Vehicle-to-Grid Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has flattened, not grown. 2019 was the peak year at 1,538 filings; 2022's midpoint sits at 1,461, and the trend has not recovered since.
- No single owner controls the field. The ranked leader holds 6,569 records, but the top 5 assignees combined account for just 10.7% of all 185,272 records in scope.
- The most-cited prior art predates V2G branding. The top-cited record, a server-based control system, has 1,721 citations — a sign of foundational influence, not recent activity.
What the dataset covers
This landscape covers 185,272 published records tied to vehicle-to-grid bidirectional power flow: onboard and offboard converter architectures, islanding and protection requirements, metering and settlement logic, and aggregation schemes that pool distributed vehicle batteries as grid assets. The search spans records from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, so the most recent year is necessarily incomplete — publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Because a single filing can carry several IPC classifications, the technology composition below is read as a share of all records carrying each class, not as a partition of the whole field. Family-level counts, where used, are the fairer comparison across assignees because they neutralise continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplication.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 185,272-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the most records.
A decade of flat-to-declining filing
Filings rose from 1,433 in 2017 to a peak of 1,538 in 2019, then held roughly level through the 2022 midpoint at 1,461 before declining toward 56 in the still-incomplete 2026 count. Read the 2026 figure as an artefact of publication lag rather than a real drop-off.
Composition spans control, communications and commerce
The leading subclasses — traffic control systems (G08G, 1.5%), hybrid/joint vehicle control (B60W, 1.4%) and control of non-electric variables (G05D, 1.3%) — sit ahead of electric vehicle propulsion (B60L, 1.1%) itself, showing that claim activity concentrates as much on coordination and control logic as on the power electronics of the vehicle.
Shares are the percentage of the 185,272 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 Bidirectional Power Flow with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vehicle-to-grid bidirectional power flow and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this corpus
US9892647B2 — On-ground vehicle collision avoidance utilizing shared vehicle hazard sensor data
Systems and methods for on-ground vehicle collision avoidance utilizing shared vehicle hazard sensor data are provided. A ground-based hazard data aggregation system, coupled to at least one vehicle-ground communications electronics system, maintains a hazard position database populated from onboard subscriber vehicles and shares it back through a wireless datalink to a first on-ground subscriber vehicle's collision avoidance system.Filed by Honeywell International Inc., published 2018-02-13.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130201316A1 | System and method for server based control | 1,721 |
| 2 | US7103460B1 | System and method for vehicle diagnostics | 1,175 |
| 3 | US9026347B2 | Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging and grid integration apparatus and methods | 1,037 |
| 4 | US20100277121A1 | Wireless energy transfer between a source and a vehicle | 1,007 |
| 5 | US20140316616A1 | Unmanned aerial vehicle and methods for controlling same | 921 |
| 6 | US6208973B1 | Point of service third party financial management vehicle for the healthcare industry | 776 |
| 7 | US5942979A | On guard vehicle safety warning system | 744 |
| 8 | US20050065711A1 | Centralized facility and intelligent on-board vehicle platform for collecting, analyzing and distributing inf… | 723 |
| 9 | US20110009107A1 | Systems, Methods, And Devices For Policy-Based Control and Monitoring of Use of Mobile Devices By Vehicle Ope… | 711 |
| 10 | US5499182A | Vehicle driver performance monitoring system | 683 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records; treat them as signals of influence on later filings, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
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 means for filing strategy
Three findings shape where a new filing is likely to land relative to existing claim density.
Leadership is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 6,569 records and the top 10 combined reach 15.9% of all records in scope. That leaves a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants controlling the majority of the field — useful context before assuming any one company blocks a given approach.
Recent-year filing has slowed across the board
Every assignee with visible recent-year activity shows a sharp year-over-year decline, from roughly -86% to -92%. This is consistent with the overall trend decline and with publication lag, but it also means the newest claim space is thinner than older years suggest.
Control and coordination classes lead propulsion classes
Traffic control systems (G08G) and hybrid/joint vehicle control (B60W) each carry a larger share of records than electric vehicle propulsion (B60L), suggesting the denser claim territory is in coordination logic rather than the converter hardware itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vehicle-to-grid bidirectional power flow, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span automakers, tier-one suppliers and technology firms rather than a single dominant filer, with co-assignee pairs pointing to established internal R&D partnerships.
