Concrete Machinery Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has cooled since a 2018 peak of 6. the 2022 midpoint sits at just 1 filing, and the most recent full year shows no clear rebound across tracked assignees.
- F04B positive-displacement pump claims dominate the corpus. 47 of 66 records sit in F04B, versus 20 in E04G scaffolding and formwork — the pumping mechanism itself is the crowded ground.
- China and the United States lead filing offices. 16 China receiving-office records and 12 US records outpace Japan (8), EPO (6), Australia (5) and India (5).
What this dataset covers
This landscape tracks 66 patent families filed or published between 2015 and 2026 that combine concrete pump, concrete mixing equipment or boom placing machine terminology with claim-level language on pumping pressure, wear part life, boom vibration control, cleaning systems or mix consistency. The IPC scope is anchored to E04G21 (site scaffolding and concrete placing structures), B28C5 (mixing apparatus) and F04B15 (pump construction), so the set is deliberately narrow to the mechanical and control layer of concrete handling rather than the broader construction-machinery category.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is understated and should not be read as a real drop-off on its own. The pattern that does hold across the full window is a peak in 2018 followed by a flat-to-declining midpoint, which points to a field where the core mechanical claims were staked out early rather than one still in an active filing race.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 66-family dataset: activity over time, and where within the IPC scheme the claims actually sit.
A 2018 peak, then a flat midpoint
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2018, then fell back to just 1 by the 2022 midpoint. Read the final year or two as incomplete rather than as evidence the field has gone quiet — publication lag means recent filings are still arriving.
F04B pump mechanics dominate the claim space
Positive-displacement pump claims under F04B account for 47 of 66 records, more than double the E04G scaffolding and formwork share of 20. Valves and taps (F16K, 9), vehicle propulsion (B60K, 4), cleaning (B08B, 3), checking devices (G07C, 3), tunnel support (E21D, 2) and pipe fittings (F16L, 2) form a long thin tail rather than a second concentration.
Shares are the percentage of the 66 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Concrete Machinery and Pumping Equipment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about concrete machinery and pumping equipment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Concrete pump with automatic driving-pressure adjustment for an oscillating actuator (Zoomlion, EP2660467A1)
The filing discloses a concrete pump and a method for adjusting the driving pressure value of an oscillating actuator that controls an S-shaped distribution valve. An oscillating driving pressure control module sets the pressure value fed to the actuator from the oscillating hydraulic circuit based on a first and, optionally, a second pressure value drawn from the oil hydraulics — closing the loop between valve position and hydraulic drive pressure rather than running the actuator on a fixed setting.Filed by Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd., dated 2013-11-06, ahead of the dataset's 2015 start — an example of a foundational filing that still shapes claim drafting inside the tracked window.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5332366A | Concrete pump monitoring system | 80 |
| 2 | CN108360818A | 一种串联型油电混合动力臂架式混凝土泵车 | 19 |
| 3 | US4614483A | Device for sealing a concrete pump | 17 |
| 4 | US20170314724A1 | Auto-fill two-layer two-half wear resistant elbow of concrete pump truck and manufacturing method thereof | 12 |
| 5 | EP1306550A1 | Improved concrete pump with means to automatically adjust the working of the S-valve according to the type of… | 12 |
| 6 | CN201786032U | 全挂式牵引自行走臂架泵车 | 11 |
| 7 | CN101078298A | 一种混凝土泵车的泵送混凝土的方法及装置 | 11 |
| 8 | US20150198181A1 | Concrete Pump System and Method | 10 |
| 9 | JP1986001878A | Piston type concrete pump | 10 |
| 10 | JP1992020658A | Concrete distributor | 8 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — treat them as a marker of influence on later designs, not as a ranking of current 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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Three signals stand out once the filings are pulled apart by year, IPC subclass and receiving office.
Activity has cooled, not accelerated
The count fell from a 2018 peak of 6 to just 1 at the 2022 midpoint. Combined with a most-recent year showing no filings across the tracked assignees, this reads as a mechanically mature niche rather than one attracting fresh entrants — though publication lag means the last year or two is always undercounted.
The pump itself, not the boom, is where claims cluster
F04B positive-displacement pump claims outnumber E04G scaffolding and placing-structure claims more than two to one. Anyone filing new pumping-pressure or valve-control claims is filing into the densest part of the corpus; boom vibration control and placing-structure claims have comparatively more room.
