Cold Plate & Liquid Cooling Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The leading assignee holds 7 of 17 records, and the top five together account for 82.4% of all records in scope.
- Filing has not grown steadily. Activity sat at zero in 2022 before peaking at 9 records in 2024, suggesting a recent, concentrated push rather than sustained momentum.
- Testing and verification claims are thin. Only 5.9% of records cover testing or diagnostic methods, leaving cold plate leak and fouling detection largely open.
How cold plate and liquid cooling patents cluster
Server-grade cold plates and direct liquid cooling loops sit at the intersection of thermal engineering and electronics packaging, and the patent record reflects that split. Most of the 17 records in scope classify under printed-circuit and assembly integration, with smaller but active clusters in semiconductor-device cooling and heat-exchange apparatus. Filing is concentrated among a handful of assignees rather than spread evenly, and citation weight sits with the oldest filings in the set.
The receiving-office spread — led by the United States and China, with smaller counts through the EPO, Israel, WIPO and Singapore — points to a field being filed defensively in the largest server markets rather than pursued broadly across many jurisdictions at once.
Filing trends and technology composition
The 17 records in scope span 2015 through the partial 2026 filing year, with technology composition split across seven IPC subclasses and receiving offices concentrated in the United States and China.
Filing activity has not shown sustained growth
Filings sat at zero at the 2022 midpoint and peaked in 2024 at 9 records, indicating a late, concentrated filing push rather than steady year-on-year growth. The most recent year is understated because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Printed-circuit integration dominates the classification mix
H05K (printed circuits & assemblies) appears in 70.6% of the 17 records in scope, well ahead of H01L (semiconductor devices) at 35.3% and F28D (heat-exchange apparatus) at 23.5%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read against the 17-record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 17 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cold Plates and Liquid Cooling Loops for Servers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cold plates and liquid cooling loops for servers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited patents in scope
Swirl-enhanced microchannel cold plate
A cold plate assembly includes a cold plate manufactured from a thermally conductive material with an array of extended fins on the surface facing the heat source. A swirl enhancement plate sits parallel to that surface, channeling impingement jets of cooling liquid through nozzle openings while swirl enhancement protrusions extend into the microchannels between adjacent fins to disrupt flow and improve heat transfer.Filed by Strategic Thermal Labs, LLC; published 2025-07-10.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7265979B2 | Cooling integrated circuits using a cold plate with two phase thin film evaporation | 58 |
| 2 | US20050286227A1 | Cooling integrated circuits using a cold plate with two phase thin film evaporation | 47 |
| 3 | CN109104844A | 一种微通道冷板 | 19 |
| 4 | US20240251523A1 | Heat exchanger for high performance chip sets | 7 |
| 5 | CN117705381A | 一种冷板服务器气密性检测方法、装置及介质 | 2 |
| 6 | WO2024158839A1 | Heat exchanger for high performance chip sets | 1 |
| 7 | US20250224185A1 | Swirl-enhanced microchannel cold plate | 1 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus and favour older filings; use them to gauge documented influence, not current technical 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. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing data signals for R&D and IP teams
Reading the 17 records together, three signals stand out: where claim density already blocks new filings, where citation weight concentrates influence rather than novelty, and where the technology composition leaves room to move.
Filing sits with a small group
With the leading assignee alone holding 7 of the 17 records and the top five controlling 82.4% of the total, new entrants face a narrow field where most of the core cold plate structure claim space is already occupied.
Citation weight favours older filings
The two most-cited records in this set are the oldest, both describing two-phase thin-film evaporation cold plates. High citation counts here reflect years of accumulated influence within the searched corpus, not that the underlying mechanism is still the newest approach on the market.
Printed-circuit integration dominates
H05K assembly integration appears in 70.6% of the 17 records, well ahead of semiconductor-device integration (35.3%) and heat-exchange apparatus (23.5%). Dense classification here means claim space is occupied, not that remaining approaches are technically weaker.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cold plates and liquid cooling loops for servers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Eight assignees account for all 17 records in scope, with filing concentrated at the top and a long tail of single-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum has flattened across the ranked leaders rather than accelerating with any one of them.