OEMs anchor the ranking
Ford Global Technologies, Toyota, GM Global Technology Operations, Nissan and Honda appear among the ranked leaders, reflecting sustained internal R&D on onboard converter control and vehicle-side protocols rather than a single breakthrough filer.
Non-automotive firms hold real share
Qualcomm, The Boeing Co and Honeywell International sit inside the ranked leaders alongside the automakers, showing that wireless communications and aerospace-derived control expertise has migrated into V2G claim space.
A small number of firms co-file heavily
The strongest co-assignee pairing links a single corporate group's own entities, with automaker-supplier pairs such as Toyota with Denso and Toyota with Aisin appearing lower in the list — evidence of internal cross-filing rather than open collaboration.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Honeywell International Inc. | 3 | -88% |
| Mobileye Vision Technologies Ltd. | 2 | -91% |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 1 | -92% |
| Ford Global Technologies, LLC | 1 | -90% |
| General Electric Company | 1 | — |
| General Global Purchasing, LLC | 1 | -86% |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | -100% |
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and composition data point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate or new filing strategy.
Check freedom-to-operate against the ranked leaders
With the top 10 assignees holding only 15.9% of all 185,272 records, a freedom-to-operate review needs to look well past the ranked leaders into the long tail of single-filing entrants.
Explore assignee data in EurekaProbe the under-claimed branches directly
Settlement metering, islanding protection and degradation attribution carry lighter record density than the core control classes — a targeted search in those branches can surface open claim space faster than a broad novelty search.
Run a white space search in EurekaTrack filing momentum before committing R&D spend
Every leading assignee's recent-year filing count has dropped sharply year over year; confirming whether this reflects publication lag or a genuine pullback matters before allocating new development budget.
Monitor filing trends in EurekaCommon questions on V2G patent activity
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 6,569 records, drawn from a ranking of 100 companies that spans automakers, tier-one suppliers and technology firms. No single company dominates the field: the top 5 assignees combined hold only 10.7% of all 185,272 records in scope, and the top 10 combined hold 15.9%. This means most of the corpus sits with a long tail of lower-volume filers rather than a handful of blocking players.
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 1,538 records and has been flat to declining since, with the 2022 midpoint at 1,461. The most recent year shows only 56 filings, but that figure is heavily understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. The honest read is a plateaued field rather than a growing or clearly shrinking one, pending the next 12–18 months of publications catching up.
Traffic control systems (G08G) and hybrid/joint vehicle control (B60W) carry the largest shares among the IPC subclasses tracked, each above electric vehicle propulsion (B60L) itself. Control of non-electric variables (G05D), data processing (G06F) and business/commerce data processing (G06Q) also carry meaningful shares. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares are not mutually exclusive and should not be summed.
Sub-areas such as islanding detection for bidirectional inverters, real-time settlement metering for aggregated V2G, and battery degradation attribution models for V2G cycling carry lighter record density relative to the core control and propulsion classes. These are not unclaimed, but the density is thinner than in the dominant control-logic classes, making them worth a targeted search before assuming freedom to file. A precise first claim in these branches should specify the sensing or settlement mechanism rather than restating general bidirectional charging.
US9892647B2, assigned to Honeywell International, claims a ground-based hazard data aggregation system that communicates with onboard vehicle collision-avoidance systems over a wireless datalink, maintaining a shared hazard position database populated by subscriber vehicles. It is aimed at collision avoidance using shared sensor data rather than at power flow or charging control directly. Anyone building V2G-adjacent vehicle-to-infrastructure communication architecture should review its claim scope for overlap with shared-data aggregation mechanisms, even though its primary application is hazard avoidance, not grid interaction.
Qualcomm, The Boeing Co and Honeywell International all appear among the ranked leading assignees alongside traditional automakers such as Ford, Toyota, GM, Nissan and Honda. Their presence reflects the migration of wireless communications, aerospace-grade control systems and aggregation-data expertise into vehicle-to-grid claim territory. This cross-sector activity is a useful signal that V2G patent risk is not confined to the automotive supply chain.
Research Vehicle-to-Grid Bidirectional Power Flow in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole vehicle-to-grid bidirectional power flow 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.