Filing is split across two lead markets, not one
China (16 records) and the United States (12) lead receiving offices, with Japan (8), EPO (6), Australia (5) and India (5) forming a secondary tier. A freedom-to-operate check limited to a single jurisdiction will miss roughly two-thirds of the corpus.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to concrete machinery and pumping equipment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where the gate sits
The strongest co-filing relationship in the dataset links two related Zoomlion entities, and recent-year momentum has gone flat across every tracked assignee — a signal that the field's early movers have largely stopped adding new families.
Zoomlion's internal filing pair is the densest link in the graph
Hunan Zoomlion Special Vehicle Co., Ltd. and Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd. share 4 families, the strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset — consistent with a parent-subsidiary filing pattern rather than an external collaboration.
No assignee shows fresh-year activity
Every assignee reviewed for recent-year momentum, from Zoomlion's units to Kyokuto Kaihatsu Kogyo and Guizhou University, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. That is partly a publication-lag artefact, but it also means no single player is visibly pulling ahead right now.
The highest-influence record predates the modern filing wave
The most-cited record in the set, a concrete pump monitoring system, sits well ahead of the next tier on citation count. High citation counts here mark historical influence on later drafting, not current filing priority.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| PRIDDY FRANCIS WAYNE | 0 | — |
| Sisfa S.p.A. | 0 | — |
| Guizhou University | 0 | — |
| Hunan Zoomlion Special Vehicle Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Kyokuto Kaihatsu Kogyo Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| SCHWING AMERICA INC | 0 | — |
| Dong Liancheng | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing counts and citation table answer what happened; the next step is testing specific claim language against this corpus.
Check a draft claim against the F04B cluster
Given how concentrated pump-mechanism claims are, run any new pumping-pressure or S-valve claim against the highest-citation records before drafting further.
Search this claim space in EurekaMap the white-space branches in more depth
Boom vibration control, wear-part life monitoring and cleaning-cycle automation carry a thin share of the corpus — worth a closer look before committing R&D budget.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the Zoomlion filing pair going forward
The strongest co-assignee link in this dataset is an internal Zoomlion pairing; watching whether that pattern continues signals how the company is structuring future filings.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaCommon questions about concrete machinery patents
Within this 66-family dataset, Zoomlion-related entities show the strongest filing relationship, with Hunan Zoomlion Special Vehicle Co., Ltd. and Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd. sharing 4 co-assigned families. No single assignee dominates the full set outright; the field instead shows a concentration of related entities at the top and a longer tail of single- or few-filing organisations. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should check both the parent and subsidiary filing histories together rather than treating them as separate blocks.
The tracked data shows filings peaking at 6 in 2018 and falling to just 1 by the 2022 midpoint, with the latest year showing no filings across tracked assignees. Part of this is a real slowdown consistent with a mechanically mature claim space where core pump and valve mechanisms were staked out early. Part of it is also a publication-lag artefact: patent applications typically surface in public data around 18 months after filing, so the last one to two years in any trend line will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be.
F04B, the positive-displacement pump subclass, accounts for 47 of the 66 tracked records, making pump mechanics — valve control, pressure regulation, actuator design — the most heavily claimed ground in this dataset. E04G scaffolding and concrete-placing structures follow with 20 records. Everything else, including valves under F16K, vehicle propulsion under B60K, and cleaning systems under B08B, sits in single digits, meaning the core pumping mechanism is where new claims are most likely to run into dense prior art.
Based on IPC composition, branches like boom vibration control, automated wear-part life monitoring, cleaning-cycle automation and hybrid drive systems for boom placing machines carry a thin share of the 66 tracked families compared to the F04B pump cluster. That does not guarantee those areas are unclaimed everywhere, but within this specific search scope they are under-represented relative to core pump mechanics. A first claim in these areas would need to tie a specific sensor or control loop to a measurable outcome, such as vibration amplitude reduction or wear-part replacement interval, to differentiate from the denser pump-claim art.
EP2660467A1 covers a concrete pump with a method for adjusting the driving pressure value of an oscillating actuator that controls an S-shaped distribution valve, using a control module that sets pressure based on one or two measured hydraulic pressure values. It is a closed-loop pressure control claim rather than a claim on the pump structure itself. Anyone designing an oscillating-actuator drive system for an S-valve concrete pump should review this filing's specific pressure-value logic closely, since it is one of the more cited records associated with this claim family in the 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.