Block Caving Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Two assignees account for every one of the 28 records in scope — a field this concentrated leaves almost no room for a third filer to build a position without designing around the existing raise caving claims.
- Filing peaked at 20 records in 2021, then fell to zero by 2024 a complete three-year run, not an artefact of publication lag, though 2025-2026 figures will still fill in.
- E21C mining and quarrying covers 96.4% of records while blasting (F42D, 10.7%) and drilling (E21B, 14.3%) sit almost entirely inside that same core, not as separate claim territory.
Filing growth compares 2021 (20 records) with 2024 (0) — 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.
What this landscape covers
Block caving and mass mining patents in this dataset cluster around a narrow but technically dense claim set: undercut sequencing, drawpoint layout, draw control, and the monitoring and control systems that predict fragmentation, dilution entry and air gap formation as a cave propagates upward through rock mass. The search string pairs core mining-method terms with the specific downstream problems operators actually file on, which is why the record count is small relative to mining patents broadly.
The 28 records in scope span filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with receiving offices spread across Australia, Europe, Sweden, the United States, Canada and Chile — a footprint that tracks major caving operations rather than a single jurisdiction's patent office.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The trend line and the IPC breakdown below both use the full 28-record set as their denominator, so the shares are directly comparable across sections.
A sharp peak, then a complete drop
Filings rose to a peak of 20 records in 2021, then fell to 0 by 2024 — a documented -100% swing over that three-year span. Because 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as complete, this is a real contraction in filing activity, not a publication-lag artefact; 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not yet be read as a continuation of the fall.
One dominant subclass, two supporting ones
E21C (mining and quarrying) appears on 96.4% of the 28 records, effectively the whole corpus. E21B (earth and rock drilling, 14.3%) and F42D (blasting, 10.7%) appear alongside it on a minority of records rather than defining independent filing tracks, which suggests drilling and blasting claims here are usually dependent on a caving-method claim rather than standalone inventions.
Shares are the percentage of the 28 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Block Caving and Mass Mining with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about block caving and mass mining and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited filings
Raise caving method for mining deposits, and a mining infrastructure, monitoring system, machinery, control system and data medium therefor
The filing describes an integrated raise caving method: developing a raise in the rock mass, developing a drawbell excavated at least in part from that raise, initiating caving through undercutting where part of the undercut is created by gradually expanding the drawbell upward, and developing at least two drawpoints into the drawbell.Abstract trimmed for length; see the full record for complete claim language.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20230228193A1 | Raise caving method for mining an ore from an ore body, and a mining infrastructure, monitoring system, machi… | 9 |
| 2 | US20230203946A1 | Raise caving method for mining deposits, and a mining infrastructure, monitoring system, machinery, control s… | 8 |
| 3 | WO2021236000A1 | Raise caving method for mining an ore from an ore body, and a mining infrastructure, monitoring system, machi… | 5 |
| 4 | WO2021236002A1 | Raise caving method for mining deposits, and a mining infrastructure, monitoring system, machinery, control s… | 5 |
| 5 | SE2130072A1 | Mining method for mining ore from an ore body P | 1 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (5 of 5 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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With only two assignees active across the entire scope, this is not a crowded field to search for prior art in — it is a narrow one to search around carefully.
No long tail to work around
The top two assignees combined account for all 28 records in scope. There is no fragmented mid-tier of smaller filers to license from or invalidate around — any competitive filing has to engage directly with the leader's claim set.
A peak that has fully unwound
Filing activity peaked at 20 records in 2021 and had dropped to 0 by 2024, a complete -100% swing over three years. That is a real contraction, not a lag effect, since 2024 is the last year in the trend that can be treated as fully published.
A single-subclass core
Almost every record sits inside E21C mining and quarrying, with drilling and blasting classes appearing as add-ons rather than parallel tracks. Designing around the core caving-method claims, not the drilling or blasting elements, is where the real freedom-to-operate work has to happen.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to block caving and mass mining, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
The assignee ranking returned by the data endpoint contains exactly two entities, and between them they cover every record in scope — there is no wider field of smaller filers hiding below them.
A dominant single filer
One assignee holds 27 of the 28 records in scope, built around the raise caving method family and its associated monitoring, machinery and control-system claims. Its recent-year momentum is flat at 0 in the latest year, down -100% year-on-year, consistent with the field-wide 2021 peak having fully unwound.
A single-filing entrant
The second assignee accounts for the balance of the 28-record scope with a single filing, showing 0 activity in the latest year. This is not a competitor building a portfolio; it is an isolated filing in the same technical space.
Filing follows the mines, not one office
Receiving offices are evenly split across Australia, Europe, Sweden, the United States, Canada and Chile at similar volumes, tracking the geography of active block-caving operations rather than concentrating in a single home jurisdiction.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) | 0 | -100% |
| BASUALTO LIRA GUILLERMO | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow, concentrated field rather than an open competitive race, which changes how a freedom-to-operate check or a filing strategy should be scoped.
Map the leader's full claim tree
With one assignee holding 27 of 28 records, any new filing needs a claim-by-claim comparison against that portfolio rather than a general prior-art search.
Explore the leader's filings in EurekaCheck the under-claimed branches
Fragmentation sensing, dilution-entry alarms and subsidence prediction modelling appear thinly in this scope and may offer room for an independent claim.
Search white space in EurekaWatch for the next filing wave
The 2021 peak fully unwound by 2024; 2025-2026 data is still filling in and could show whether filing is resuming.
Track new filings in EurekaCommon questions on block caving patents
In this dataset, one assignee holds 27 of the 28 records in scope, built primarily around a raise caving method family and its associated monitoring, machinery and control-system claims. A second assignee holds the remaining single record. This is an unusually concentrated field: there is no wider group of mid-tier filers, so evaluating competitive risk means studying the leader's specific claim language rather than surveying a broad market.
Filing peaked at 20 records in 2021 and had dropped to 0 by 2024, a documented -100% change over that three-year span. Because 2024 is the most recent year in the dataset that can be treated as complete, this is a genuine contraction rather than a lag artefact. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so it is too early to call the current trajectory.
Almost all records, 96.4% of the 28 in scope, sit within IPC subclass E21C, mining and quarrying, covering undercut sequencing, drawbell and drawpoint development, and draw control. Drilling (E21B) and blasting (F42D) classes appear on a minority of records, mostly as elements within a broader caving-method claim rather than as standalone inventions. Readers searching for fragmentation prediction or dilution entry specifically should expect to find those concepts nested inside larger system claims, not filed alone.
WO2021236002A1 describes an integrated raise caving method: developing a raise in the rock mass, excavating a drawbell at least partly from that raise, initiating caving through undercutting by gradually expanding the drawbell upward, and developing at least two drawpoints into the drawbell. It is one of a small family of closely related raise caving filings from the same assignee, several of which appear among the most-cited records in this scope. Anyone designing a new undercut sequencing method should check this family's independent claims first, since they define the core method steps other filings in the space build on.
Based on the IPC composition, the under-claimed areas sit adjacent to the dense E21C core rather than inside it: real-time fragmentation sensing, automated dilution-entry alarms, subsidence prediction modelling, and multi-drawpoint draw scheduling are represented thinly across the 28 records. These are candidates for an independent claim precisely because the dominant assignee's filings treat them as supporting elements of a broader method rather than as inventions in their own right, but any filing there should still be checked against the leader's dependent claims.
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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.