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Run your analysis now →https://eureka.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/dynamic-positioning-thruster-allocation-control-algorithm-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-10-27 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Marine & Offshore EngineeringDynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patents
6 patent families and 24 records on DP thruster allocation control algorithms, led by a single filer holding 2 of 6 families.
24
Published Records
6
Simple Patent Families
50%
In Force at Cut-off
EP
Leading Jurisdiction
24 published records collapse into 6 simple (DOCDB) families; the difference is the same invention filed in more than one country. In force = 12 of 24 records still granted and maintained at the data cut-off; the rest are pending, withdrawn, refused or lapsed.
- 6 simple patent families and 24 published records make up this search. With no date limit applied, so the figure spans every matching record the search string returns.
- Kongsberg Maritime AS is named on 2 of the 6 families in scope. The highest single-row share at 33.3%, while the other four listed filers each hold 2 or fewer families.
- Records come from 9 receiving offices, led by Europe (EPO) with 6. Followed by the United States and WIPO (PCT) with 5 published records each.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this dataset covers
This page covers patent filings matched by the string TAC:(("dynamic positioning" OR "DP system") AND ("thruster allocation" OR "thrust allocation") AND (vessel OR ship OR marine)), which targets documents describing how a vessel's control system distributes thrust commands across multiple thrusters to hold position or track. The search returns 24 published records that de-duplicate to 6 simple patent families, with no date limit applied, so the result reflects every record this specific query string can find rather than a fixed period.
With only 6 simple patent families in scope, this is a small pool. It is best used as a starting point for a more targeted search rather than as a map of the field, absence of a particular approach here most likely means the search terms did not catch it, not that nobody has filed on it.
Scope at a glance
Ordered by volume only, not by importance or claim strength. Counted in simple (DOCDB) patent families, so one invention filed in several countries counts once. Names come from Patsnap's standardised assignee field as recorded on each document; subsidiaries and group companies are not merged. The icon before each name is read from the name itself (words such as University, Institute or Ltd); the data carries no organisation-type field, so treat it as a reading aid rather than a classification. Filings held by named individuals rather than organisations are removed where they can be identified (3 here); that identification is not exhaustive, so an individually held filing can still appear below. Either way those filings stay inside the totals above. This table shows the top 5 of the 5 filers returned for this search; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 5 is not the complete set of filers. A single family can name more than one filer, so these counts overlap and do not add up to the total.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The numbers
Records, families and where filings were made
These figures come directly from the search and are not adjusted for any trend or ranking judgement.
Filing trend by earliest filing year
Counted in published records (not families), running from 2010 (1 record) to a peak of 10 records in 2011. The stretch from 2022 onward is still filling in because of publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
Counted in published records by earliest filing year, not de-duplicated into families. A filing is counted in the year it was filed, but it only becomes visible after it publishes: roughly 18 months for most routes, and up to 30 months where a PCT application enters national phase. 2022 onwards are therefore still filling in and are shaded; no growth figure on this page uses them. Because this series counts documents rather than inventions, a rise can mean more inventions or the same inventions filed in more countries; this dataset cannot separate the two.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
Share of the 6 simple patent families in scope carrying each subclass. One family can carry several subclasses, so the shares shown add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 6 patent families in scope. One patent family can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about dynamic positioning thruster allocation control algorithm patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing
One record from the result set
First record returned
Thrust allocation in dynamic positioning systems
BLUEWATER ENERGY SERVICES B.V.
A computer-implemented method and a generator for generating thruster settings for an over-actuated thrust allocation system are described. Said thruster settings are configured to control thrusters of at least one craft such that the craft is kept on a desired position or track. The method comprises receiving a total desired thrust, preferably the total desired force and the total desired moment, associated with said desired position or track; calculating said thruster settings by executing a program including minimizing a cost function associated with said thrusters on the basis of said total desired thrust and one or more non-linear thruster constraints associated with the physical or operational limits of the thrusters.This is the first record returned under the database's default ordering, not the most cited, newest or broadest filing in the set. The text above is the abstract only; what the granted claims require has to be read from the claim set itself.
Selected as the first record the search returns under the database default order, then shown in full. It is not ranked by citations, claim breadth or commercial importance, and it is not a judgement about which filing in this space matters most.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. The first record the search returned, shown in full. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the figures show, and what they do not
Three figures summarise the pool. None of them should be read as a judgement about who leads a field or how mature it is, with 6 families in scope, the numbers describe this search, not a market.
