Virtual Commissioning Patents: Leaders vs Long Tail 2026
- One filer dominates the ranking. the leader sits at 7,751 records against a fifth-place figure of 1,882 and a tenth-place figure of 1,287 — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one.
- Filing activity has already peaked. the trend rose from 953 filings in 2017 to a peak of 1,403 in 2022, then declined toward 70 in the most recent (partial) year.
- Momentum is reversing at the top. several of the largest historical filers show year-on-year declines of -67% to -100% in the latest tracked year, including two names dropping to zero.
What this dataset covers
This landscape covers 9,932 published records matched against virtual commissioning and digital twin terminology, spanning filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. The search combines core concept terms — virtual commissioning, digital twin, hardware — with claim-level language around fidelity, commissioning time reduction, model build effort, signal mapping and controller behaviour, which narrows the corpus toward implementation-level claims rather than general simulation background.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in any trend line understates real activity; treat the last one to two years as a floor, not a ceiling. Family-level counts, where available, are the fairer comparison across jurisdictions since they neutralise continuation filings and multi-country duplicates of the same invention.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filings rose to a 2022 peak, then declined
Filings climbed from 953 in 2017 to a peak of 1,403 in 2022, the midpoint of the tracked range, then fell toward 70 in the most recent partial year. A single peak followed by decline, rather than a plateau, points to a technology area that saw a concentrated wave of filing activity rather than sustained compounding growth.
G06F dominates; control and AI classes trail well behind
G06F (electric digital data processing) leads the IPC composition at 12,134 record-class matches, followed by H04L (digital information transmission) at 3,700. Control and regulating systems (G05B, 1,341) and AI-based computing (G06N, 1,033) sit well below the top two, indicating that most claim language in this corpus is framed around data processing and communication architecture rather than control-loop or model-training specifics.
Shares are the percentage of 29,692 class assignments (one record can carry several), not of the record count.
Go deeper on Virtual Commissioning with Digital Twins with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about virtual commissioning with digital twins and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050190059A1 | Acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices | 3,390 |
| 2 | US8279180B2 | Multipoint touch surface controller | 2,958 |
| 3 | US5600364A | Network controller for cable television delivery systems | 2,067 |
| 4 | US6343324B1 | Method and system for controlling access share storage devices in a network environment by configuring host-t… | 1,790 |
| 5 | US5732074A | Mobile portable wireless communication system | 1,652 |
| 6 | US5779549A | Database driven online distributed tournament system | 1,628 |
| 7 | US5611730A | Progressive gaming system tailored for use in multiple remote sites: apparatus and method | 1,519 |
| 8 | US5601435A | Method and apparatus for interactively monitoring a physiological condition and for interactively providing h… | 1,409 |
| 9 | US5619644A | Software directed microcode state save for distributed storage controller | 1,257 |
| 10 | US20070257890A1 | Multipoint touch surface controller | 1,006 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records — read these as markers of foundational influence, not current relevance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the ranking, the trend and the technology composition.
One filer, then a steep drop
The leader's record count is roughly six times the tenth-place figure. Filing into this space means either avoiding the leader's claim territory entirely or building on a specific technical branch they have not staked out.
Past the filing peak
Activity peaked in 2022 and has declined since, with the caveat that the most recent year is partial and understated due to publication lag. This is not evidence the technology is exhausted — it may reflect consolidation of claims by early movers rather than declining interest.
Data processing outweighs control claims
G06F claim density is nearly nine times that of G05B, the control-and-regulating-systems class most directly tied to commissioning hardware. That gap suggests control-loop and machine-interface claims are comparatively less crowded than general data-processing claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to virtual commissioning with digital twins, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM UNITED KINGDOM LTD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT | 26 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM (China) Co., Ltd. | 16 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | SNU R&DB Foundation | 7 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC | 6 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | Toshiba Corporation | 6 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) | 6 |
| Siemens AG | SIEMENS CORP | 6 |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | IBM DEUTSCHLAND GMBH | 5 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this corpus, and the strongest pairing links 26 shared records between two related corporate entities — cross-company joint filing is not a major pattern here.
Who holds the ground, and where it is thinning
The ranking is led by a single large filer with a long tail behind it, and several of the historically largest names are pulling back sharply in the latest tracked year.
Dominant single filer
The top-ranked assignee holds a record count several multiples above the rest of the ranked leaders, consistent with an early and sustained filing programme across the corpus's full 2015-2026 window.
A meaningful second tier
Fifth place sits at 1,882 records — well below the leader but still a substantial filing programme, suggesting a small group of established players rather than a single dominant plus scattered singletons.
Historical leaders pulling back
Several of the largest historical filers, including names tied to IBM and Dell entities in this corpus, show zero filings in the latest tracked year. Others show declines between -67% and -96%. This does not necessarily signal exit — it may reflect filing timing or a shift to unpublished applications.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Corporation | 1 | -96% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 1 | -94% |
| Imagination Technologies Limited | 1 | -75% |
| Texas Instruments Incorporated | 1 | -67% |
| International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) | 0 | -100% |
| Dell Products L.P. | 0 | -100% |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace identification, or competitive monitoring.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader
Given the leader's scale relative to the rest of the ranking, any filing strategy in this space should start by mapping their specific claim scope rather than assuming general crowding.
Explore assignee claims in Eureka →Watch for the post-peak shakeout
With filing past its 2022 peak and several major filers dropping to zero, the next 12-18 months of publications (once lag catches up) will show whether this is consolidation or genuine pullback.
Track filing trends in Eureka →Probe the under-claimed control-systems branch
G05B's comparatively low density relative to G06F suggests control-loop and hardware-interface claims are less occupied than data-processing claims broadly.
Run a whitespace search in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
The ranking in this dataset is led by a single assignee with 7,751 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 1,882 and the tenth-ranked filer at 1,287. That gap indicates one dominant filing programme rather than several evenly matched competitors. The ranked list covers 100 companies returned by the data endpoint, not an exhaustive list of every entity that has ever filed in this space, so smaller or newer entrants may not appear near the top even if they hold strategically important claims.
No — filings rose from 953 in 2017 to a peak of 1,403 in 2022, then declined toward 70 in the most recent tracked year. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years of any trend line will always look lower than the true filing rate, so the decline should not be read as a hard stop. Even accounting for lag, the shape is a single peak rather than sustained growth, which is worth factoring into any assumption that this field is still accelerating.
G06F (electric digital data processing) is the largest IPC class in this corpus at 12,134 record-class matches, followed by H04L (digital information transmission) at 3,700. Control and regulating systems (G05B) and AI-based computing (G06N) trail well behind at 1,341 and 1,033 respectively. This suggests the bulk of claim language in this dataset is framed around data architecture and communication rather than control-loop mechanics or machine-learning model specifics, which is where more open claim space may sit.
Relative to the dominant data-processing classes, control-and-regulating-systems claims (G05B) and AI-model claims (G06N) show noticeably lower density in this corpus. Specific sub-areas worth investigating include edge-case scenario generation for commissioning validation, signal-mapping standardisation between controllers and twin models, and reusable twin component libraries — these are technically specific branches that do not appear to be occupied by the dominant filer's core claim territory. A proper whitespace assessment would still require checking actual claim scope, not just class density.
Several of the historically largest filers in this dataset show sharp year-on-year declines, with two dropping to zero in the latest tracked year and others down between -67% and -96%. Part of this is a publication-lag artefact: the most recent year is partial, and applications filed recently may not have published yet. It can also reflect a genuine shift in filing strategy, such as consolidating recent innovation into fewer, broader applications, or a temporary pause rather than permanent exit from the space.
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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.