One assignee holds the largest single share
The top-ranked assignee's 7 records represent the largest concentration in the dataset, giving it the widest documented claim coverage across cold plate structure and liquid cooling loop design in this field.
A tight group controls most of the field
The top five assignees together hold 82.4% of all records in scope, leaving the remaining ranked assignees with a single record apiece — a long tail rather than a broad competitive middle.
Recent-year filing has flattened across the board
Every ranked assignee with year-over-year data shows zero filings in the latest year, including two with a documented -100% year-over-year drop. That flat pattern, combined with the 2024 peak, suggests the recent filing push has already cooled rather than building toward a new cycle.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Mikros Technologies LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Intel Corp | 0 | — |
| Leihua Electronics Technology Research Institute, Aviation Industry Corporation of China | 0 | — |
| STRATEGIC THERMAL LABS LLC | 0 | — |
| PURPLE CLOUD DEV PTE LTD | 0 | -100% |
| Inspur Suzhou Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang University | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this research next
The filing data points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion. These are the next moves for teams deciding where to file or where to design around existing claims.
Map the leader's full claim set
With one assignee holding 7 of the 17 records, a closer read of its individual claims — not just its record count — will show exactly how much of the core cold plate structure space is already blocked.
Analyze assignee claim scopeTest designs against the swirl-plate claim
Any impingement-jet or finned-microchannel design should be checked against the specific structural pairing claimed in US20250224185A1 before development proceeds.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkDraft into the diagnostic gap
Testing and verification methods cover only 5.9% of records in scope, leaving room for a first claim around integrated leak or fouling detection tied to existing cold plate structures.
Draft in the open branchCommon questions about cold plate and liquid cooling patents
Within this dataset of 17 records, filing is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 7 of the 17 records, and the top five assignees combined account for 82.4% of all records in scope. The remaining assignees hold single-digit counts each, forming a long tail rather than a broad, evenly distributed field. This concentration means a small number of organisations control most of the documented claim space around cold plate structure and liquid cooling loop design.
Printed-circuit and assembly integration (IPC class H05K) is the most heavily claimed area, appearing in 70.6% of the 17 records in scope. Semiconductor-device integration (H01L, 35.3%) and heat-exchange apparatus (F28D, 23.5%) follow as secondary concentrations. Because records often carry more than one classification, these figures describe overlapping claim density rather than mutually exclusive market segments.
Filing activity has been uneven rather than steadily growing: the midpoint year of 2022 recorded zero filings, while the peak so far came in 2024 with 9 records. That pattern points to a concentrated, recent filing push rather than sustained multi-year growth. Readers should also account for publication lag, which typically runs around 18 months, meaning the most recent filing year in any dataset is always undercounted relative to what eventually gets published.
US20250224185A1, filed by Strategic Thermal Labs, LLC and published 2025-07-10, claims a specific structural pairing: a cold plate with an array of extended fins facing the heat source, combined with a separate swirl enhancement plate that channels impingement jets through nozzle openings to induce swirl within the microchannels between fins. It does not block microchannel cold plates or impingement-jet cooling generally — only that specific fin-plus-swirl-plate combination. Designs that omit the swirl enhancement plate, or use a different mechanism to induce flow disruption, are likely to sit outside this particular claim, though a freedom-to-operate review of the exact geometry is still advisable.
The thinnest documented branch is testing and verification methodology, covered by only 5.9% of the 17 records despite the appearance of a specific cold-plate air-tightness detection patent in the most-cited table. Heat-exchanger detail hardware (F28F, 11.8%) is also comparatively under-claimed relative to the broader heat-exchange apparatus class. These gaps suggest more room to file around diagnostic methods, leak and fouling detection, and fin or manifold detail than around the core cold plate body structure, where filing is already dense.
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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.