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Run your analysis now →https://eureka.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/programmable-logic-controller-program-version-control-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Industrial Automation & ControlProgrammable Logic Controller Program Version Control Patents
A data-driven look at patent filings for programmable logic controller program version control, covering leading assignees, filing trends since 2007, and the IPC classes that carry the most claim density.
119
Published Records
67%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+200%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth = 2021 (2 records) → 2024 (6); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 119 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity where programmable logic controller program logic intersects with version control concepts — versioning, revision history and rollback — across 119 published records filed between 2007 and 2026. The scope spans control-system engineering, digital data processing, and increasingly, transmission and business-process classes as PLC program management moves toward networked and cloud-connected workflows.
The earliest representative filing in this space, US6701284B1, dates to 2004 and describes a PLC revision history log — a foundational approach that later filings have built on, adapted for networked deployment, or worked around entirely.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2007–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 119-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2007-2026
Filings rose from a single record in 2007 to a peak of 11 in 2012, before settling into a lower but rising pattern. The 2021-to-2024 span shows filings climbing from 2 to 6, a +200% increase over three years. Note that 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete — publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent-year counts will continue to rise as more records publish.
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 by IPC subclass
G05B (control and regulating systems) is the largest single class at 43.7% of the 119 records, followed by G06F (electric digital data processing) at 27.7% and H04L (digital information transmission) at 17.6%. G06Q (business, commerce and admin data processing) reaches 16.8%, notable because it signals that version-control claims increasingly extend into change-management and workflow territory rather than staying confined to control logic itself. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 119 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 Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A foundational filing
Representative record
Methods and apparatus for maintaining a programmable logic control revision history
GE FANUC AUTOMATION NORTH AMERICA, INC.
Methods and apparatus for maintaining a PLC revision history are described. In one embodiment, the PLC creates and maintains a revision history log that provides information related to changes made to the PLC user program and/or the PLC configuration. If a change is detected, information regarding the change is gathered and stored in the history log. The history log maintains a record of the revisions made to the PLC. If the history log becomes full, the oldest revision entry is deleted and the latest change is incorporated into the history log.Filed by GE Fanuc Automation North America and granted in 2004, this is among the earliest documented approaches to on-device PLC revision logging, predating the cloud- and network-based version control approaches that dominate more recent filings.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for strategy
Three findings that matter for anyone deciding where to file, litigate or design around in this space.
Concentration
67.2%
of 119 records held by the top 5 assignees
Filing is concentrated at the top
With the leader alone holding 57 of 119 records and the top five combined at 67.2%, this is not a fragmented field. New entrants filing broad control-logic version-control claims will run into dense prior art from a small number of established players.
Top 5 of 58 ranked assignees
Growth
+200%
filing growth, 2021 to 2024
Recent growth is real, not noise
Filings grew from 2 in 2021 to 6 in 2024 — a +200% increase over the most recent three-year span that can be treated as complete. 2025 and 2026 counts will keep rising as publication catches up, so the true current trajectory is understated by the raw numbers.
2021: 2 → 2024: 6
Technology mix
43.7%
of records touch G05B control systems
Control-logic claims still dominate, but business-process framing is rising
G05B remains the largest single class, but G06Q business-process classes appear in 16.8% of records — evidence that version control for PLC programs is increasingly claimed as a workflow or change-management problem rather than a pure control-systems one.
G05B 43.7% · G06Q 16.8%
Geography
38
US-office filings, the largest single office
Filing activity spans multiple offices
The United States leads with 38 filings, followed by the European Patent Office at 27 and WIPO/PCT at 15. China and Germany each show meaningful activity, indicating this is not a single-jurisdiction technology race.
US 38 · EPO 27 · WIPO 15 · China 14
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to programmable logic controller program version control patent landscape, 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 Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a concentrated field with a rising filing curve and a technology mix that is drifting toward business-process claims. Here is how to use that.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With one assignee holding roughly half of all records, understanding exactly what that portfolio blocks — and where its claims stop short — is the fastest way to find room to operate.
Explore assignee claim scope in EurekaWatch the G06Q crossover
The rise of business-process classes alongside core control-systems claims suggests the next wave of filings may target workflow and change-management framing rather than control logic itself.
Track technology-class shifts in EurekaReassess after the next publication cycle
Because 2025 and 2026 filings are still publishing, the current growth picture is a floor, not a ceiling. Revisit the trend once the 18-month publication lag has cleared.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
The dataset shows a strongly concentrated field: one assignee holds 57 of the 119 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 67.2% of all filings. This means a small number of established industrial automation companies have staked out most of the claim territory, rather than the field being spread across many small filers. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should start by mapping the leader's portfolio before looking at the long tail of single-filing entrants.
Filings began modestly, with a single record in 2007, rose to a peak of 11 in 2012, and then settled into a lower baseline before climbing again in recent years. Between 2021 and 2024 — the most recent span that can be treated as complete — filings grew from 2 to 6, a +200% increase. Because patent publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset will understate current activity and should not be read as a slowdown.
The largest share of records, 43.7% of 119, falls under G05B, control and regulating systems, reflecting the core PLC domain. G06F (electric digital data processing) and H04L (digital information transmission) follow, at 27.7% and 17.6% respectively, showing that version control increasingly involves data processing and networked transmission rather than standalone control hardware. Notably, G06Q business-process classes appear in 16.8% of records, suggesting some filers are framing version control as a workflow or change-management problem.
US6701284B1 describes a PLC that maintains an on-device revision history log, capturing changes to the PLC user program or configuration and storing them so that older entries are discarded once the log is full. It is a foundational, hardware-resident approach to tracking program changes, filed well before cloud-based or networked version control became common in this field. Later filings building on networked, multi-device, or cloud-synchronized version control approaches are less likely to be blocked by this specific claim scope, since it is centered on local, on-device logging rather than distributed synchronization.
Given that the top five assignees hold 67.2% of the 119 records in scope, broad claims on core on-device revision logging are likely to face dense prior art. However, the relatively lower representation of AI-based classes (G06N at 5.0%) and business-process integration (G06Q at 16.8%) suggests these adjacent branches carry less claim density than the core control-systems space, which may leave room for more specific, technically differentiated filings there.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Programmable Logic Controller Program Version Control Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.