Company patents
MTD PRODUCTS INC
MTD PRODUCTS INC's patent strategy shows a surprising shift away from its core "Harvesting & Mowing" category, which, despite representing 54.5% of its portfolio, saw a significant 47.4% decline in patenting activity so far in 2026. Concurrently, the company is demonstrating a highly volatile but emerging focus on "Vehicle Control Systems" and "Vehicle Steering & Bodies," which experienced dramatic year-over-year growth of 400.0% and 125.0% respectively in 2025, suggesting an exploration into advanced automotive technologies despite a subsequent drop in 2026.
Patent Trend by Technology Area
Yearly patent publications since 2023
Product themes
Product-level themes inferred from filings since 2023, with category chips showing where each theme appears. Select a theme to filter the patents below.
121 US filings (since 2023) · 12 categories · 22 themes
Innovations in the mechanical design and functionality of cutting, collecting, or processing components directly interacting with crops or ground cover.
Electronic, hydraulic, or steer-by-wire systems that precisely control vehicle direction, often incorporating feedback loops, compensation, and adaptation for various driving conditions or vehicle types.
Dynamically adjusting machine parameters such as cutting height, travel speed, or power output in response to real-time environmental conditions, crop characteristics, or operational goals.
Design and management of battery packs and power systems for electric or hybrid outdoor agricultural and landscaping machinery, focusing on capacity, longevity, and modularity.
Technologies for safely and efficiently connecting, stabilizing, and maneuvering trailers, including hitch mechanisms, load sensing, and trailer-specific steering or stabilization.
Systems for coordinating and controlling fleets of autonomous vehicles or machines, including task allocation, route optimization, and monitoring their operational status and progress.
Technologies for efficiently collecting, conveying, separating, and managing harvested materials, including quality control, blending for desired parameters, and processing of biomass.
Transmissions designed to provide a continuous range of gear ratios between fixed limits, often employing ball-planetary, toroidal, or belt-pulley mechanisms, and including their control systems for stable operation in various directions.
Focuses on optimizing the geometry, structure, and internal flow channels of impellers, blades, and housings to improve fluid dynamics, efficiency, or specific performance characteristics of centrifugal pumps and fans.
Pumps and blowers specifically adapted or designed for unique fluid types, challenging environments, or particular industrial, medical, or consumer applications, often involving debris, specific gas mixtures, or precise delivery requirements.
Systems and methods for enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists) by improving their detection, prediction, and precise localization relative to the vehicle, often leveraging communication technologies and specialized markers.
Algorithms and systems for generating, optimizing, and executing trajectories for autonomous vehicles or robots to move through an environment, often involving obstacle avoidance, route validation, and goal reaching.
Methods and systems for accurately determining the absolute or relative position of an object or device, often integrating satellite navigation (GNSS), inertial measurement units (IMU), and local ranging or wireless communication technologies.
Techniques and hardware for autonomous systems to gather and interpret data about their surroundings, including obstacle detection, object recognition, and depth estimation, to inform control decisions.
Algorithms and systems for planning and executing complex vehicle maneuvers, often involving cooperation with other vehicles or infrastructure, to optimize traffic flow, avoid collisions, or navigate challenging scenarios. This includes lane changes, cut-ins, and traffic congestion.
Methods and components for converting power into mechanical motion to drive pump mechanisms, encompassing electric motors, hydraulic actuators, and specialized motion converters like ball screws or solenoids.
Utilizing optical sensors and image processing to detect, classify, and analyze crops, terrain features, or harvested material to inform automated machine actions and decision-making.
Methods and systems for managing the interaction, communication, and collaborative tasks among multiple autonomous entities, or between autonomous entities and a central control system or users.
Innovations in the physical components and architectures of radar, lidar, and sonar systems, including antenna design, RF signal generation, beam steering mechanisms, and optical elements for improved performance.
Technologies for generating and utilizing detailed spatial maps within confined or structured environments like care facilities, construction sites, or industrial warehouses, often for robot navigation or asset tracking.
Techniques for generating, updating, and utilizing highly detailed digital maps that include lane-specific information, and for precisely determining a vehicle's position within these lanes, often using sensor data.
Technologies for monitoring plant health and environmental conditions using optical, chemical, or physical sensors, combined with data processing and informatics to provide insights and optimize cultivation workflows.
Patents
Showing 1-4 of 4
Continuously Variable Transmissions