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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/wide-area-measurement-and-synchrophasors-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Grid Simulation & Digital TwinWide Area Measurement and Synchrophasor Patents: Who Leads and Where Filing Is Heading
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees together hold 32.5% of all 200 records in scope, and the top ten hold 51.0% — over half the field sits with a small group of filers.
- Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak. Filings ran from 26 in 2021 to 7 in 2024, a 73% drop over that span; 2025-2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline yet.
- Grid systems claims dominate the composition. G01R (measurement) and H02J (power supply & grid systems) each cover close to half the record set, while AI-based computing (G06N) and business-process classes (G06Q) remain comparatively thin.
200
Published Records
33%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-73%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (26 records) with 2024 (7) — 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 200 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Wide area measurement systems and synchrophasor technology give grid operators a time-synchronised view of voltage and current phase angles across a network, using phasor measurement units (PMUs) and the concentrators that aggregate their data. The search scope here pairs those core terms with claim elements around reporting rate, time-source dependency, oscillation detection, communication architecture, data compression and event-triggered storage — the practical engineering problems that separate a working wide-area system from a laboratory demonstration. This is a filing-behaviour view, not an infrastructure-deployment one: it shows where applicants have staked claims, not where synchrophasor networks are physically installed.
The 200 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, filed across United States, Chinese, European, Indian, WIPO and Canadian receiving offices. Family-level counting is used throughout so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates do not inflate any single applicant's apparent share.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trends and technical composition
Two views of the same 200-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Volume rose to a peak of 26 records in 2021, then fell to 7 by 2024 — a 73% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures will continue to rise as publications catch up with filing dates roughly 18 months behind, so the most recent two years understate actual filing activity.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G01R (electric & magnetic measurement) and H02J (power supply & grid systems) each appear in close to half of all 200 records, confirming that most filings anchor on measurement accuracy or grid-system integration rather than downstream analytics. H04L (data transmission) and G06F (digital data processing) form a mid-tier around communication and processing architecture, while G06N (AI-based computing) and G06Q (business/commerce processing) sit well below 10%, suggesting analytics-layer claims are comparatively open.
Shares are the percentage of the 200 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative filing and most-cited records
Representative record
US20140164377A1 — Systems for synchrophasor data management
GE INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY LLC
A system includes a Synchrophasor Data Management System (SDMS), in which the SDMS includes a Synchrophasor Processor System (SPS). The SPS includes a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) configured to receive a first plurality of inputs from a first Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), transform at least one of the first plurality of inputs into a first time aligned output by time aligning the at least one of the first plurality of inputs. The SPS further includes a virtual PMU configured to aggregate the first time aligned output into a PMU dataset, in which the SPS is configured to transmit the PMU dataset to a second PMU, an external PDC, a super PDC, or a combination thereof.Filed by GE Infrastructure Technology, this record anchors the hierarchical PDC-to-super-PDC architecture that much of the field's communication-architecture claiming builds around.
Most-cited records in this landscape
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110282508A1 | Generalized grid security framework | 486 |
| 2 | US8924033B2 | Generalized grid security framework | 198 |
| 3 | US20120316691A1 | Load phase balancing at multiple tiers of a multi-tier hierarchical intelligent power distribution grid | 152 |
| 4 | US20090099798A1 | Real-Time Power System Oscillation Detection Using Modal Analysis | 114 |
| 5 | US20120082048A1 | System and method for providing smart grid communications and management | 84 |
| 6 | US9634850B2 | System and method for providing smart grid communications and management | 82 |
| 7 | US20130091258A1 | Communication network topology management based on an associated electric grid topology | 80 |
| 8 | US20120283967A1 | State-matrix-independent dynamic process estimation method in real-time for weakly observable measurement nod… | 59 |
| 9 | US20190050949A1 | Exergy token | 50 |
| 10 | US20170336465A1 | Method and System for Fault Detection and Faulted Line Identification in Power Systems using Synchrophasors-B… | 50 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of being in circulation longer — treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers say
Three findings that shape how a competitive or freedom-to-operate review should be scoped in this space.
Concentration
32.5%
of 200 records held by top 5 assignees
The top of the field is tight, the rest is long-tail
With 83 companies ranked in total and the leader alone holding 18 records, the gap between the top tier and the rest is wide. A freedom-to-operate search here should prioritise the handful of assignees clustered at the top rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Top 10 combined hold 51.0% of all 200 records.
Momentum
26 → 7
annual filings, 2021 to 2024
Filing has pulled back sharply from its peak
The 73% drop from the 2021 peak to 2024 suggests the initial wave of core PMU and PDC architecture claims has largely been staked, pushing new activity toward narrower, more specific sub-problems rather than foundational system claims.
