Vacuum Insulated Glazing Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (32 records) with 2024 (11) — 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 the vacuum insulated glazing patent record shows
Vacuum insulated glazing (VIG) replaces the gas-filled cavity of conventional double glazing with a sealed, evacuated gap held open by an array of support pillars. The patent record built on TACD:(“Vacuum Insulated Glazing”) spans 634 published records from 2015 through the mid-2026 cut-off, and it is dominated structurally: claims concentrate on the window/door unit itself — seals, edge construction, pillar arrays and valve mechanisms — far more than on the glass composition inside the cavity.
Filing rose through the late 2010s, peaked in 2019, and has since declined through the last fully comparable years. Because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, the very newest years in the trend will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be — the decline through 2024 is the reliable signal, not the near-zero counts shown for 2025 and 2026.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 634-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those records distribute across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend: rise, peak, retreat
Annual filings climbed to a peak of 199 records in 2019, then eased. The most recent comparable window shows an 11-record 2024 down from 32 in 2021 — a 66% drop across that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in rather than as evidence of a further collapse.
Where the claims sit
E06B (doors, windows & shutters) covers 78.4% of the 634 records, confirming that most claim activity addresses the glazing unit and its seal architecture. C03C (glass & enamel compositions) follows at 30.6%, with B32B (layered products & laminates) at 10.9%. Smaller but present clusters in H01L, E04D, G02F, C23C and C03B point to electronics integration, roofing applications, optical control, coatings and glass-forming processes as secondary but real filing zones. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add to well over 100% of the 634-record base — they describe overlap in claim scope, not a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 634 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Building Envelope & Efficiency: Vacuum Insulated Glazing Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this dataset
US20220228426A1 — Vacuum insulated glazing, valve, flexible seal, and method for making vacuum insulated glazing
A vacuum insulated glazing includes first and second spaced apart glass panes having perimeter portions defining a vacuum space between the glass panes. A vacuum valve is positioned at the perimeter portions of the glass panes and includes a valve body extending between the perimeter portions of the glass panes, and having first and second ends and a fluid conduit extending from the first end to the second end of the valve body and in fluid communication with the vacuum space. A one-way valve in the fluid conduit permits fluid flow from the vacuum space, and prevents fluid flow into the vacuum space. A suction fitting is provided for connecting the valve body to a suction device. An end seal completes the unit.Filed by UT-BATTELLE, LLC, published 2022-07-21.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120086023A1 | Insulating glass (IG) or vacuum insulating glass (VIG) unit including light source, and/or methods of making … | 62 |
| 2 | US20120269996A1 | Heat insulating glazing element and methods for its manufacture | 48 |
| 3 | US20160031737A1 | Shaped glass article having a predefined geometry produced without using a mold, method and use of the same | 41 |
| 4 | US20150079313A1 | Vacuum glazing pillars for insulated glass units | 40 |
| 5 | US20180238104A1 | Vacuum insulated glazing unit | 38 |
| 6 | US20120088319A1 | Light source with hybrid coating, device including light source with hybrid coating, and/or methods of making… | 38 |
| 7 | US20110290295A1 | Thermoelectric/solar cell hybrid coupled via vacuum insulated glazing unit, and method of making the same | 33 |
| 8 | US20130142972A1 | Vacuum Insulated Glass Panel with Spacers Coated with Micro Particles and Method of Forming Same | 30 |
| 9 | US20220235601A1 | Manufacturing of vacuum insulated glazing unit | 28 |
| 10 | US20100175347A1 | Filament-strung stand-off elements for maintaining pane separation in vacuum insulating glazing units | 27 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus. Older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer, so read this as a map of influential prior art, not of current competitive strength.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-outs from the assignee ranking, filing trend and IPC composition, translated into what they mean for anyone deciding where to file or license next.
One filer, then a steep drop
The leading assignee's 227 records dwarf the fifth-place figure of 97, and by tenth place the count is down to 22. That gap suggests one company built a broad, defensive portfolio early, while everyone else is filing narrower, more targeted claims around it.
A cooling field, not a dead one
Filings fell from 32 in 2021 to 11 in 2024. That is a real slowdown across a comparable window, but it follows a 2019 peak of 199 — this looks like a field settling after an early land-rush rather than one being abandoned.
The seal and unit design is the crowded ground
Nearly four in five records touch E06B (the window/door/shutter unit), against roughly three in ten touching C03C (glass composition). New entrants competing on structural seal or pillar-array claims are entering the densest part of the field; those working on glass formulation have comparatively more room.
Small footprints in optics and electronics integration
Optical control (G02F, 5.2%) and semiconductor device integration (H01L, 6.5%) each touch only a small slice of the 634 records. These are the branches worth watching for whoever wants to combine VIG with electrochromic or embedded-sensor functionality before the space fills in.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to building envelope & efficiency: vacuum insulated glazing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with a dominant early filer, a cooling but not dead filing rate, and claim density concentrated in unit structure rather than glass chemistry. The next steps depend on what decision you're making.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignee
With 227 records against a fifth-place figure of 97, the top filer's portfolio is the first thing to clear before committing to a structural seal or pillar-array design.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches before they fill in
Optical control and semiconductor integration each sit at a single-digit share of the 634 records — narrow now, but worth tracking as VIG combines with smart-glass functionality.
Track white space in EurekaWatch for the 2025–2026 publication catch-up
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the near-zero counts shown for the most recent years will revise upward. Re-check the trend once that data settles.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions on vacuum insulated glazing patents
One assignee leads the ranking clearly, with 227 records against a fifth-place figure of 97 and a tenth-place figure of 22. That gap indicates a company that built broad coverage early, likely across seal design, pillar arrays and unit assembly, rather than a field with several evenly matched leaders. Anyone doing competitive analysis in this space should treat that leader's portfolio as the baseline to check claims against, since the next several filers hold meaningfully smaller and likely more specialised positions.
Filing peaked at 199 records in 2019 and has since declined; the last fully comparable window shows 32 filings in 2021 falling to 11 in 2024, a 66% drop. That is a genuine slowdown, not a data artefact, though it should be read as a maturing field rather than a dying one — most of the foundational structural claims may already be staked out. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are too recent to interpret, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The bulk of claims sit in E06B, the doors/windows/shutters class, covering 78.4% of the 634 records in scope — this is unit structure, sealing and edge construction. Glass and enamel composition (C03C) follows at 30.6%, and layered products (B32B) at 10.9%. Smaller clusters appear in semiconductor integration, roofing, optical control, coatings and glass-forming processes, each in the single digits by share, marking these as secondary but active areas rather than empty ones.
The clearest under-claimed ground sits in the smaller IPC clusters: optical control and modulation (G02F) at 5.2% of records and semiconductor device integration (H01L) at 6.5% both suggest limited claim density around combining VIG with electrochromic or embedded-electronics functionality. Roofing-adapted applications (E04D, 5.7%) and mould-free curved glass shaping (C03B, 2.2%) are similarly thin. None of these are empty, but each has far less claim density than the core E06B structural space.
US20220228426A1, assigned to UT-BATTELLE, LLC and published 2022-07-21, claims a vacuum insulated glazing unit with a specific vacuum valve, flexible seal and fluid conduit design for evacuating and sealing the cavity between two glass panes. The claims centre on the valve body, its one-way fluid flow mechanism, and the suction fitting used during manufacture, plus the end seal that completes the unit. Anyone designing a pump-out or valve-based evacuation process for VIG should review this filing specifically, since it sits in the same crowded E06B structural territory that dominates the wider dataset.
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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.