Scope
6 families / 24 records
simple patent families vs published records
A small, undated pool
The search string carries no date limit, so these 6 simple patent families and 24 published records represent every matching record this specific query returns, not a fixed time window. The family-to-record ratio (6 to 24) reflects the same inventions filed or published more than once rather than 24 distinct inventions.
Counted across the full result set
Filer concentration
33.3%
Kongsberg Maritime AS, 2 of 6 families
Largest single-row share
Kongsberg Maritime AS is named on 2 of the 6 simple patent families in scope, the highest figure among the listed filers. The remaining four listed filers each hold 2 or fewer families; because one family can name multiple filers, these rows are not additive and no combined share can be read from them.
Organisations only; named individuals sit outside this list but inside the totals
Technology split
50.0%
B63H and G05D, each on 3 of 6 families
Two subclasses tied at 3 families each
B63H (Marine propulsion & steering) and G05D (Control of non-electric variables) each appear on 3 of the 6 simple patent families, 50.0% apiece. H02J appears on 2 families (33.3%), and B60L and G05B each appear on 1 family (16.7%). Because a family can carry several IPC subclasses, these shares add up to more than 100%.
Share of the 6 simple patent families in scope
Legal status
12 of 24
records granted and in force at retrieval
Half the records are in force
12 of the 24 published records (50%) were granted and still in force as of the 2026-10-27 retrieval date. The remainder cover pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not-determinable status, which is not broken down further here. In-force status is a snapshot at one date, not a measure of claim strength or commercial value.
Status as retrieved 2026-10-27
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to dynamic positioning thruster allocation control algorithm patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Derived observations on the same dataset. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next steps
Where to take this from here
This page is a narrow slice defined by one search string. The next steps depend on whether you need a wider net or a closer read of specific claims.
Widen or adjust the search string
6 families is a thin base for any conclusion. Running adjacent terms (e.g. variations on "DP control", "thrust vector", specific thruster types) inside Eureka can surface records this exact phrase search misses.
Rerun this search in EurekaRead the granted claims directly
An abstract such as WO2012080241A1's describes elements, not legal scope. Anyone assessing freedom to operate or claim coverage needs the full claim set and prosecution history, available in Eureka's record view.
Open the full record setTrack new publications as they land
With records from 2022 onward still filling in due to publication lag, a saved alert on this search string will surface new filings as they publish rather than relying on a single snapshot.
Set up a tracking alert in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Suggested next steps. No new data: every figure named here is one of those above. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Questions practitioners ask
Frequently asked questions
This particular search returns 24 published records that de-duplicate to 6 simple patent families, using the string TAC:(("dynamic positioning" OR "DP system") AND ("thruster allocation" OR "thrust allocation") AND (vessel OR ship OR marine)). That is a small pool, and it reflects exactly what this search string catches rather than every document that touches thruster allocation. A broader or narrower string would almost certainly return a different count, so treat this figure as a starting point for further searching rather than a definitive total.
Kongsberg Maritime AS is named on 2 of the 6 simple patent families in scope, the largest single-row figure among the listed filers. Four other organisations are listed and each holds 2 or fewer families. Because one family can name more than one filer, these rows overlap and cannot be summed into a combined share, and the list itself only returns organisations, individual inventors named on some of these families are included in the totals but excluded from this filer list.
WO2012080241A1, filed by Bluewater Energy Services B.V. in 2012, describes a computer-implemented method and generator that calculate thruster settings for an over-actuated thrust allocation system by minimising a cost function subject to thruster constraints, in order to hold a vessel on a desired position or track. That description comes from the published abstract only. Establishing what the granted claims actually require, and whether any particular design falls inside or outside them, requires reading the claim set and prosecution history directly rather than inferring from the abstract or from any family count.
A filing-growth figure is not shown for this dataset because the pool is too thin and the available years too few to support a reliable rate. The filing trend chart runs from 2010 through a peak of 10 published records in 2011, with the years from 2022 onward still shaded as incomplete due to publication lag of up to 30 months for some filing routes. Year-to-year moves across a handful of documents like this are noise, not a trend, so no acceleration, slowdown or maturity conclusion can be drawn from this chart.
