Battery Thermal Runaway Prevention Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2023 at 344 and have since flattened toward the 2022 midpoint of 298, suggesting the core mitigation architectures are now largely staked out.
- China receives 694 of the 1,744 families nearly four times the United States total of 305, making CNIPA the office to clear first for freedom-to-operate work.
- Momentum is cooling even at the top with leading assignees like CATL and LG Energy Solution showing sharp year-on-year declines in the latest filing year rather than acceleration.
Filing growth compares 2021 (199 records) with 2024 (283) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 1,744 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 1,744 patent families filed between 2017 and 2026 that combine thermal-runaway or battery-safety language with concrete mitigation hardware and chemistry: vent valves, propagation barriers, gas detection, flame retardants and cooling plates, all classified under the core battery IPC groups H01M50, H01M10 and H01M2200. The search deliberately pairs a safety-event term with a named mechanism, so it captures engineered countermeasures rather than every battery patent that mentions safety in passing.
Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend chart are undercounts of true filing activity and should be read as provisional rather than as a genuine downturn.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views matter here: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which adjacent IPC subclasses the same applicants are reaching into when they patent thermal runaway countermeasures.
A decade of uneven growth, now flattening
Annual filings rose from 23 in 2017 to a peak of 344 in 2023, then held near the 2022 level of 298 rather than continuing to climb — a pattern more consistent with a maturing claim landscape than with a technology still in its early growth phase.
Safety claims lean on fire-fighting and polymer science
Beyond the core H01M battery classes, A62C fire-fighting technology appears in 241 records and B60L electric vehicle propulsion in 94, with a further cluster of polymer and additive classes (B32B, C08K, C09K, C08J, C08L) each in the tens of records — evidence that flame-retardant material science and laminate barrier design are treated as extensions of the same filing programs rather than separate fields.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,744 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Battery Thermal Runaway Prevention with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about battery thermal runaway prevention and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
Methods for preventing or containing thermal runaway in a battery pack
Processes for preventing or containing a thermal runaway event in a battery cell are provided that include localizing an effective amount of a thermally decomposable flame retardant to a target site on a cell or battery, where the flame retardant is localized so as not to coat the entire cell or large portions of the cell. Targeted localization of flame retardant material improves cell safety by preventing thermal runaway under adverse operating conditions.Filed by Navitas Systems, LLC, published 2017-05-04 as US20170125759A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP2018206605A | Thermal runaway prevention sheet | 342 |
| 2 | US20150221914A1 | Intumescent Battery Housing | 135 |
| 3 | US20170214103A1 | Lithium Ion Battery With Thermal Runaway Protection | 134 |
| 4 | US20150064514A1 | Portable electrical energy storage device with thermal runaway mitigation | 125 |
| 5 | US20050031963A1 | Electrolyte solvent for improving safety of battery and lithium secondary battery comprising the same | 93 |
| 6 | US20180223070A1 | Secondary battery pack with improved thermal management | 92 |
| 7 | US20180309107A1 | Insulation barrier for electrochemical battery and electrochemical battery including same | 70 |
| 8 | US20130108897A1 | Method For Thermal Management And Mitigation Of Thermal Propagation For Batteries Using A Graphene Coated Pol… | 67 |
| 9 | US20140342195A1 | Fluid-cooled battery module containing battery cells | 58 |
| 10 | CN110911772A | 一种动力锂离子电池热失控早期预警方法 | 57 |
Citation counts are measured within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings that have had more years to accumulate citations; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Reading filing volume, geography and citation data together points to a field with settled core architectures and a filing base that is now consolidating rather than expanding.
Growth has plateaued since the 2023 peak
Filings climbed steadily from 23 in 2017 to 344 in 2023 before settling back near the 2022 level of 298. That plateau, not the raw 2026 figure, is the more reliable read given publication lag.
CNIPA is the dominant receiving office
China accounts for 694 of the 1,744 families, more than double the EPO's 327 and over twice the US total of 305. Any clearance search that skips Chinese filings misses the largest single block of prior art.
