The most-cited record in this dataset is US6401936B1, a divert apparatus for conveyor systems, with 308 citations — far ahead of the next tier, which includes a modular conveyor network control patent and two singulation-related patents each in the high seventies. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings simply because they have had more years to accumulate references, so treat these as markers of foundational influence rather than current market leadership. Several named assignees, including Intelligrated, Dematic and Siemens, show no filings in the most recent tracked year, which is more consistent with a mature, defended portfolio than with active new claiming.

Filing activity peaked at 35 in 2022 and has declined in the years since, with only a partial count of 1 recorded for 2026. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one or two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be, so some caution is warranted before calling this a definitive decline. Even allowing for that lag, the shape of the curve — rising steadily to a mid-decade peak rather than climbing to the present — suggests the core mechanical claim space is largely occupied rather than still expanding.

Relative to the 346 records in the core B65G conveying subclass, adjacent IPC areas are thin: material analysis and testing (G01N) has only 12 records, centrifuge-related handling (B04B) has 5, and digital data processing (G06F) has 9. That gap indicates sensor-integrated in-line quality or property checks, and software-layer throughput or fault-prediction claims layered on top of physical sortation hardware, are comparatively open. A first mover combining a measured in-line property with a real-time mechanical divert decision would be filing into thinner prior art than a purely mechanical singulation claim.

US20210101752A1, assigned to Intelligrated Headquarters, LLC and filed in 2021, claims a singulation conveyor using rollers with differing cross-sectional profiles — specifically a sleeve-and-dowel roller construction that differs from an adjacent roller on the same line. It blocks designs that use deliberately mismatched roller geometry to create the friction or timing differential needed for singulation. It does not reach singulation achieved through variable belt-speed zones, pneumatic diverts, or vision-guided timing control, so systems built on those mechanisms sit outside this particular claim's structural language.

The United States leads by a wide margin with 180 records in this dataset, followed by the European Patent Office at 63 and WIPO PCT filings at 33. Canada (32) and Australia (17) follow, with a smaller but notable count of 10 through the Austrian patent office. This distribution reflects where major material-handling integrators and e-commerce fulfilment operators concentrate their filing budgets, and it is a reasonable proxy for where enforcement risk and freedom-to-operate checks matter most for a new entrant.