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Run your analysis now →https://eureka.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/programmable-logic-controller-hardware-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Industrial AutomationProgrammable Logic Controller Hardware Patents: Filing Trends and Claim Concentration
A patent landscape review of programmable logic controller hardware covering scan cycle time, hot-swap redundancy, environmental rating and safety PLC certification claims across 30 records from 2015 to 2026.
30
Published Records
-100%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
EP
Leading Jurisdiction
11
Active Filers Ranked
Filing growth = 2021 (1 records) → 2024 (0); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent filings that combine programmable logic controller hardware terms — PLC hardware, PLC I/O modules — with claim-level language on scan cycle time, hot-swap and redundancy, environmental rating, safety PLC certification and fieldbus interface integration. The scope is narrowed further to G05B19, G06F13 and H05K7, the classification groups covering industrial control regulation, digital data transfer between components, and physical packaging or cooling of electronic hardware. The result is a small, tightly defined corpus of 30 published records rather than a broad automation sweep.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is necessarily undercounted — 2026 shows only 1 filing so far, which is a function of the reporting window, not a sign that activity has stopped. Family-level counts, used throughout this ranking, are the fairer measure here because they strip out duplicate filings across jurisdictions for the same invention.
Filing activity and classification mix, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Hardware 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
The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 30-record corpus: how filing activity moved year over year, and which classification groups the claims actually sit in.
A peak in 2017, a gap at the midpoint, then a small recent recovery
Filings ran to 12 in 2017, the peak of the series, then fell away to nothing by 2022 before ticking back up toward the end of the window. That shape is closer to a first wave of foundational filings followed by a second, smaller wave than to one continuous build-up — worth checking against product cycles in the sector before reading too much into either peak.
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.
Control claims are universal; everything else is layered on top
G05B, the control-and-regulating class, appears in all 30 records — unsurprising given the search scope, but it confirms every filing here is anchored to control logic rather than being a peripheral hardware patent. G06F (digital data processing) reaches 66.7% of records and H04L (digital information transmission) reaches 46.7%, showing that most PLC hardware claims now bundle in data-processing or communications elements. Wireless (H04W, 26.7%) and thermal power plant integration (F01K, 20.0%) are present but clearly secondary. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to well over 100% of the 30-record total, and that is expected rather than an error.
Shares are the percentage of the 30 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 Programmable Logic Controller Hardware covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records in this corpus
Representative Filing
Systems and Methods For Detecting Anomalous Software on a Programmable Logic Controller
GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION
The filing describes collecting scan cycle times during a training period, calculating baseline statistical parameters from them, and deriving a baseline PLC program signature that can later be checked against live scan-cycle behaviour to flag anomalous software running on the controller.Filed by Georgia Tech Research Corporation; published 2019-09-26 as US20190297095A1.
Highest-citation PLC hardware and control-system patents
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190243977A1 | System and method for threat impact characterization | 24 |
| 2 | WO2016155856A1 | Method and system for process controlling of plants in an OPC-UA based machine-to-machine network | 24 |
| 3 | US20180088541A1 | Adaptive cross plant control and steering system, and corresponding method thereof | 20 |
| 4 | WO2016155857A1 | Adaptive cross plant control and steering system, and corresponding method thereof | 18 |
| 5 | US20190297095A1 | Systems and Methods For Detecting Anomalous Software on a Programmable Logic Controller | 15 |
| 6 | WO2017201520A1 | Systems and methods for detecting anomalous software on a programmable logic controller | 11 |
| 7 | WO2014204635A1 | Cyber-physical systems programmable logic controller | 10 |
| 8 | WO2022015246A1 | Method and system for characterising a programmable logic controller (PLC) and/or attack detection in a netwo… | 7 |
| 9 | WO2018038718A1 | System and method for threat impact determination | 5 |
| 10 | US20180314215A9 | Adaptive cross plant control and steering system, and corresponding method thereof | 5 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus like this one skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations — treat the ranking as a signal of influence within this field, not as a measure of which patent matters most today.
