Cryogenic & Superconducting Magnet Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2019 at 90 and have declined since, with the most recent full year sitting well below the midpoint of the range — a maturing claim landscape rather than a growing one.
- Momentum has narrowed to a handful of active filers, with most tracked assignees recording zero filings in the latest year and only a small group, including a fusion-energy entrant, still filing multiple times.
- Quench protection and field homogeneity dominate the claim language, but conduction cooling and REBCO tape sit underneath thinner IPC coverage in F25B and H10N, leaving room for narrower claims.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 1,116 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine superconducting or cryogenic magnet architecture with specific control functions: quench protection, field homogeneity, conduction cooling, REBCO tape construction and persistent-mode operation. The IPC scope centres on H01F6 (superconducting magnet coils), H10N60 (superconducting devices) and F25B9 (refrigeration by expansion or throttling), which keeps the corpus focused on magnet engineering rather than the much larger fields of MRI systems or particle-accelerator design that merely use such magnets.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line are undercounts — filings made in that window simply have not published yet. Read the recent-year drop as a floor, not a final answer.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,116 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A peak year already behind it
Filings rose from 32 in 2017 to a peak of 90 in 2019, held near 60 at the 2022 midpoint, and have fallen since — consistent with a field where the core architecture is claimed and incremental filing has slowed rather than accelerated.
H01F carries the corpus; F25B and H10N stay thin
H01F (magnets, inductors and transformers) appears in 1,076 of 1,116 records, effectively the backbone classification. G01R (measurement) and H02H (protective circuits) trail well behind at 429 and 141, and F25B (refrigeration, 36) and H10N (other solid-state devices, 155) are the thinnest bands — exactly where conduction-cooling and REBCO-tape claims would sit.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,116 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cryogenic and Superconducting Magnets with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cryogenic and superconducting magnets and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records other filings cite most
Superconducting magnet system and quench protection circuit thereof
The disclosure discloses a superconducting magnet system and a quench protection circuit thereof. The quench protection circuit includes a superconducting unit, three diode integrated elements, a low-temperature superconducting switch, a thermal shield and a vacuum vessel. The superconducting unit is composed of M superconducting coils connected in series, with the low-temperature superconducting switch connected across the first and M-th coils and diode elements arranged to route quench current away from the coil string.Filed by Huazhong University of Science and Technology, published 2023 — illustrative of academic filers now active in quench-protection circuit topology alongside the traditional equipment makers.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5613367A | Cryogen recondensing superconducting magnet | 131 |
| 2 | US6107905A | Superconducting magnet apparatus | 113 |
| 3 | US5220800A | NMR magnet system with superconducting coil in a helium bath | 99 |
| 4 | US20130012392A1 | Superconducting switch, superconducting magnet and MRI | 79 |
| 5 | US4745367A | Superconducting magnet system for particle accelerators of a synchrotron radiation source | 72 |
| 6 | US5701744A | Magnetic resonance imager with helium recondensing | 71 |
| 7 | US5744959A | NMR measurement apparatus with pulse tube cooler | 66 |
| 8 | US6265960B1 | Actively shielded magnet system with Z2 shim | 64 |
| 9 | US5426408A | Ceramic superconducting magnet using stacked modules | 62 |
| 10 | US5485730A | Remote cooling system for a superconducting magnet | 61 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and skew toward older, foundational filings — treat them as a measure of influence on later drafting, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Three signals worth acting on before drafting or licensing in this space.
Growth has already happened
The peak year, 2019 at 90 filings, sits well above both the 2017 start point and the current trajectory. A field that peaked and declined rewards designing around existing claims over racing to file broad ones.
US filing leads, but China is close behind Europe
United States filings outnumber the next office by more than double, with China, the EPO and the UK forming a second tier. Freedom-to-operate work needs to clear all four jurisdictions, not just the US.
One IPC subclass carries nearly the whole corpus
H01F appears in 96% of records, meaning almost every filing in this space touches core magnet-coil claim language regardless of its specific application. The differentiation happens in the secondary IPC codes.
