Wave Energy Converter Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has cooled sharply. the trend index fell from 100 in 2017 to 79 by 2022 and to 7 in the latest partial year, with no sign of a rebound.
- The foundational claims are old and heavily cited. the five most-cited records all predate 2015 and several sit above 100 citations, meaning newer filers are building on well-established prior art rather than open ground.
- Momentum has stalled across the named leaders. the assignees with the deepest filing history — including Ocean Power Technologies and Wavebob — show zero filings in the latest year tracked.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families filed against power take-off, survivability in storm, mooring, capture width ratio and control strategy claims within wave energy converter and oscillating water column technology, classified under F03B13, H02J3 and B63B35. The corpus spans publications from 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off, covering 1,424 published records and an equal number of distinct patent families.
Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the most recent year in any trend line understates real filing activity — but the multi-year decline visible here predates that lag effect by several years, and the direction is consistent across receiving offices.
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.
A peak in 2017, then a long decline
The filing trend index opens at 100 in 2017, holds at 79 by the 2022 midpoint, and drops to 7 in the latest partial year. Read alongside the publication lag, this points to a technology area where the wave of initial patenting has passed and filers are not returning at the same rate.
Claims concentrate in hydraulic machinery, not electronics
F03B (hydraulic machines and engines) accounts for 1,421 of 1,424 records, effectively the entire corpus, since it is the anchor classification for the search. Beneath that, B63B (ships and marine vessels) and E02B (hydraulic and waterway engineering) each carry 125 records, H02K (electric motors and generators) has 105, and control-specific classifications like H02P (34) and F16H (36) are comparatively thin — suggesting the mechanical capture and hull/mooring side of the technology is far more heavily claimed than the electrical control layer.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,424 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wave Energy Converters with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wave energy converters and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe foundational and the newest filings
Power take-off device and wave energy converter unit comprising such power take-off device
A power take-off device for use in a wave energy converter unit has a power take-off hull connectable to a mooring device and connected to or connectable to the buoy, and a power extracting device connected to the power take-off hull. The power extracting device is adapted to extract power as the buoy moves with the waves, by applying a control force within a predetermined range. The power take-off hull has a first shell movable relatively to a second shell, and the first and second shells together define an inner volume. A seal is provided to separate the inner volume from water outside of the power take-off hull, and the differential pressure between water surrounding the power take-off hull is used as part of the extraction mechanism.Filed by Ocean Harvesting Technologies AB, published 2026-06-25 — one of the few active filings in the most recent window tracked.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6392314B1 | Wave energy converter | 211 |
| 2 | US6109029A | Wave energy converter | 129 |
| 3 | US6291904B1 | Wave energy converter utilizing pressure differences | 126 |
| 4 | US7323790B2 | Wave energy converters (WECs) with linear electric generators (LEGs) | 115 |
| 5 | US20100308589A1 | Heaving ocean wave energy converter | 106 |
| 6 | US4672222A | Ocean wave energy converter | 102 |
| 7 | US4412417A | Wave energy converter | 98 |
| 8 | US6140712A | Wave energy converter | 92 |
| 9 | US6857266B2 | Wave energy converter | 79 |
| 10 | US6226989B1 | Wave energy converter | 75 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate references inside the searched corpus — treat this as a measure of influence on later filers, not of present-day relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once families are counted rather than raw documents, and once citation age is discounted.
The filing wave has passed
A drop from 100 to 79 by the midpoint year and down to 7 in the latest partial year is not noise — it spans nearly a decade and holds across the receiving offices tracked. New entrants filing today are doing so into a much quieter field than one entering in 2017.
Foundational claims are old and dense
The most-cited records in this corpus — including US6392314B1 and US6109029A — predate the tracked window and carry citation counts well above 100. Anyone drafting new power take-off or buoy claims is filing in the shadow of prior art that later applicants have already had to design around repeatedly.
