Centrifugal Pump Condition Monitoring Patents: Leaders & Gaps 2026
- Filing peaked in 2023 at 11 families, then eased — this looks like a mature, cyclical filing pattern rather than a technology still accelerating.
- China accounts for 17 of the tracked filings, more than any other receiving office, ahead of Europe's 10 and the US's 7.
- Every top assignee shows zero filings in the latest year, a momentum gap worth checking against the 18-month publication lag before reading it as retreat.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families that combine centrifugal pump hardware — pumps, impellers, pumping systems — with condition-monitoring functions: vibration monitoring, bearing condition monitoring, cavitation detection and predictive maintenance. The search is scoped by IPC classes F04D15, G01M13 and F04D29/66, which anchor it in non-positive-displacement pump design and testing-machine instrumentation rather than in generic industrial-IoT filings. Families, not raw document counts, are the unit used throughout, so continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates of the same invention are not double-counted.
Coverage runs from 2015-01-01 to the 2026-07-31 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will read lower than the true filing volume once those applications clear examination.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 49-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A flat-to-declining curve after a 2023 peak
Filings sat at zero in 2017, climbed to a peak of 11 in 2023, and the 2022 midpoint of 4 shows growth was uneven rather than steady. Read the tail end of the curve against the publication lag — 2025 and 2026 figures will firm up as later filings publish.
F04D dominates; instrumentation and AI classes trail
F04D (non-positive-displacement pumps) appears in 48 of 49 records, confirming this is fundamentally a pump-hardware landscape with monitoring bolted on. G01M (testing/balance) and F04B (positive-displacement pumps) each cover 8 records, while G06N (AI models) reaches only 6 — machine-learning-based diagnostics are present but still a minority claim strategy.
Shares are the percentage of the 49 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Centrifugal Pump Condition Monitoring with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about centrifugal pump condition monitoring and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records
EP4001652B1 — ZENTRIFUGALPUMPENBETRIEB
Filed by Schneider Toshiba Inverter Europe SAS and granted 2023-08-16, this record sits inside the F04D/G01M claim space this landscape tracks and illustrates how drive-side control vendors are approaching pump operation monitoring.Full claim scope and prosecution history are available via the linked record.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US10711787B1 | Pumping facilities and control systems | 180 |
| 2 | US6709240B1 | Method and apparatus of detecting low flow/cavitation in a centrifugal pump | 161 |
| 3 | US6933693B2 | Method and apparatus of detecting disturbances in a centrifugal pump | 109 |
| 4 | US20040090197A1 | Method and apparatus of detecting disturbances in a centrifugal pump | 104 |
| 5 | CN108361207A | 一种用于离心泵振动监测与故障预警的装置及方法 | 12 |
| 6 | DE19858946A1 | Detecting cavitation in multiple stage centrifugal pump involves comparing pressure difference between input … | 11 |
| 7 | JP1986244896A | Cavitation avoiding device for centrifugal pump | 11 |
| 8 | KR100908385B1 | Inverter booster pump and cavitation detection method of inverter booster pump system | 10 |
| 9 | CN120632650A | 一种基于多源数据的离心泵智能检测方法及系统 | 9 |
| 10 | CN210402440U | 一种船用离心泵预测性维护系统 | 8 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current claim strength.
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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Three read-throughs from the trend and composition data, useful for deciding where a new filing would land and how crowded that spot already is.
Growth is cyclical, not compounding
The climb from zero in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2023 did not continue in a straight line — the 2022 midpoint sat at 4, well below what a steady climb to the 2023 peak would predict. That pattern is more consistent with a handful of firms filing in bursts around product cycles than with a broad, sustained wave of R&D investment.
China leads filing volume by a clear margin
China's 17 filings outnumber the EPO's 10 and the US's 7 combined with India's 5 nearly matching the US total. A filing strategy built only around US and European coverage would miss the office receiving the largest single share of this art.