Fusion-energy entrants are now the most active filers
Several long-standing equipment makers show zero filings in the latest tracked year, while a fusion-energy company recorded the highest count. Momentum has shifted from legacy MRI and accelerator suppliers toward fusion-adjacent applicants.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cryogenic and superconducting magnets, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
Ownership in this space splits between long-established magnet and imaging manufacturers and a smaller set of newer, application-specific filers such as fusion-energy developers.
Established manufacturers have gone quiet
Several of the largest historical filers — spanning imaging equipment, industrial gas and heavy electrical manufacturing — show no filings in the most recent tracked year, consistent with a corpus past its filing peak.
Fusion energy is the one segment still filing
A commercial fusion-energy developer posted the highest latest-year count in the tracked set, ahead of the traditional cryogenics and magnet suppliers that dominated earlier years.
Corporate-group co-filing is concentrated, not networked
Only 10 co-assignee pairs exist across the corpus, and the strongest pair links two entities within the same corporate group. Cross-company collaboration on joint filings is rare in this field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tokamak Energy Ltd. | 2 | — |
| Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 1 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Siemens plc (UK) | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Siemens Magnet Technology Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The trend and ownership data point to specific next steps depending on what you need to decide.
Check freedom to operate against the thin IPC bands
If your design touches conduction cooling or REBCO tape construction, the F25B and H10N counts suggest fewer blocking claims than the H01F-heavy core — but fewer is not zero, and a targeted search is still the only way to confirm.
Run a focused search in EurekaTrack the fusion-energy filers specifically
Momentum has shifted away from legacy MRI and accelerator suppliers toward fusion-adjacent applicants. A filer-specific watch will catch new claims before they publish widely.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Ownership in this corpus is spread across long-established magnet and imaging manufacturers rather than concentrated in a single dominant player. Several large industrial and healthcare equipment makers built up filings over the 2017-2019 peak years, but the recent-year momentum data shows most of them have stopped filing entirely in the latest tracked year. A newer fusion-energy developer is now among the few assignees still actively filing, which suggests the center of gravity is shifting rather than staying fixed with the historical leaders.
The filing trend points to a field past its peak: activity rose from 32 filings in 2017 to a high of 90 in 2019, held near 60 at the 2022 midpoint, and has declined since toward single digits in the most recent year. Some of that recent drop reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so the true 2025-2026 figures will land higher once those applications publish. Even accounting for that lag, the overall shape is flat-to-declining rather than accelerating.
Quench protection covers the circuits and switches that safely dissipate stored energy when a superconducting coil unexpectedly loses its superconducting state, a failure mode called a quench. It matters enough to appear directly in the search scope and in the most-cited records in this corpus, including several filings that predate 2000 and are still being cited today. Because an uncontrolled quench can damage coils or equipment, most commercial magnet systems need a documented protection scheme, which keeps this claim area consistently active across both legacy manufacturers and newer entrants like academic filers.
The IPC composition shows H01F present in 1,076 of 1,116 records, essentially the backbone of every filing, while F25B (refrigeration) and H10N (other solid-state devices) trail at 36 and 155 respectively. That gap suggests conduction cooling interfaces, REBCO tape joint geometry and persistent-mode switch materials carry thinner claim density than the core coil and quench-protection architecture. Thinner coverage does not mean no coverage, so any filing strategy in these sub-areas still needs a targeted clearance search rather than an assumption of open space.
The United States leads with 365 filings in this corpus, followed by China at 165, the European Patent Office at 162 and the United Kingdom at 138, with Japan and WIPO/PCT filings trailing behind. That spread means a freedom-to-operate check limited to the US alone would miss a substantial share of active filings, particularly the China and EPO totals which sit close together. Anyone planning to commercialize in more than one of these regions should expect to clear all four major offices, not just the largest one.
Research Cryogenic and Superconducting Magnets in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole cryogenic and superconducting magnets corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.