The dataset returned 9 receiving offices in total; the largest counted in published records are Europe (EPO) with 6, United States with 5, WIPO (PCT) with 5, China with 2, Germany with 2 and Austria with 1. These figures are counted in records, not families, and one invention can appear at more than one office, so they do not sum to the record or family total. No nationality or country-of-origin information is available for any filer in this dataset, the receiving-office list shows only where applications were filed.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from one Patsnap search for Dynamic Positioning Thruster Allocation Control Algorithm Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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How this page was built, and what the numbers do and do not mean
Search. Every figure on this page comes from one Patsnap search, run once and not edited afterwards. This is the exact search string:
TAC:(("dynamic positioning" OR "DP system") AND ("thruster allocation" OR "thrust allocation") AND (vessel OR ship OR marine))Reading the field codes: TAC searches the title, abstract and claims of each record, not the full description. The search string sets no date limit, so the scope is every matching record in the database regardless of when it was filed. It is not restricted to recent years. How this string was built matters for how far the counts can be pushed. It was generated in batch from a topic list rather than hand-crafted for this page, and the result set is not manually screened. A keyword search over title, abstract and claims both over-captures (unrelated filings that happen to use the same words) and under-captures (the same invention written in different words). This page cannot measure either effect, so read every figure here as what this particular string returned, not as what exists in the field.
What is being counted. Two different units appear on this page and they are not interchangeable. The filer list and the technology split are counted in simple (DOCDB) patent families: one invention counts once however many countries it was filed in. The total, the jurisdiction split and the filing-year chart are counted in published records: the same invention counts once per publication. For this search that is 24 records and 6 families. Record counts reward filing in many jurisdictions; family counts do not. Shares are only ever taken against a denominator in the same unit, and each one names it.
Who the filers are. Names come from Patsnap's standardised assignee field, as recorded on the documents themselves. They are not rolled up to corporate group: a parent and its subsidiaries appear as separate entries, and a portfolio acquired from another company stays under the name on the document unless the assignment is reflected there. This list is meant to carry organisations, not people. Filings held by a named individual are identified by matching the assignee against the inventors on the same search, and, for names written in Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters, by the name carrying no organisational suffix; those are removed from the list (3 of them here). Neither test is exhaustive: the inventor list it matches against is itself capped, and a personal name written in Latin script with no organisational wording in it cannot be told apart from a short company name by rule. So an individually held filing can still appear in the list. Those filings stay inside every total and share on this page either way, so the listed entries can add up to less than the total. A record shown in full further down still names its assignee exactly as the patent office records it, including where that is a person: that name is how the record is identified and checked. What is left out of the ranking is people as ranked entries, not people as cited sources. The table shows the top 5 of the 5 filers returned, ordered by count alone; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 5 is not every filer. One patent family can name several filers and each is counted separately, so these rows are not slices of a divided whole: adding them together over-counts, and this page deliberately publishes no combined "top five" share for that reason. See every filer, individuals included
Dates. The year chart counts by earliest filing year, not publication year. A filing only becomes visible once it publishes: roughly 18 months for most routes, and up to 30 months where a PCT application enters national phase. Measured across these pages, the year four back from today still holds only about 89% of its eventual count. 2022 onwards are therefore shaded on the chart as still filling in. The data behind this page was retrieved on 2026-10-27.
Legal status. "In force" counts documents whose legal status at retrieval was granted and maintained (12 of 24). Everything else is pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not determinable, and those states are not broken out here because the underlying codes do not separate them cleanly. Legal status changes continuously and is reported per document, not per family. Get the status breakdown in Eureka
Classification. The technology split uses IPC subclasses (four characters, for example H01M). A single record usually carries several, so the shares add up to more than 100% and a record can appear in more than one bar. Subclass is a coarse grouping; it describes the field a record was classified into, not what the claims cover. Break the classes down to subgroup level
Who wrote the words. The tables, charts, counts, shares and patent numbers on this page are produced directly from the search result by a program; none of them are written or estimated by a language model. The surrounding prose, headings, FAQ answers and the answers in the question panel are drafted by a language model that is given those same figures and is not permitted to introduce others. Prose can still mis-describe a correct figure, so where the two disagree, the tables and charts are the record.
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 limitations that apply to every figure above. Recent filings are under-counted, because an application is not public until roughly 18 months after filing and database loading adds further delay. The search string defines and constrains everything shown: records that use different terminology, or that sit outside the fields searched, are absent and cannot be counted. Applicant names, classification codes, legal-status codes and citation records are taken as recorded and may contain errors, duplicates, omissions or stale entries. Ordering by volume is not a measure of quality, scope, enforceability or commercial value, and a larger portfolio is not a stronger one. 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, validity or infringement search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. No attorney-client relationship is created by it. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently against the primary records 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.
The question panel. The answers behind the suggested questions on this page were written when the page was generated, not in response to your click. The progress steps that play before an answer appears are an animation of how that analysis was done; nothing is being searched or computed at that moment. Typing your own question instead opens Patsnap Eureka, which does run it live.
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.