Diesel Particulate Filter Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2020 at 41 and have since declined, with the 2026 count (partial year) at just 3 — a trend line that reads as a maturing, not growing, claim space.
- The top 5 assignees hold 28.7% of all 819 records, while the top 10 hold 47.5% — concentrated enough to matter, but with more than half the field still open to a long tail of filers.
- B01D filtration classes touch 30.8% of records, well behind F01N's 95.8%, showing most claim activity sits in exhaust-treatment hardware rather than the separation media itself.
What this patent landscape covers
This landscape covers 819 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim diesel particulate filter hardware, exhaust aftertreatment systems, or SCR dosing systems, narrowed to documents whose claims address soot loading and regeneration, ash accumulation, urea deposit formation, backpressure management, or close-coupled packaging. The scope is defined by IPC classes F01N3, F01N9 and B01D46, which together anchor the field around exhaust silencing and treatment plus particulate separation.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the low count in the most recent year understates real filing activity rather than signalling a sudden drop. The trend from the 2020 peak downward is still directionally real across the years that have had time to publish.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 819-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC classes that define the technology.
Filing trend: a 2020 peak, then decline
Annual filings rose to a peak of 41 in 2020, sat near the field midpoint at 19 by 2022, and have fallen since. The 2026 figure of 3 is a partial year and will revise upward as later filings publish, but the multi-year direction from 2020 is downward rather than flat.
Where the classes concentrate
F01N (exhaust silencers and treatment) appears on 95.8% of the 819 records, confirming this as the core claim territory. B01D (filtration/separation) reaches 30.8%, F02D (engine control) 14.7%, and B01J (catalysis) 12.3% — each class can co-occur with others, so these figures sum to more than 100% by design.
Shares are the percentage of the 819 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Diesel Particulate Filters and Exhaust Aftertreatment Hardware with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about diesel particulate filters and exhaust aftertreatment hardware and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the field
Partial-flow diesel particulate filter using pressure regulated bypass (US10428707B2)
A diesel particulate filtration system with an inlet, outlet, and exhaust path carrying a diesel particulate filter and a bypass valve. The bypass valve opens when a maximum allowable engine backpressure is exceeded, routing a portion of exhaust gas around the filter while the remainder continues through it. When backpressure falls back within range, the valve closes and full exhaust flow returns through the filter.Filed by Southwest Research Institute, published 2019-10-01 — a partial-flow bypass approach to managing backpressure rather than full-flow filtration alone.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050042151A1 | Nonwoven composites and related products and processes | 251 |
| 2 | US6622480B2 | Diesel particulate filter unit and regeneration control method of the same | 232 |
| 3 | WO2011151711A1 | Diesel particulate filter | 183 |
| 4 | US20100175372A1 | Compact diesel engine exhaust treatment system | 173 |
| 5 | US6829890B2 | Forced regeneration of a diesel particulate filter | 166 |
| 6 | US20090255242A1 | Low Pressure Drop Mixer for Radial Mixing of Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust Flows, Combustor Incorporatin… | 145 |
| 7 | US20110079003A1 | Reductant nozzle indentation mount | 125 |
| 8 | US6772584B2 | Apparatus for removing soot and NOx in exhaust gas from diesel engines | 123 |
| 9 | US20100058746A1 | Catalytic activated diesel particle filter with ammonia trap effect | 106 |
| 10 | US20040204818A1 | Computer algorithm to estimate particulate filter regeneration rates | 93 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — treat this as a signal of historical influence on later claim drafting, not of which patents matter most today.
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Reading volume, concentration and class distribution together points to a field where core claim space is well occupied but not fully closed off.
A defined leading tier, not a monopoly
The top 5 assignees hold 28.7% of all 819 records and the top 10 hold 47.5%. That leaves more than half the field distributed across the remaining 90 ranked companies, so freedom-to-operate work cannot stop at the leaders.