Hardware claims dominate; software diagnostics trail
Only 6 of 49 records touch G06N (AI-based computing) and 4 touch G06F (digital data processing), against 48 in F04D. Most protection in this space is still written around the pump and its instrumentation, not around the analytics layer that interprets the sensor data — a gap a software-first filer could still exploit.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to centrifugal pump condition monitoring, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. | 3 |
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | Nippon Kokan K.K. | 3 |
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 3 |
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 3 |
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. | 3 |
| Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. | Nippon Kokan K.K. | 3 |
| Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. | Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 3 |
| Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 3 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, concentrated around a small set of Japanese shipbuilding and heavy-industry organisations filing jointly — most other assignees file solo.
Who holds the claim space
The assignee list is a mix of Chinese wastewater and pump manufacturers, established pump and drive vendors, and a tight cluster of Japanese heavy-industry co-filers — with no single organisation showing filings in the most recent tracked year.
No active filer in the most recent year
Every assignee named in the recent-momentum data, from established pump and drive vendors to the Japanese shipbuilding-research cluster, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is as likely to reflect filings still in the pipeline as an actual pullback — it is worth re-checking once later years fill in.
A small Japanese heavy-industry bloc files jointly
The strongest co-assignee pairs all route through the Japan Shipbuilding Research Association, paired separately with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Nippon Kokan and Kawasaki Heavy Industries — each pairing appearing three times. That is a joint-research pattern rather than a competitive one; the rest of the field files independently.
Chinese manufacturers file locally in volume
A long tail of Chinese pump and water-treatment manufacturers files predominantly through China's own office, which is consistent with the 17-filing lead that office holds. Western and Japanese assignees are more evenly spread across EPO, US, WIPO and Japan filings.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sulzer Management AG | 0 | — |
| Eaton Corporation | 0 | — |
| Schneider Toshiba Inverter Europe SAS | 0 | — |
| Japan Shipbuilding Research Association | 0 | — |
| Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Nippon Kokan K.K. | 0 | — |
| Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and assignee data point to specific next checks rather than a single conclusion.
Re-run the trend once later years fill in
The 2025-2026 dip is partly a publication-lag artefact. Re-checking filing volume in six to twelve months will separate a genuine slowdown from a reporting gap.
Explore trend data in EurekaMap the software-diagnostics gap
With only 6 of 49 records touching AI-based computing classes, a claim built around the analytics layer rather than the pump hardware itself may face a thinner prior-art field.
Run a white-space search in EurekaWatch the Japanese co-filing cluster
The shipbuilding-research joint filings suggest a coordinated R&D programme rather than isolated competitors — worth tracking if that group resumes filing.
Track assignees in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset tracks 49 patent families published between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off, drawn from a search combining centrifugal pump hardware terms with condition-monitoring functions like vibration monitoring, cavitation detection and predictive maintenance. Families are used rather than raw document counts because a single invention can generate several publications across jurisdictions. The true count for the most recent one to two years will read higher once publication catches up, since filing typically lags publication by about 18 months.
The corpus includes a long tail of Chinese pump and water-treatment manufacturers alongside established drive and pump vendors and a small cluster of Japanese heavy-industry organisations that co-file together. No single assignee dominates the ranking outright, and notably every top-ranked assignee shows zero filings in the most recent tracked year. That flat recent momentum should be checked against the publication lag before concluding any of them have exited the space.
China leads with 17 filings in this dataset, ahead of the European Patent Office at 10 and the United States at 7. India and WIPO/PCT filings follow at 5 and 4 respectively, with Japan at 3. A filing or freedom-to-operate strategy focused only on the US and Europe would miss the office receiving the single largest share of this art.
Almost all records — 48 of 49 — sit in IPC class F04D, covering non-positive-displacement pumps, which confirms this is primarily a pump-hardware landscape with monitoring functions layered on top. Testing and balance instrumentation (G01M) and positive-displacement pumps (F04B) each account for 8 records. AI-based computing classes (G06N) appear in only 6 records, meaning most protection is still written around the physical pump and sensor rather than the analytics that interpret sensor data.
Yes — the thinnest IPC coverage sits in AI-driven diagnostics, sensor-fusion bearing fault detection, and the overlap between predictive-maintenance data pipelines and business-process classes like G06Q. Fire-fighting pump applications (A62C) appear in only a single record, suggesting that specific end-use is barely claimed at all. A first claim in any of these branches would face a noticeably thinner prior-art field than one written around core F04D pump hardware.
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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.