Fastest
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →https://eureka.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/programmable-logic-controller-ladder-logic-execution-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-10-27 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Industrial Automation & ControlProgrammable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution Patents
113 patent families and 242 records on PLC ladder logic execution; one filer leads at 9.7% above a long tail of smaller filers.
242
Published Records
113
Simple Patent Families
10%
Families Naming the Largest Filer
29%
In Force at Cut-off
242 published records collapse into 113 simple (DOCDB) families; the difference is the same invention filed in more than one country. ROCKWELL AUTOMATION TECH INC is named on 11 of the 113 patent families in scope. One patent family can name several filers, so these figures are not slices of a divided whole and do not add up. In force = 70 of 242 records still granted and maintained at the data cut-off; the rest are pending, withdrawn, refused or lapsed.
- 113 simple patent families and 242 published records match this search, with no filing-date limit applied to the query.
- Rockwell Automation Tech Inc is named on 11 of the 113 families (9.7%), the largest single-row figure, while 77 of the 81 listed filers hold 2 or fewer families each.
- G05B control and regulating systems appears on 76.1% of families, and G06F electric digital data processing on 41.6%, the two subclasses with the widest reach in this set.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this dataset covers
This landscape covers 113 simple patent families and 242 published records returned by a search for programmable logic controllers executing, compiling or interpreting ladder logic, ladder diagrams or relay logic. No filing-date limit was applied, so the set spans every matching record the string found rather than a fixed period, though the filing-trend chart on this page displays only a recent window.
Filers are concentrated at the top of the list: Rockwell Automation Tech Inc is named on 11 of the 113 families, the largest single-row figure, while most of the remaining listed filers hold one or two families each. On the technology side, G05B control and regulating systems and G06F electric digital data processing between them account for most of the IPC classification activity across the set, reflecting that ladder logic execution sits at the junction of control hardware and software processing.
Scope at a glance
Counted over all 242 published records, including filings from before 2007; the filing-trend chart below covers only the 177 records from 2007 onward, so the two charts are not the same set of documents. 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. 2 rows in this table start with the same name (SIEMENS AG, SIEMENS CORP). They are left as separate rows, so the largest-filer figure above is per legal entity, not per group. Rows that look related still cannot be added together: one family can name several of them. Filings held by named individuals rather than organisations are removed where they can be identified (19 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 30 of the 81 filers returned for this search; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 81 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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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
Data in scope
What the search returned
These figures cover 242 published records and 113 simple patent families matched by the search string, with no filing-date limit applied.
Filing trend by earliest filing year (177 of 242 published records)
Counted in published records, this series runs from 2 records in 2007 to 6 in 2026, with a peak of 17 records reached in both 2018 and 2022. The years from 2022 onward are shaded because publication lag means they are still filling in, do not read a drop-off in that stretch as fewer filings.
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. This chart covers 2007-2026 (177 records); the 242 total quoted above includes earlier filings outside the window.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
Shares are measured against all 113 simple patent families in scope and add up to more than 100% because a family can carry more than one IPC subclass. G05B (control and regulating systems) appears on 76.1% of families and G06F (electric digital data processing) on 41.6%; the chart also shows a long list of smaller subclasses not discussed in the text.
Shares are the percentage of the 113 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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about programmable logic controller ladder logic execution patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative record
One record from the result set
First record returned
Network programmable logic controller system with ladder editor and parallel and synchronous logic and I/O scanning
SCHNEIDER AUTOMATION INC.
A programmable logic controller system having the capability of controlling up to 64 clusters of peripheral controllers, wherein each cluster has up to seven racks of peripheral controllers, each rack having up to 16 individual peripheral controllers. Excepting for the cluster containing the programmable logic controller, each cluster is coupled to the programmable logic controller through an ethernet cable to a cluster controller. Each of the seven racks of peripheral controller cards is connected to its respective programmable logic controller or cluster controller directly, or through a local rack adaptor, with parallel and synchronous logic and I/O scanning and a ladder editor for programming.Shown as retrieved; this is the first record returned under the database's default order, not a ranking by citation, breadth or importance.
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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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
Run it yourself
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Where to run it
For builders
MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →Dataset signals
What the numbers show
Three figures from this search are worth holding onto before reading the full tables: how concentrated the filer list is, where the technology classification sits, and what share of records remain in force.
Filer concentration
11 of 113 (9.7%)
largest single-row share
One row above a long tail
Rockwell Automation Tech Inc is named on 11 of the 113 simple patent families in scope, the largest figure among the 81 listed filers. 77 of those 81 listed filers hold two or fewer families each. Filer rows overlap where a family names more than one filer, so these counts cannot be added together into a combined share.
Based on the listed filers, organisations, out of 81 returned.
