Ammonia Fuelled Marine Engine Patents: Who Holds the Claims
49.1% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 630 of 1,284 records in scope — nearly half the field sits with a handful of engine and emissions specialists. Filings climbed from 68 in 2017 to a peak of 105 in 2021, then declined to 32 by 2024 — a 70% fall across that three-year span. Readers should treat 2025 and 2026 counts as incomplete rather than as evidence of a continued slide, since publication lag has not yet caught up.
- 1CUMMINS EMISSION SOLUTIONS INC295
- 2CATERPILLAR INC109
- 3CATERPILLAR MOTOREN GMBH & CO KG99
- 4YANMAR POWER TECH CO LTD69
- 5CLEAN AIR POWER58
See the full ammonia fuelled marine engines analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions
Who holds the most patents on ammonia fuelled marine engines?
One assignee leads clearly with 295 of the 1,284 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 58 records. The top five assignees combined hold 630 records, or 49.1% of all records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 64.7%. This means the field is concentrated rather than fragmented, and any new filer should expect to design around a small number of established portfolios rather than a diffuse set of small players.
Is patent filing activity in this space growing or slowing?
Filings rose from 68 in 2017 to a peak of 105 in 2021, then fell to 32 by 2024, a 70% decline over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in the underlying data are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline. The more reliable read is that the field passed through an intense early filing wave around 2021 and has since settled to a lower but still active baseline.
Which technical areas have the densest patent coverage?
Engine control (IPC class F02D) appears in 51.0% of the 1,284 records, and fuel supply and carburettor systems (F02M) appear in 40.7%. Combustion hardware (F02B, 27.8%) and exhaust aftertreatment (F01N, 25.2%) follow. These figures overlap because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, so they describe density within each class rather than a share of a single pie.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ammonia Fuelled Marine Engines covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.