Well Abandonment and Plugging Patents: Who Holds the Barrier Claims
75.0% concentration. The top 5 of 39 ranked assignees hold 382 of 509 records in scope — this field is unusually concentrated at the top. Filings ran from 74 records in 2017 up to a peak of 153 in 2018, then declined to 48 by 2021 and 8 by 2024 — an -83% drop over that three-year window. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as incomplete rather than as evidence the field has gone quiet; publication lag alone accounts for much of the apparent fall in the last two years shown.
- 1ARDYNE HLDG LTD195
- 2CONOCOPHILLIPS CO88
- 3WEATHERFORD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LLC54
- 4WELLBORE INTEGRITY SOLUTIONS LLC25
- 5SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY BV20
See the full well abandonment and plugging analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about well abandonment and plugging patents
Who holds the most patents in well abandonment and plugging?
The assignee ranking is led by a single oilfield-services company holding 195 of the 509 records in scope, with a steep drop to fifth place at 20 records and tenth place at 11. The top 5 assignees together hold 75.0% of all records, and the top 10 hold 88.4%, so the field is concentrated among a small group of established well-integrity specialists rather than spread evenly across many filers. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate should treat the leader's portfolio as the primary reference point, not a representative sample of the whole field.
Is patent filing activity in well abandonment technology growing or shrinking?
Filings peaked in 2018 at 153 records, then declined to 48 by 2021 and 8 by 2024 — an -83% fall over that three-year span using only complete filing years. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so they should not yet be read as continuing evidence of decline. Based on the data through 2024, the honest characterisation is a multi-year pullback from a 2018 peak, not a currently accelerating trend.
What technology areas dominate well abandonment and plugging patents?
E21B, the earth and rock drilling subclass covering wells, appears on 90.2% of the 509 records in scope, making it by far the dominant technology category. Materials-related filings under C09K cover 6.7% and explosives/propellants under C06B cover 2.4%, while classes tied to control systems, semiconductor sensing and impedance networks each sit under 1.5%. This means the field is filed predominantly as mechanical and drilling engineering, with materials and electronic monitoring aspects claimed far less often relative to the total record count.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Well Abandonment and Plugging covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.