Technology split
76.1% / 41.6%
share of 113 families
Two subclasses cover most of the set
G05B (control and regulating systems) is carried by 76.1% of the 113 simple patent families and G06F (electric digital data processing) by 41.6%. These shares add to more than 100% because a family can carry both IPC codes at once, which is expected for a search spanning control hardware and software execution terms.
Measured against all 113 simple patent families; a family may carry more than one subclass.
Legal status
70 of 242 (29%)
in force at retrieval
Status at the retrieval date
70 of the 242 published records (29%) were granted and in force when the data was retrieved on 2026-10-27. The remaining 172 records are a mix of pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not-determinable status that this dataset does not separate out further.
Status is a snapshot at retrieval and changes continuously; it is not a measure of enforceability or quality.
Filing record peak
17 records
in 2018 and 2022
Peak filing years, by record count
The filing trend, counted in published records by earliest filing year, reaches its highest point of 17 records in both 2018 and 2022. Records from 2022 onward are still filling in due to publication lag, so the most recent years understate eventual totals.
Counted in published records, not simple patent families; one invention filed in multiple countries adds multiple records.
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 ladder logic execution 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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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 next
These figures describe what the search returned, not what any single filer's claims actually cover. Pulling the full claim sets and filer list is the next step for any decision that depends on more than a count.
Read the granted claims directly
A family count or an abstract cannot establish what a patent covers. Pulling the granted claim set is the only way to assess scope for any specific design or process.
Open claim sets in EurekaCheck the full filer list
Only the top 30 of 81 listed filers appear in the table on this page. The fuller list may surface filers relevant to a specific product line that do not appear here.
View the full filer rankingTrack new filings as they publish
Records from 2022 onward are still filling in because of publication lag. Monitoring new publications keeps a watch list current as the picture completes.
Set up monitoring 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 Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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
FAQ
Questions practitioners ask about this dataset
This search returns 242 published records that reduce to 113 simple patent families once the same invention filed in multiple countries is de-duplicated. The query carries no filing-date limit, so this figure spans every matching record the search string found rather than a fixed year window. Because the string depends on specific terms, PLC or programmable logic controller, ladder logic or ladder diagram or relay logic, and execution, compile or interpret, it will miss records phrased differently and may include some unrelated uses of those terms.
Rockwell Automation Tech Inc is named on 11 of the 113 simple patent families in scope, the largest single-row figure among the 81 listed filers (organisations; individual-named filings are excluded from this list where they can be identified but remain in the totals). That is 9.7% of families, and 77 of the 81 listed filers hold two or fewer families each, so the filing pattern is concentrated at one row with a long tail of smaller filers below it. Filer rows are not rolled up to corporate group, so a company and any affiliated entity appear as separate rows and should not be summed.
G05B, covering control and regulating systems, appears on 76.1% of the 113 simple patent families, and G06F, covering electric digital data processing, appears on 41.6%. These shares add up to more than 100% because a single family can carry both classes, reflecting that ladder logic execution sits at the intersection of control-system hardware and software processing. The dataset also returns a wider set of 22 subclasses in total, with a number of smaller branches not discussed here because the search terms are broad enough to catch some unrelated matches.
At the retrieval date, 70 of the 242 published records (29%) were granted and remained in force. The remaining 172 records are a mix of pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not-determinable status, and this dataset does not break that remainder down further. In-force status is a snapshot at the retrieval date, not a measure of a patent's quality or enforceability, and it changes continuously as applications are prosecuted or renewals lapse.
The search returns 20 receiving offices in total. The largest figures among them, counted in published records, are the United States with 66, China with 53, Europe (EPO) with 43, WIPO (PCT) filings with 13, and India and South Korea with 12 each. These counts are measured in records rather than families, so one invention filed in several offices is counted once at each office and the figures do not sum to the family total.
US5225975A, filed 1993-07-06 and assigned to Schneider Automation Inc., describes a programmable logic controller system with a ladder editor supporting up to 64 clusters of peripheral controllers, connected through cluster controllers and local rack adaptors with parallel and synchronous logic and I/O scanning. It is simply the first record this search returns under the database's default order, not a ranking by importance or citation. Whether it would block any specific design depends on reading its granted claims directly, an abstract and a family count cannot establish claim scope, so no infringement or freedom-to-operate conclusion can be drawn from this page alone.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from one Patsnap search for Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution 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
Research Programmable Logic Controller Ladder Logic Execution Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole programmable logic controller ladder logic execution patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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:(("programmable logic controller" OR PLC) AND ("ladder logic" OR "ladder diagram" OR "relay logic") AND (execution OR compil* OR interpret*))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. One subclass (G05B) carries 76.1% of the patent families, so this search returned a classification-tight set.
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 242 records and 113 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 (19 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 30 of the 81 filers returned, ordered by count alone; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 81 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 (70 of 242). 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.