Fire-fighting classification is a major adjacent cluster
241 records carry an A62C fire-fighting classification alongside their core battery classification, confirming that vent, suppression and flame-retardant hardware are patented as fire-safety engineering as much as battery engineering.
Leading filers are pulling back, not accelerating
Several of the most active historical assignees, including CATL and Samsung SDI, show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest filing year. That is consistent with a plateauing trend rather than a race to file more.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to battery thermal runaway prevention, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
Filing activity concentrates among a small group of battery cell and pack manufacturers, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. Co-assignee filings are rare — only eight pairs appear across the whole dataset — and the strongest pairing links two related Prologium entities, suggesting most safety IP here is developed in-house rather than through joint filing arrangements.
Safety IP is mostly developed solo
Only eight co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, the strongest linking Prologium's operating and holding entities at 45 shared filings. Cross-company joint filings are the exception, not the norm, in this field.
Several top historical filers went to zero
Prologium Technology and Samsung SDI both show zero filings in the latest year, a -100% year-on-year drop from prior activity. That does not necessarily mean disengagement; it may reflect the publication lag on very recent filings.
PCT use signals selective globalisation
124 families were filed via the WIPO/PCT route, a meaningful minority alongside direct China, EPO and US filings. That points to a subset of applicants deliberately pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than relying on a single home market.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| LG Energy Solution, Ltd. | 1 | -50% |
| Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL) | 1 | -80% |
| Prologium Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Aspen Aerogels, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Prologium Holding Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| SVOLT Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| EVE Energy Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this research
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking or identifying open claim space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against China filings
With 694 of 1,744 families filed in China, a clearance search limited to EPO and US prior art will miss the largest single block of relevant patents in this field.
Explore with Patsnap Eureka →Track assignee momentum, not just historical volume
Several historically dominant filers show sharp year-on-year declines; watching who is still filing in the most recent (partial) year is a better signal of active competitive intent than cumulative totals.
Explore with Patsnap Eureka →Probe the under-claimed polymer and laminate branches
Flame-retardant additive and laminate barrier classes carry far fewer records than the core H01M classes, which may leave room for defensible claims outside the most contested venting and detection hardware.
Explore with Patsnap Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
Filing activity concentrates among established battery cell and pack manufacturers, with CATL, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and Prologium Technology among the more active historical filers in this dataset. However, several of these same companies show sharp year-on-year declines in the most recent filing year, so historical volume and current filing activity tell different stories. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at recent-year momentum alongside cumulative counts rather than relying on total filings alone.
Not clearly. Filings rose from 23 in 2017 to a peak of 344 in 2023, but by the 2022 midpoint the count was already at 298, and the trend has flattened rather than continued upward since the peak. Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any such dataset will always look lower than they eventually turn out to be, so a flattening trend is a more reliable read than a declining one at this stage.
China is the dominant receiving office by a wide margin, with 694 of the 1,744 families in this dataset, compared with 327 at the European Patent Office and 305 in the United States. A further 124 families were filed via the WIPO/PCT route, indicating a subset of applicants pursuing broader international protection. Any freedom-to-operate or clearance exercise in this space should treat Chinese filings as the primary body of prior art to search, not a secondary one.
This landscape covers engineered countermeasures rather than every battery safety mention: vent valves, propagation barriers, gas detection systems, flame-retardant materials and cooling plates, classified primarily under the core battery IPC groups H01M50, H01M10 and H01M2200. A large secondary cluster sits in fire-fighting classification (A62C, 241 records) and in polymer and additive chemistry classes (B32B, C08K, C09K, C08J, C08L), reflecting that flame-retardant material science and laminate barrier design are patented as extensions of the same safety programs.
US20170125759A1, filed by Navitas Systems, LLC and published 2017-05-04, claims processes for preventing or containing thermal runaway by localizing a thermally decomposable flame retardant to a specific target site on a cell rather than coating the entire cell or large portions of it. The targeted-localization approach is notable because it distinguishes itself from blanket flame-retardant coating methods, which narrows what later filers can claim around localized dosing and placement. Anyone designing a flame-retardant mitigation system should check whether their approach falls inside or outside this localization limitation before finalizing claim language.
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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.