Cryocooler Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 217 families, 46.3% of the field. The top five assignees hold 217 of 469 records in scope — filing concentration is high even before you look at the long tail.
- F25B carries almost two-thirds of records. 295 of 469 records (62.9%) sit in refrigeration and heat-pump class F25B, making it the densest single claim space to search before filing.
- Filing held flat, not falling, into 2024. Volume moved from 28 records in 2021 to 29 in 2024, a modest +4% — the apparent drop after that reflects publication lag, not a cooling field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (28 records) with 2024 (29) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 469 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 469 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine a cryocooler architecture — pulse tube, Stirling or Gifford–McMahon — with a specific engineering variable: regenerator material, cold finger design, cooldown time, vibration, input power efficiency or operating temperature range. That search construction deliberately excludes generic refrigeration filings and generic cryocooler filings that do not engage with one of those performance parameters, so the corpus is narrower and more decision-relevant than a bare cryocooler search would return.
Records are drawn from receiving offices led by the United States, the European Patent Office and WIPO's PCT route, with meaningful volume also filed directly in China and Germany. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart are undercounts, not a genuine slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 469-record corpus: filing activity by year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the subclass shares below sum to well over 100% of the record total.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 37 in 2017 to a peak of 51 in 2023, then eased to 2021-comparable levels by 2024 (28 to 29, +4%). 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under normal publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
IPC subclass composition
F25B (refrigeration and heat pumps) dominates at 295 records, 62.9% of the 469 in scope. F25D (cooling, 11.7%) and F02G (hot-gas and external-combustion engines, 8.7%) follow, with measurement-adjacent classes G01J, G01R and semiconductor class H01L each in the 6-7% range, and gas liquefaction (F25J) and magnetics (H01F) rounding out the smaller but active branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 469 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cryocooler and Small Scale Refrigeration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cryocooler and small scale refrigeration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the corpus
Cold Finger For Cryocoolers (US20140202172A1, Sunpower Inc.)
Describes fabricating a cold finger for a Stirling-cycle or pulse-tube cryocooler cold head: a titanium alloy workpiece is machined, nickel-plated and brazed to a stainless-steel workpiece to form an integral body, which is then machined into an adapter ring, with the nickel plating and underlying titanium removed from an intermediate segment before final shaping.Filed 2014-07-24 by Sunpower, Inc.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20060091310A1 | Methods for performing inspections and detecting chemical leaks using an infrared camera system | 151 |
| 2 | US4953366A | Acoustic cryocooler | 111 |
| 3 | US5535593A | Apparatus and method for temperature control of a cryocooler by adjusting the compressor piston stroke amplit… | 75 |
| 4 | US5749226A | Microminiature stirling cycle cryocoolers and engines | 74 |
| 5 | US20120273680A1 | Chemical Leak Inspection System | 71 |
| 6 | US20130250124A1 | Chemical Leak Inspection System | 69 |
| 7 | US6070414A | Cryogenic cooler with mechanically-flexible thermal interface | 58 |
| 8 | US20060090477A1 | Piston compressor | 53 |
| 9 | US5941079A | Microminiature stirling cycle cryocoolers and engines | 53 |
| 10 | US20020151332A1 | Apparatus and methods for improved tower mountable systems for cellular communications | 41 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus skew toward older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three figures matter more than the rest for anyone deciding where to file next in this space.
The top of the field is crowded, not diffuse
217 of 469 records sit with just five assignees, and the top ten hold 60.8% (285 records). New entrants competing head-on in the leaders' core claims face dense prior art; the more open ground sits outside that concentrated core.
Refrigeration and heat-pump claims are the busiest single class
F25B alone appears on 295 of 469 records. A freedom-to-operate search that skips this class will miss the majority of relevant prior art regardless of which cryocooler architecture is being pursued.