2025-2026 counts will rise as publication catches up with filing.
Composition
9.5%
of 200 records touch G06N (AI-based computing)
Analytics-layer claims remain thin relative to measurement claims
G01R and H02J together dominate composition, while G06N and G06Q sit under 10%. Oscillation detection and event-triggered storage problems are well represented in the search terms but the AI/ML layer that could address them is comparatively under-claimed.
G05F (electric/magnetic variable control) is the smallest class at 4.5%.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wide area measurement and synchrophasors, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who's filing
Assignee landscape
83 companies appear in the assignee ranking behind these 200 records — this is the full ranked list the dataset returns, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. A small group of grid-equipment and utility-research filers accounts for the bulk of the volume, with co-filing pairs pointing to a handful of close corporate or research relationships.
Leader
18
records held by the top-ranked assignee
One filer sits well clear of the field
The leading assignee's 18 records compare to 9 at fifth place and 6 at tenth, a steep drop-off that marks this as a field led by a small number of grid-equipment and utility-research organisations rather than a broad, even field of entrants.
Ranking covers 83 companies in total.
Co-filing
4 pairs
co-assignee relationships identified
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only four co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest link showing 6 shared records between two related engineering entities. This points to filing being done largely independently rather than through joint ventures or shared research programmes.
Strongest pair: 6 shared records.
Recent momentum
0
latest-year filings across several leading assignees
Even top filers show no recorded activity in the latest year
Several of the most active historical assignees show zero filings in the most recent year tracked. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is consistent with filings still working through to publication rather than a genuine stop in R&D activity.
Read alongside the 2021-2024 volume decline, not as a standalone signal.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| General Electric Co. | 0 | — |
| North China Electric Power University | 0 | — |
| Beijing Sifang Jibao Automation Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Neuville Grid Data Management Ltd. | 0 | — |
| LO3 Energy Inc. | 0 | — |
| Cisco Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Alstom Grid Ltd. | 0 | — |
| University of Tennessee Research Foundation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Using this landscape
The data points to where claim space is dense and where it is thin — the next step is testing a specific claim or design against it.
Check freedom-to-operate against the concentrated top
With over half of all records held by ten assignees, a targeted clearance search against that group is more efficient than a broad sweep across all 83 ranked companies.
Explore assignee detail in Eureka →Test claim language against the under-claimed branches
Analytics-layer and business-process classes remain thin relative to measurement and grid-system classes, which is where a narrower, well-drafted claim is more likely to clear.
Run a claim comparison in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions
This landscape scopes records that combine core wide area measurement terms — wide area measurement, phasor measurement unit, synchrophasor data — with specific technical elements such as reporting rate, time-source dependency, oscillation detection, communication architecture, data compression or event-triggered storage. That combination excludes generic grid-monitoring patents that do not address these synchrophasor-specific engineering problems. It results in 200 published records across six receiving offices from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off.
The field is led by a small group of grid-equipment manufacturers and utility-affiliated research institutions, with the top-ranked assignee holding 18 of the 200 records in scope. The top five assignees combined hold 32.5% of all records, and the top ten hold 51.0%, out of 83 companies that appear in the full ranking. That leaves a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants below the top tier.
Filing peaked at 26 records in 2021 and fell to 7 by 2024, a 73% decline over that three-year span, which suggests the initial wave of foundational PMU and PDC architecture claims has largely been staked. However, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years should not yet be read as confirming a continued slowdown.
Composition data shows G01R (measurement) and H02J (grid systems) each present in roughly 43-46% of the 200 records, while AI-based computing (G06N, 9.5%) and business/commerce data processing (G06Q, 7.5%) sit well below that. This points to comparatively open claim space around AI-driven oscillation classification, event-triggered edge storage compression and adaptive reporting-rate control, where the core measurement problem is well covered but the analytics and business layers built on top of it are not.
US20140164377A1, assigned to GE Infrastructure Technology, describes a Synchrophasor Data Management System built around a Phasor Data Concentrator that time-aligns PMU inputs and aggregates them for transmission to other PDCs or a super-PDC. Its hierarchical PDC architecture is a reference point for communication-architecture claims across the field, so anyone building a multi-tier PMU-to-PDC data pipeline should review its specific claim language on time-alignment and virtual PMU aggregation before finalising a design. It does not, however, cover every implementation of PMU data management — narrower or differently structured aggregation schemes may sit outside its claims.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Wide Area Measurement and Synchrophasors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.