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 Programmable Logic Controller Hardware 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 data says about where this field is heading
Three patterns stand out once filing trend, classification mix and citation concentration are read together.
Trend
12 in 2017 → 1 in 2026
peak vs. latest year
The 2017 peak has not been matched
Filing activity crested at 12 records in 2017 and dropped to zero by the 2022 midpoint before a modest recent tick-up. That pattern points to an initial wave of foundational hardware and control-loop claims followed by a quieter stretch, rather than sustained year-on-year growth.
Read against the 2015–2026 filing trend
Classification
100.0% carry G05B
share of 30 records
Control claims are the constant, data and comms are the variable
Every record in scope carries a G05B control classification, but only 46.7% carry H04L communications claims and 26.7% carry H04W wireless claims. Fieldbus and wireless integration are being added selectively rather than as a default feature of PLC hardware filings.
IPC subclass shares, 30-record base
Citation signal
24 citations
top-cited record
Anomaly-detection and cross-plant control claims draw the most citations
The most-cited records in this corpus cluster around threat/anomaly detection on the controller and adaptive cross-plant control and steering, rather than around raw I/O hardware. That suggests downstream examiners and applicants treat controller-level software behaviour as the more contested prior art, even inside a hardware-scoped search.
Most-cited records table
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to programmable logic controller hardware, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Derived observations on the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Hardware 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
Where to take this landscape from here
The ranking and trend data answer who is filing and when; the next step is usually claim-level comparison against a specific product or design.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claims
With one assignee holding 11 of the ranked filings, any new PLC hardware design touching scan-cycle monitoring or cross-plant control should be checked against that assignee's specific claim language before committing to a design direction.
Explore claims in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches for a filing window
Environmental rating and hot-swap redundancy show thin direct coverage in this ranked set relative to core control claims. That gap may close quickly given the recent uptick in filings, so a first-mover claim there has a limited shelf life.
Track white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Hardware 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 about PLC hardware patents
In this dataset of 30 records, the ranking of 11 assignees shows one clear leader with 11 filings, well ahead of the rest of the field. Fifth place and tenth place each hold only 1 filing, so the gap between the top filer and everyone else is steep rather than gradual. This suggests one organisation has built sustained coverage in this space while most other entrants have filed only once.
The filing trend shows a peak of 12 filings in 2017, then a drop to zero by the 2022 midpoint, followed by a small recovery toward the most recent years. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 figure of 1 filing understates actual recent activity and should not be read as a slowdown on its own. Taken together, the pattern looks like two separate waves of filing rather than one continuous growth curve.
This landscape is scoped to G05B19 (industrial process control systems), G06F13 (data transfer between computer components) and H05K7 (physical packaging or cooling of electronic equipment). Within the resulting 30 records, G05B control-and-regulating claims appear in every single one, while G06F digital-processing claims appear in 66.7% and H04L communications claims in 46.7%. Because records can carry multiple classifications, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%.
US20190297095A1, filed by Georgia Tech Research Corporation and published 2019-09-26, claims a method of collecting scan cycle times of a PLC program during a training period, calculating baseline statistical parameters from those times, and deriving a baseline PLC program signature stored for later comparison. In practice this covers a specific technique for building a scan-cycle-time fingerprint used to detect anomalous PLC software behaviour. Anyone building similar anomaly-detection or intrusion-detection logic around scan cycle timing should read the claim scope carefully rather than assume it is limited to security software generally.
Based on the ranked records and IPC composition, direct claims specifically targeting hot-swap and redundancy switching, environmental rating of I/O enclosures, and safety PLC certification test circuitry are thinner than the dominant control-and-processing claims. These themes appear in the search scope but are not reflected in concentrated filing activity from any single assignee in the ranking. That combination of defined search relevance and low direct filing pressure is what marks them as worth checking before committing to a filing strategy.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Hardware 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.