Volume is holding, not accelerating or collapsing
Filings moved from 28 in 2021 to 29 in 2024 — near-flat growth after a 2023 peak of 51. Because 2025-2026 data is still incomplete under normal publication lag, this plateau, not the apparent post-2024 drop, is the reading to act on.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cryocooler and small scale refrigeration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the ranking thins out
The assignee ranking returned by the data endpoint covers 100 companies, counted by record. It is a full ranking, not a top-50 or top-100 cut, and it thins out quickly after the leaders.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 125 records, more than the combined total of positions six through ten. That gap is wide enough that competitive tracking should treat this filer as a distinct category rather than grouping it with the rest of the top ten.
A steep drop-off after the top five
Record counts fall from 21 at fifth place to 10 at tenth, then continue thinning across the rest of the 100-company ranking. Most of that ranking consists of assignees with only a handful of filings each.
Co-filing is rare and narrowly clustered
Only six co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the strongest pairing recurs just three times. Joint filing is not a meaningful pattern here; most organisations file solo.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Superconductor Technologies Inc. | 0 | — |
| Ohio University | 0 | — |
| Asymptote Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Raytheon Company | 0 | — |
| Sunpower, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Semicon Devices, an Elbit Systems-Rafael Partnership | 0 | — |
| ANYON SYSTEMS INC | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a field with a concentrated core and thinner but active adjacent branches. Two follow-on steps make that actionable.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against F25B
Since 62.9% of records touch this class, any new cold-head, regenerator or pulse-tube filing should start its prior-art check there before moving to adjacent classes like F25D or F02G.
Explore F25B prior art in EurekaWatch the leader's next filings closely
With 125 records against a fifth-place figure of 21, the leading assignee's claim strategy sets the boundary the rest of the field files around.
Track assignee activity in EurekaLook past the top ten for open claim space
The steep drop-off after position ten suggests under-claimed niches in vibration isolation, cooldown control and gas-liquefaction integration that a full-ranking search can surface.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions on cryocooler patents
This landscape tracks 469 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine a pulse tube, Stirling or Gifford-McMahon cryocooler architecture with a specific engineering variable such as regenerator material, cold finger design, cooldown time or operating temperature range. It is not a count of every cryocooler patent ever filed; it is a scoped search built around performance-relevant claim language. Receiving offices are led by the United States, followed by the EPO and WIPO's PCT route, with meaningful direct filing in China and Germany.
The ranking is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 125 records, and the top five combined hold 217 of 469 records, 46.3% of the field. That concentration drops off steeply after the top ten, which together hold 285 records (60.8%); the remainder of the ranked 100 companies file in much smaller numbers, often just a handful of records each. Anyone benchmarking competitors should treat the leader as a category of its own rather than grouping it with the rest of the field.
F25B, covering refrigeration and heat pumps, appears on 295 of 469 records (62.9%) and should be the first class checked in any freedom-to-operate or novelty search. F25D (cooling) and F02G (hot-gas and external-combustion engines) follow at 11.7% and 8.7% respectively. Measurement-adjacent classes G01J and G01R, and semiconductor class H01L, each sit around 6-7%, reflecting cryocoolers' use in imaging and detector cooling applications; because records can carry multiple classes, these shares do not sum to 100%.
Filing volume held roughly flat across the most recent complete years, moving from 28 records in 2021 to 29 in 2024, a modest +4% over that span, after a peak of 51 records in 2023. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in activity. The honest reading is a plateau after the 2023 peak, not a decline.
The steep drop-off in filing counts after the top ten assignees, combined with thinner IPC branches such as F25J (gas liquefaction, 5.5%) and H01F (magnetics, 4.7%), points to under-claimed territory outside the dominant F25B refrigeration core. Specific sub-areas worth checking include vibration isolation for cold heads, cooldown-time optimisation controls, and cold-finger brazing and joint fabrication techniques — areas that show activity but nowhere near the density of the core refrigeration claims. A full search against the complete assignee ranking, not just the leaders, is the way to confirm open space before filing.
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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.