Conveyor Systems for Bulk Ore Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
- 27 published records sit at the intersection of overland/ore conveyor hardware and belt tension, idler rolling resistance, spillage, splice and horizontal-curve claims.
- One company holds 15 of the ranked filings against a field of six ranked assignees — the rest of the ranking trails off to a single filing at fifth place.
- Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 7 records and has tapered since, though the two most recent years are understated by publication lag.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent filings that combine bulk-ore conveyor hardware — overland conveyors, ore conveyors, and idler assemblies — with the operational problems that determine whether a long-distance belt run stays online: belt tension control, idler rolling resistance, spillage control, splice reliability, horizontal-curve routing, and
Twenty-seven published records is a small corpus by patent-landscape standards, which means the ranking, the trend line and the technology split below should be read as directional signals from a tightly defined niche, not as a statistically dense field. Publication lag of roughly 18 months means the last one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 27 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 7 in 2017 and have declined since, reaching 0 in the most recent, partial year. With fewer than four complete years of post-lag data, no growth rate can be stated reliably — but the shape is a front-loaded field rather than a rising one.
IPC subclass composition (share of 27 records)
Every record in scope carries B65G (conveying and material handling), confirming the search precisely targeted conveyor hardware. Nearly half — 48.1% of the 27 records — also carry E21F (mine safety and ventilation), showing the field is defined as much by underground/mine-site safety requirements as by the conveyor mechanics themselves. B65D and F16L appear in only one record each.
Shares are the percentage of the 27 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Conveyor Systems for Bulk Ore with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about conveyor systems for bulk ore and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
WO2024173993A1 — Conveyor roller support structure and installation for conveyor systems
A roller support structure for supporting a conveyor belt of a troughing or endless conveyor, configured to support centre rollers, spaced wing rollers and optional intermediate rollers via a unitary frame with transversely spaced upright posts connected by a primary transom carrying machined roller shaft slots. Centre roller brackets can support dual parallel centre rollers offset relative to the wing roller shaft axis.Filed by Glenrowan Enterprises Pty Ltd, published 2024-08-29 — one of the more recent entries in a field where most granted priority dates cluster earlier.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US10899546B2 | Conveyor module, conveyor assembly, and method of installing a conveyor assembly | 9 |
| 2 | US20190367283A1 | Conveyor module, conveyor assembly, and method of installing a conveyor assembly | 8 |
| 3 | WO2024173993A1 | Conveyor roller support structure and installation for conveyor systems | 5 |
| 4 | WO2018085891A1 | Conveyor module, conveyor assembly, and method of installing a conveyor assembly | 5 |
| 5 | JP1987136410A | Transport system, conveyor belt and manufacture of conveyor belt | 5 |
| 6 | EP3538456A1 | Conveyor module, conveyor assembly, and method of installing a conveyor assembly | 4 |
| 7 | WO2019028505A1 | Modular relocatable conveyor | 3 |
| 8 | CA3042320A1 | Conveyor module, conveyor assembly, and method of installing a conveyor assembly | 2 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence within this dataset, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (8 of 8 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the trend, the technology split and the citation table.
A front-loaded field, not a rising one
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has since tapered to zero in the latest partial year. Because publication lag understates the most recent one to two years, the true recent picture is better than zero — but there is no visible acceleration to counter that lag.
Safety classification is baked into the hardware claims
Nearly half of all records combine conveyor hardware (B65G) with mine safety and ventilation classification (E21F), meaning claims in this space are frequently drafted with regulatory or site-safety framing rather than as pure mechanical improvements.
Influence clusters on a small set of module patents
The most-cited records are variations on a conveyor module/assembly theme rather than a spread of unrelated inventions, suggesting the citation graph in this niche is dominated by a handful of foundational module designs.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to conveyor systems for bulk ore, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ranked filings
The assignee ranking returned by this dataset covers six companies — it is the complete ranking for this search, not a top-50 or top-100 cut.
One assignee holds most of the ranked activity
The leading assignee accounts for 15 of the ranked filings, well ahead of the rest of the six-company ranking, which trails to a single filing at fifth place. That gap suggests one applicant has built a sustained filing programme around conveyor hardware while other participants filed opportunistically.
A short, steep ranking
With fifth place holding only a single filing, most of the ranked companies in this field have a minimal patent footprint here. That is consistent with a mechanically narrow niche where few organisations have built a defensible portfolio.
No ranked assignee shows recent-year filing activity
Every assignee in the ranking, including the leader, shows zero filings in the latest year, with one recording a -100% year-on-year drop. Given publication lag, this likely reflects reporting delay rather than an abrupt stop, but no assignee currently shows visible momentum in the data.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NEPEAN CONVEYORS | 0 | — |
| GLENROWAN ENTERPRISES PTY LTD | 0 | -100% |
| Fortescue Metals Group | 0 | — |
| Fortescue Ltd | 0 | — |
| Aletsuku Mindeitsushiyu | 0 | — |
| Aretabukusu Mindeitsushiyu | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The ranking and trend point to a concentrated niche with a short tail — the next step is deciding whether to file around the leader's claims or into the under-claimed branches.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With one assignee holding 15 of the ranked filings, understanding exactly what its granted claims cover is the first step before drafting anything adjacent in conveyor module or roller support design.
Explore assignee filings in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
Splice reliability sensing and belt rip detection integration show thin coverage relative to the core conveyor hardware classes — worth a targeted prior-art search before committing R&D there.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset's assignee ranking covers six companies, with one holding 15 of the ranked filings and the fifth-place company holding just one. That gap indicates a single organisation has run a sustained filing programme around conveyor module and roller support hardware, while the remaining ranked companies have filed only occasionally. The ranking is the complete list returned for this search rather than a top-50 or top-100 cut, so there is no larger hidden tier beneath it.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 7 records and has declined since, reaching zero in the most recent, partial year. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years understate real activity, so a drop to zero should not be read as the field going dormant. There are too few complete recent years to state a reliable growth or decline rate.
Every one of the 27 records in scope carries IPC subclass B65G, covering conveying and material handling, which is expected given the search terms. Just under half — 48.1% of the 27 records — also carry E21F, mine safety and ventilation, showing that many conveyor hardware claims are drafted alongside mine-safety framing. B65D (containers and packaging) and F16L (pipes and pipe fittings) appear only once each, marking them as edge cases rather than a real secondary category.
WO2024173993A1, filed by Glenrowan Enterprises Pty Ltd and published 2024-08-29, claims a roller support structure for a troughing or endless conveyor belt, built around a unitary frame with transversely spaced upright posts joined by a primary transom carrying machined roller shaft slots. It specifically covers centre roller brackets supporting dual parallel centre rollers offset relative to the wing roller shaft axis, plus optional intermediate rollers. Anyone designing a similar roller support frame for bulk-ore conveyors should check this claim set before finalising bracket or shaft-slot geometry.
Relative to the dense B65G/E21F core, splice reliability sensing, belt rip detection integration, idler rolling-resistance measurement and spillage containment at transfer points show comparatively thin dedicated coverage in this dataset. These are search-term categories rather than confirmed gaps, so a targeted prior-art search in each branch is still the right next step before investing in R&D or drafting new claims there.
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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.