Capacitive Power Transfer Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
A patent landscape review of capacitive power transfer within wireless power technology: who leads filings, how the technology composition breaks down across IPC classes, and where the claim space is still open.
Filing growth = 2021 (62 records) → 2024 (42); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 919 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Capacitive power transfer moves energy across a gap using electric fields between conductive plates, an alternative to the inductive coupling that dominates most commercial wireless charging today. This landscape tracks 919 published records filed against a search string built around capacitive power transfer claims layered onto wireless charging and inductive charging language, meaning many of the records in scope describe systems that combine both transfer mechanisms rather than pure capacitive designs. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent filing years understate true activity.
The scope spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, with receiving offices led by the United States, EPO and WIPO's PCT route, followed by India, Austria and Germany — a filing footprint that tracks the major electric vehicle and consumer electronics markets rather than any single jurisdiction.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 919 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a real pullback
Filings peaked in 2017 at 87 records and have not returned to that level since. The comparable, complete-year window shows 2021 at 62 falling to 2024 at 42 — a 32% decline over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continuation of decline.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology composition: power supply systems dominate
H02J (power supply and grid systems) appears in 73.8% of the 919 records, far ahead of H04B transmission systems at 21.1% and electric vehicle propulsion under B60L at 17.7%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add to more than 100%; the smaller subclasses — H03H impedance networks at 4.0% and G06K data recognition at 3.2% — mark where claim density is thin rather than where the technology is absent.
Shares are the percentage of the 919 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wireless Power Transfer: Capacitive Power Transfer Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wireless power transfer: capacitive power transfer patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US20170063098A1 — Inductive and Capacitive Wireless Power Transfer
A wireless power transfer system includes an inductive transmit antenna, and a capacitive power transfer element, the inductive transmit antenna and the capacitive power transfer element configured to selectively provide inductive power transfer and selectively provide capacitive power transfer.Filed by Qualcomm Incorporated, published 2 March 2017. The claim structure covers switching between inductive and capacitive modes within a single transmit architecture, a hybrid approach that later filings in the corpus have had to route around or license.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100201201A1 | Wireless power transfer in public places | 679 |
| 2 | US8035255B2 | Wireless energy transfer using planar capacitively loaded conducting loop resonators | 570 |
| 3 | US20100109445A1 | Wireless energy transfer systems | 537 |
| 4 | US20140132210A1 | System and method for charging or powering devices, such as robots, electric vehicles, or other mobile device… | 454 |
| 5 | US8106539B2 | Wireless energy transfer for refrigerator application | 407 |
| 6 | US20100219694A1 | Wireless energy transfer in lossy environments | 382 |
| 7 | US8084889B2 | Wireless non-radiative energy transfer | 354 |
| 8 | US20110095618A1 | Wireless energy transfer using repeater resonators | 353 |
| 9 | US20140049422A1 | Wireless power system with capacitive proximity sensing | 349 |
| 10 | US20100237707A1 | Increasing the q factor of a resonator | 338 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not a ranking of current filing strength.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting claims or scoping freedom-to-operate in this space.
Filing sits with a small group, not a single dominant player
The ranked leader holds 148 records against a fifth-place figure of 37 and a tenth-place figure of 14 — a steep drop-off after the top few names. The top 10 combined reach 46.6% of all 919 records, meaning well over half the corpus is spread across the remaining 90 ranked assignees plus unranked filers.
Power-supply and grid-system language is the busiest claim territory
H02J's dominance means most capacitive power transfer claims are drafted as power-delivery or grid-interface systems rather than pure field-coupling mechanisms. Filing here means engaging directly with the densest prior art in the corpus.
Activity has genuinely cooled from its 2017 peak
The 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch treatable as complete given publication lag, shows a real decline from 62 to 42 filings. That is a signal to watch incumbents' next moves rather than assume the field is closing — capacitive coupling still trails inductive charging commercially.
A small, tight inventor network sits behind the strongest filings
The strongest co-assignee pairings all involve the same small cluster of named inventors repeating across multiple pairs at 22 shared records each, suggesting a concentrated internal team rather than broad cross-company collaboration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wireless power transfer: capacitive power transfer patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to three follow-up questions worth running before committing filing budget.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top-ranked assignees
With 35.0% of records held by five companies, a claim chart against their specific patents is a faster first step than a broad novelty search.
Explore assignee filingsScope the under-claimed branches
H03H and G06K each sit under 5% of records — worth a closer look before assuming that space is already occupied.
Run a white space searchTrack the next 18 months of publications
2025 and 2026 filings are still arriving; re-run the trend view once the publication lag closes to see whether the 2021-2024 pullback continues.
Set up a monitoring alertFrequently asked questions
Capacitive power transfer moves electrical energy across a gap using coupled electric fields between conductive plates, rather than the magnetic field coupling used in inductive wireless charging. It can offer thinner form factors and tolerate some misalignment differently than inductive systems, which is why many patents in this corpus combine both mechanisms in a single device rather than relying on capacitive coupling alone. Commercially, inductive charging remains far more widely deployed, and the patent record reflects that: most claims here are drafted as hybrid or power-delivery systems rather than standalone capacitive architectures.
The ranked assignee list shows a clear leader well ahead of the field, with a steep drop from the top few names to the rest of the ranking — the fifth-placed company holds well under a third of the leader's volume, and by tenth place the count is smaller still. Even so, the top 10 combined account for only 46.6% of all 919 records in scope, meaning over half the filing activity sits outside the most active ten organisations. That long tail matters for competitive tracking: new entrants are still filing, they are just not concentrated among the biggest names.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 87 records and have not matched that level since; the most recent complete comparison window, 2021 to 2024, shows a 32% decline from 62 to 42 filings. Because patent publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming further decline. Treat the 2021-2024 figure as the most reliable recent signal, and expect the most recent two years to revise upward as publications catch up.
Start with H02J, which covers power supply and grid systems and appears in 73.8% of the 919 records in this scope, making it by far the densest claim territory. H04B transmission systems and B60L electric vehicle propulsion follow at 21.1% and 17.7% respectively, reflecting how much capacitive transfer work is framed around EV charging and general wireless transmission rather than as a standalone mechanism. Smaller classes like H03H impedance networks and G06K data recognition sit under 5% each and are worth checking specifically if you are looking for less-crowded claim angles.
This Qualcomm-assigned application, published in March 2017, claims a wireless power transfer system that can selectively switch between an inductive transmit antenna and a capacitive power transfer element within one architecture. Anyone drafting claims around a hybrid inductive-capacitive switching mechanism needs to check this filing specifically, since it establishes early priority on the selective-mode concept rather than on capacitive transfer alone. Designing purely single-mode capacitive systems, or switching mechanisms with materially different triggering logic, is one way to reduce overlap with this claim scope.
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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.