given the search scope explicitly targets contract certificates and session negotiation.
Filing is US-anchored with a strong PCT and EPO presence
The United States receives the largest single share of filings, followed by the European Patent Office and WIPO's PCT route, with Japan, Germany and India trailing. This spread suggests applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than filing narrowly in a home market.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vehicle to grid and charging communication, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and how they cluster
The ranked leaders in this dataset show automakers and university-affiliated research groups filing alongside charging-infrastructure and wireless-power specialists, with several strong co-filing relationships between them.
Automakers hold the largest single blocks
The leading assignee holds 38 records, with fifth place at 22 and tenth place at 12 — a steep drop that marks a genuine leader rather than a crowded plateau. Several of the strongest co-assignee pairs in the dataset link an automaker with an affiliated university research foundation, pointing to sponsored research programmes rather than purely internal R&D.
Infrastructure specialists file narrower, protocol-heavy claims
Named charging-network and electrical-contracting firms in the ranking tend to file around session negotiation and authorization rather than propulsion hardware, complementing the automakers' broader B60L coverage.
Wireless power transfer forms its own filing pocket
Wireless charging specialists appear as a distinct cluster from the power line communication and grid-balancing filers, reflecting a genuinely different physical layer even though both feed into the same V2G control loop.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Kia Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Myongji University Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation | 0 | -100% |
| Honda Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hyundai Mobis Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 0 | — |
| Moixa Energy Holdings | 0 | — |
| WiTricity Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or new filing.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the gate chips
The under-claimed sub-areas above are a starting point, not a conclusion — a targeted search against the most-cited records and the leading assignees' full portfolios will confirm whether a specific claim is genuinely open.
Explore in EurekaTrack the leading assignees' co-filing partners
The strongest co-assignee pairs in this dataset link automakers with university research foundations, suggesting sponsored programmes worth monitoring for early signals of new filing directions.
Explore in EurekaWatch the 2025-2026 filings as they publish
Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent years will keep filling in — re-checking the trend in six to twelve months will give a truer read on whether 2022's peak has been matched.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 38 of the 372 records in scope, with a clear drop to 22 at fifth place and 12 at tenth place. The top five assignees combined hold 39.0% of all records, and the top ten hold 59.9%, so the field has a genuine leader plus several strong followers rather than an even spread. Automakers and their affiliated university research foundations account for much of this concentration, often appearing together as co-assignees on the same filings.
Filings grew 17% from 2021 to 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete once publication lag is accounted for. Apparent declines in 2025 and 2026 numbers reflect the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication rather than a real slowdown. The peak year on record so far is 2022 with 44 filings, and later years are likely to revise upward as more records publish.
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) covers 63.7% of the 372 records and H02J (power supply and grid systems) covers 53.2%, making this primarily a power-electronics field. Communication-specific classes are thinner: H04L digital transmission reaches 11.0% of records and H04W wireless networking reaches 4.6%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read against the full record count, not against each other.
Relative to the dense core of propulsion and grid-system claims, sub-areas like metering data integrity verification, bidirectional power flow session handoff, grid load balancing scheduling logic and contract certificate lifecycle management show thinner claim density. These are not guaranteed to be open — a proper freedom-to-operate search against the leading assignees' full portfolios is needed before filing — but they are a reasonable starting point for scoping new claims.
The United States receives the largest share of filings among the receiving offices tracked, at 162, followed by the European Patent Office at 67 and WIPO's PCT route at 45. Japan, Germany and India follow at smaller volumes. The strong PCT and EPO presence alongside the US total suggests applicants in this field are pursuing protection across multiple jurisdictions rather than filing narrowly at home.
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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.