Mechanical capture is crowded; control logic is thin
F03B carries almost the entire corpus, while control-of-motor classifications like H02P sit at only 34 records and gearing/transmission (F16H) at 36. The mechanical wave-capture and hull side of the technology is heavily claimed; the control-strategy and drivetrain-control layer is comparatively open.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wave energy converters, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has gone quiet
The named leaders in this corpus, including Ocean Power Technologies and Wavebob, show zero filings in the most recent year tracked — momentum has not shifted to a new leader so much as slowed across the board.
Ocean Power Technologies
Anchors the strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset, filing jointly with named inventors Stewart David B (8 shared records) and Taylor George W (4). Despite this depth of filing history, the assignee shows no activity in the most recent year tracked.
Ocean Harvesting Technologies AB
Holder of the representative recent filing in this dataset, covering a power take-off hull design that uses differential water pressure as part of the extraction mechanism — one of the few active filings inside the most recent window.
Robert Bosch GmbH
Appears in a co-assignee pairing with named inventor Scharmann Nik across 4 shared records, indicating a defined internal project rather than a broad wave-energy portfolio.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| OCEAN POWER TECHNOLOGIES INC | 0 | — |
| Ocean Harvesting Technologies | 0 | — |
| WAVEBOB | 0 | — |
| Aussler Power Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| NOVIGE AB | 0 | — |
| IPS Engineering Services | 0 | — |
| DICK(IE) | 0 | — |
| Robert Bosch GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying acquisition targets.
Check freedom-to-operate against the cited core
Before drafting a power take-off or buoy claim, clear it against the small set of heavily-cited foundational patents identified here — they define the vocabulary most later filings had to work around.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the recent filers, not just the historical leaders
With named historical leaders showing zero recent activity, tracking newer filings like the Ocean Harvesting Technologies record is a better signal of where active development is happening now.
Set up monitoring in EurekaDraft narrowly in the control-strategy layer
The thin H02P and F16H counts relative to the F03B core suggest control-logic and drivetrain claims have more open space than hull or buoy mechanics.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about wave energy converter patents
The most-cited records in this corpus are US6392314B1, US6109029A and US6291904B1, each titled around core wave energy converter mechanics and each carrying well over 100 citations within the searched dataset. These predate the 2015 start of this landscape's tracked window and function as the prior art baseline that most later power take-off and buoy claims have had to design around. Their citation weight reflects influence on the field's vocabulary rather than continued commercial activity by the original holders.
Filing activity is shrinking on the evidence tracked here: a trend index of 100 in 2017 fell to 79 by 2022 and to just 7 in the most recent partial year. Publication lag of roughly eighteen months means the final year is always undercounted, but the multi-year decline from 2017 onward is too large and too consistent to be an artefact of that lag alone. Several of the assignees with the deepest historical filing records show zero activity in the latest year tracked.
Both terms appear in this dataset's search scope because they describe related but distinct capture mechanisms: a wave energy converter is the broader category covering point-absorber, attenuator and other buoy-based devices, while an oscillating water column specifically uses a partially submerged chamber where wave action compresses and decompresses trapped air to drive a turbine. Patent claims in this corpus split across F03B (hydraulic machines, the dominant classification), B63B (marine vessel structure) and E02B (waterway engineering), reflecting that both converter types share power take-off and mooring claim language even where the capture mechanism differs.
The clearest gap sits in the control-strategy and drivetrain layer: H02P (control of motors and generators) carries only 34 records and F16H (gearing and transmissions) only 36, against 1,421 records in the core F03B hydraulic-machinery classification. That imbalance suggests the mechanical wave-capture and hull side of the technology is heavily claimed, while adaptive control algorithms, capture-width-ratio optimisation logic and storm-survivability latching mechanisms have comparatively thin coverage. A narrowly drafted control-strategy claim is likely to clear more easily than a new hull or buoy mechanism claim.
The named assignees with the deepest historical filing records in this corpus, including Ocean Power Technologies and Wavebob, show zero filings in the most recent year tracked, which points to a slowdown across the established base rather than a shift to a new leader. The most recent active filing identified is from Ocean Harvesting Technologies AB, published in mid-2026, covering a power take-off hull design. Given the overall decline in filing volume, tracking recent individual filings is currently a more reliable signal of active development than ranking by historical portfolio size.
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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.