Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) fault detection and diagnosis are important from a preventive maintenance standpoint. Downtime for large HVAC systems is not desirable due to the increased costs incurred in operations and energy consumption. Subsequently, many organizations have been investing capital and efforts to tackle this problem. We studied the patent landscape of HVAC fault detection technologies.
Our findings show a consistent increase in the number of patent filings over the last decade. LG tops the list of patent asset holders, even though its earliest filing is relatively recent (1996). On the other hand, the filings of General Motors in this technology area have tapered off in the recent years.
Geographically, the US and China are the top filing countries, with the US ahead by a large margin. EP filings follow close behind China. In addition, there are a significant number of PCT filings, indicating the global nature of this market.
The patent transactions (as given by the assignment transfers recorded at the USPTO) have witnessed a considerable growth over the years, peaking in 2010 – pointing to a fair amount of commercial interest in patent assets addressing this technology.
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