Filing volume has cooled since 2020
Volume climbed to a peak of 41 in 2020 and sat at 19 by the 2022 midpoint before declining further. Recent-year momentum data shows several leading assignees at zero filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with a slowdown rather than a data artefact alone.
Hardware claims dominate over media claims
F01N appears on 95.8% of records versus 30.8% for B01D filtration classes, indicating claim activity concentrates on exhaust-system hardware and control rather than filter media composition itself.
US remains the primary filing venue
United States receiving-office filings lead at 356, ahead of Europe at 125 and PCT/WIPO filings at 112. China sits at 25, a comparatively small share of the receiving-office split for a field this mature elsewhere.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to diesel particulate filters and exhaust aftertreatment hardware, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
The ranked leaders sit in commercial-vehicle engine and emissions-control businesses, with truck OEMs, engine makers and catalyst specialists all represented near the top of the 100-company ranking.
One clear leader at the top of the ranking
The top-ranked assignee holds 54 records, noticeably ahead of fifth place at 43 and tenth place at 25 — a gap that steepens quickly rather than tapering gradually.
A step down, then a longer plateau
The drop from 5th place (43) to 10th place (25) is smaller than the drop from leader to 5th, suggesting a cluster of engine and emissions-system specialists holding comparable positions just below the top tier.
Co-filing is limited and mostly internal
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings link a single corporate assignee to named inventors rather than to a separate company — cross-company joint filing is not a defining feature of this field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Cummins Emission Solutions Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Volvo Truck Corporation | 0 | — |
| Caterpillar Inc. | 0 | — |
| Ford Global Technologies, LLC | 0 | — |
| Johnson Matthey PLC | 0 | — |
| International Engine Intellectual Property Company, LLC | 0 | — |
| ECC Tec MSJ Inc. | 0 | — |
| Cummins Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and concentration data point to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or R&D targeting.
Check claim scope on the leading families
With 28.7% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review should start with the leading families' independent claims before assuming open space.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTrack the under-claimed sub-areas
Ash sensing, urea deposit mitigation and bypass valve control logic show thinner coverage relative to the core F01N and B01D classes — worth a deeper claim-by-claim pull.
Run a white space search in EurekaWatch for the 2026 revision
The partial 2026 count will rise as later filings publish; re-checking the trend in a few quarters will show whether the post-2020 decline continues or levels off.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions on this patent landscape
The dataset ranks 100 companies by family count, with the leading assignee holding 54 records against a total of 819 in scope. The top 5 combined hold 28.7% of all records and the top 10 hold 47.5%, so while a leading tier exists, more than half the field is spread across a long tail of smaller filers. This ranking counts patent families, which is a fairer comparison than raw document counts because it neutralises continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates.
No — filing volume peaked at 41 in 2020, sat at 19 by the 2022 midpoint, and has declined since, with the 2026 figure (a partial year) at just 3. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years will always look lower than they eventually turn out to be. Even accounting for that lag, the multi-year direction from the 2020 peak points to a maturing rather than expanding claim space.
F01N, covering exhaust silencers and treatment, appears on 95.8% of the 819 records and is the dominant class by a wide margin. B01D filtration and separation processes reach 30.8%, followed by F02D engine control at 14.7% and B01J catalysis-related processes at 12.3%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should be read as coverage shares, not a breakdown that sums to the whole.
Sub-areas adjacent to the dense core classes show comparatively thin coverage, including ash accumulation sensing methods, urea deposit formation mitigation, partial-flow bypass valve control logic, and mixing-chamber dosing geometry under B01F, which sits at only 3.5% of records. These are not guaranteed-open spaces, but they carry less claim density than the F01N and B01D core, making them a reasonable starting point for a novelty search before committing R&D resources.
The United States leads with 356 filings, followed by the European Patent Office at 125 and WIPO/PCT filings at 112. India follows at 50, the United Kingdom at 45, and China at 25. The relatively low China count compared to the US and Europe is notable for a hardware-heavy automotive field and worth checking against separate China-specific filing data before drawing conclusions about regional strategy.
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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.