Well Testing & Pressure Transient Analysis Patents: Leaders 2026
- Oilfield service majors dominate the ranked list, with the leader holding 25 records against a fifth-place figure of 10 and a tenth-place figure of 7 across 47 ranked companies.
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak of 10, and the 2021-to-2024 span the data can call complete shows a 20% decline, from 5 filings down to 4.
- Claims cluster hard in drilling and geophysics, with E21B present in 73.2% of the 127 records and G01V in 29.1%, leaving digital-processing and AI-linked classes thin by comparison.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (4) — 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.
What this landscape covers
Well testing and pressure transient analysis (PTA) patents cover the methods and systems used to interpret pressure and rate data from producing or injecting wells — radial flow regime identification, wellbore storage effects, skin factor determination and boundary-dominated flow among them. This scope sits inside reservoir simulation more broadly but is defined narrowly around interpretation techniques rather than the hardware that gathers the pressure data itself.
127 published records fall inside this search across a coverage window running from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity and should be read as provisional rather than declining.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 127 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2020. The last complete comparison the data supports is 2021 (5) against 2024 (4), a 20% decline; 2025 and 2026 are still filling in under publication lag and should not be read as a continued drop.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
E21B (earth and rock drilling) appears in 73.2% of the 127 records and G01V (geophysics and gravity surveying) in 29.1%, confirming that most claims are anchored to the well and reservoir side rather than to signal processing. G06F (electric digital data processing) at 16.5% and G01N (material analysis and testing) at 10.2% mark the analytical layer; G06G, G01R, G06N and G01F each sit under 4% and represent the thinnest-claimed corners of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 127 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Well Testing and Pressure Transient Analysis with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about well testing and pressure transient analysis and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Method to Automate Pressure Transient Analysis (PTA) of Continuously Measured Pressure Data (US20180100948A1)
Herein disclosed are methods and systems related to automatic pressure transient analysis (PTA). More particularly, herein disclosed are methods and systems related to automatic pressure transient analysis (PTA) of continuously measured pressure data associated with production or injection wells which utilizes in part pattern recognition analysis methods to determine key flow regimes in the measured data for more accurate determination of automatic pressure transient analysis (PTA) and determination of reservoir and well characteristic properties.Filed by ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, published 2018-04-12.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6076046A | Post-closure analysis in hydraulic fracturing | 162 |
| 2 | US20060241867A1 | System and methods of characterizing a hydrocarbon reservoir | 118 |
| 3 | US20110040536A1 | Reservoir architecture and connectivity analysis | 106 |
| 4 | US5303582A | Pressure-transient testing while drilling | 103 |
| 5 | US7277796B2 | System and methods of characterizing a hydrocarbon reservoir | 87 |
| 6 | US4803873A | Process for measuring flow and determining the parameters of multilayer hydrocarbon producing formations | 85 |
| 7 | US4797821A | Method of analyzing naturally fractured reservoirs | 83 |
| 8 | US20110191029A1 | System and method for well test design, interpretation and test objectives verification | 69 |
| 9 | US20130186688A1 | Methods for determining formation strength of a wellbore | 61 |
| 10 | US20100076740A1 | System and method for well test design and interpretation | 43 |
Citation counts favour older filings inside this searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, class and geography data that matter for where to file next.
Volume has settled, not collapsed
The peak year was 2020 at 10 filings; the most recent span the data can call complete, 2021 to 2024, shows a 20% pullback. Because 2025–2026 publications are still arriving under the usual 18-month lag, this should be read as a plateau after a peak rather than a technology in decline.
Drilling-side claims are the crowded ground
E21B claims appear in nearly three-quarters of records in scope, with G01V a distant second at 29.1%. Anyone filing a new interpretation method inside E21B is filing into dense prior art; the digital-processing and AI-adjacent classes (G06F, G06N) are comparatively open.
Filing strategy still centres on the US
United States receiving-office filings outnumber the next tier combined — WIPO/PCT at 21, EPO at 11, Canada at 10 — with Australia and the UK each at 7. A filer targeting only the US misses roughly the same volume of activity that flows through PCT and EPO combined.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to well testing and pressure transient analysis, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ranked positions
47 companies appear in the assignee ranking behind the 127 records in scope. The leader holds 25 records; fifth place holds 10; tenth place holds 7 — a sharp drop from the top before the ranking lengthens into single-digit holdings.
One name well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 25 records, more than double the fifth-place figure of 10. Several entities sharing a common corporate lineage occupy adjoining ranked positions, which concentrates the strongest claim positions inside a small number of related filing entities.
The ranking thins quickly after the top
Fifth place holds 10 records and tenth place holds 7 — a narrow gap that widens into a long tail of companies with a handful of filings each. That tail is where smaller operators and service specialists sit, each defending a narrower technical niche.
Corporate affiliates file jointly, not competitors
The strongest co-assignee pairings in the data link entities within the same corporate family rather than across competing groups, each pairing appearing together on 6 records. This points to internal jurisdictional or subsidiary filing patterns rather than joint-venture collaboration.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Saudi Aramco) | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | 0 | — |
| BP Corp North America Inc | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services Inc | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Technology BV | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger Holdings Ltd | 0 | — |
| Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 0 | — |
Working the data further
The figures above answer where the field stands. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going record by record.
Map claims against your own filings
Run your existing well-testing or PTA claims against the IPC composition here to see whether you are filing into the crowded E21B ground or the thinner digital-processing classes.
Explore in EurekaTrack the leading assignees' next moves
The leader's 25-record position and the related entities near the top of the ranking are worth watching for continuation filings and new priority dates.
Set up monitoring in EurekaDraft around the most-cited prior art
The highest-cited records in this set anchor the interpretation methods most likely to appear in an examiner's rejection. Reviewing them before drafting narrows the search space.
Review key patents in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The assignee ranking behind this dataset lists 47 companies, with the leading assignee holding 25 records — more than double the fifth-place figure of 10. Several related entities occupy adjoining positions near the top, which points to a single corporate group holding the deepest claim position rather than several independent competitors. Below the top few positions the ranking thins quickly into a long tail of companies holding only a handful of records each, typically specialist service providers or operators defending a narrow technical niche.
Filing peaked at 10 in 2020 and the most recent span the data can treat as complete, 2021 to 2024, shows a 20% decline from 5 filings to 4. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as evidence of a continued drop. The honest read is a plateau after a 2020 peak, not a technology in decline.
E21B, covering earth and rock drilling methods, appears in 73.2% of the 127 records in scope, making it the densest claim territory by far. G01V (geophysics and gravity surveying) follows at 29.1%. By contrast, classes tied to AI-based interpretation (G06N), analogue computation (G06G) and flow metering (G01F) each sit under 4% of records, marking them as comparatively under-claimed relative to the drilling-centric core.
United States filings dominate the receiving-office breakdown at 57, but WIPO/PCT filings (21) and EPO filings (11) combined roughly match or exceed that US-only figure, alongside Canada (10), Australia (7) and the UK (7). A strategy built only around the US misses a meaningful share of the activity that routes through PCT and European filings, so multi-jurisdiction coverage is worth weighing against the added prosecution cost.
US20180100948A1, assigned to ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company and published 2018-04-12, covers automated pressure transient analysis of continuously measured pressure data using pattern recognition to identify flow regimes. It sits inside the G06F/E21B overlap that this landscape shows is thinner than the core drilling classes, so its claims are relevant to anyone building automated or pattern-recognition-based flow-regime identification rather than to manual interpretation methods generally. Freedom-to-operate analysis should focus on the specific pattern-recognition steps claimed rather than treating it as a blanket block on automated PTA.
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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.