Distillation Column Internals Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing activity has flattened, not grown. Filings peaked at 57 in 2020 and had fallen to a partial 2 by 2026, with the 2022 midpoint at 18 — a mature claim landscape rather than an expanding one.
- Claims cluster heavily in catalysis-adjacent chemistry. B01J (chemical/physical processes & catalysis) appears in 860 of 999 records, well ahead of core separation IPC B01D at 544, showing most packing and internals claims are filed alongside reaction or catalytic process chemistry.
- The most-cited prior art is decades old. The top-cited record, US5632934A on rectification packing capacity, carries 122 citations — a reminder that citation counts here measure historical influence, not what is being actively filed today.
Filing growth compares 2021 (27 records) with 2024 (7) — 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 999 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape covers patents and applications where the claims or description combine structured packing, distillation trays, or column internals with performance terms such as pressure drop, mass transfer efficiency, flooding capacity, liquid distributor design, or HETP. The IPC scope spans B01D3 (distillation), B01J19 (chemical/physical apparatus) and B01D53 (separation of gases or vapours), which is why the dataset pulls in a large share of catalytic and reactive-distillation filings alongside conventional separation hardware.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, drawing on 999 published records and an equal count of patent families in the assignee ranking, meaning duplicate-family inflation is minimal here. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line will understate true filing activity for those years.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 999-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A peak in 2020, then decline
Filings rose from 12 in 2017 to a peak of 57 in 2020, then eased back toward 18 at the 2022 midpoint and down to 2 in the still-partial 2026 count. Read the tail years cautiously given publication lag, but the shape from peak to midpoint is a genuine flattening, not a data artefact.
Catalysis and gas separation dominate the classification mix
B01J (860 records) and B01D (544) together account for the bulk of the corpus, with F25J gas liquefaction and separation contributing 280 — evidence that a large share of column-internals filings are tied to reactive or cryogenic process chemistry rather than standalone hardware. F28F heat-exchanger details, B01F mixing, C01B inorganic chemistry, C07C hydrocarbons and F28D heat exchange apparatus make up smaller, more specialised slices.
Shares are the percentage of the 999 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Distillation Column Internals and Packing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about distillation column internals and packing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe prior art that shapes freedom-to-operate
US20140158519A1 — Structured packing and method (Praxair Technology)
A structured packing built from corrugated, rectangular sheets whose end regions carry straight, parallel corrugations running inward from opposed edges at right angles, reducing pressure drop at the interfaces between packing layers and increasing hydraulic capacity. A main region uses corrugations at an acute angle to the edges to promote liquid-vapor contact, with arcuate transition sections connecting the two zones.Filed by Praxair Technology; illustrates the geometry-based approach to reconciling pressure drop with mass-transfer contact that recurs across this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5632934A | Packing with improved capacity for rectification systems | 122 |
| 2 | US5368691A | Reactive distillation process and apparatus for carrying it out | 98 |
| 3 | US20040150123A1 | Method for carrying out the distillation or reactive distillation of a mixture containing at least one toxic … | 90 |
| 4 | WO1997016247A1 | Structured packing | 81 |
| 5 | US4847430A | Process for manufacturing a tertiary alkyl ether by reactive distillation | 79 |
| 6 | US6206349B1 | Fluid-fluid contacting apparatus | 78 |
| 7 | US5921109A | Method for operating a cryogenic rectification column | 76 |
| 8 | US4678648A | Method and apparatus for selective absorption of hydrogen sulphide from gas streams containing hydrogen sulph… | 74 |
| 9 | US6534022B1 | Conversion of nitrogen oxides in the presence of a catalyst supported on a mesh-like structure | 68 |
| 10 | US20080247942A1 | Method and Reactor for Carrying Out Endothermic Catalytic Reactions | 65 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older grants dominate this list; treat it as a map of foundational prior art rather than a ranking of current 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 signals from the corpus that matter more than the raw record count when deciding where to file or where to look for licensing risk.
The technology has stopped accelerating
Filing volume peaked in 2020 and had fallen sharply by the 2022 midpoint of 18. Combined with publication lag, the recent-year drop is steeper on paper than in reality, but the direction from peak to midpoint is a real deceleration in new claim activity.
Packing claims travel with catalytic chemistry
Nearly all records classify under B01J, chemical/physical processes and catalysis, more than the 544 under core separation class B01D. Most structured-packing and internals claims are being filed as part of reactive or catalytic process patents, not as pure hardware patents.
Established holders have gone quiet recently
Several of the assignees with the deepest historical filing records show zero filings in the latest year, one with a -100% year-over-year change. That is consistent with a mature, already-claimed technology base rather than active new competition among incumbents.
Foundational patents still anchor freedom-to-operate review
The most-cited record, US5632934A on rectification packing capacity, sits well ahead of the next entries. Any new packing geometry claim should be checked against this and the other highly-cited 1980s-1990s filings before assuming clear space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to distillation column internals and packing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
Receiving-office data and co-filing pairs point to a corpus led by industrial gas and packing specialists, with academic-industrial co-assignee pairs concentrated in China.
Filing is split evenly between the US and China
The United States (189) and China (180) lead receiving-office counts, followed by the EPO (148), Canada (92), WIPO/PCT (61) and Australia (54). No single office dominates the corpus, which points to genuinely global commercial interest in column internals rather than a regionally confined technology.
Industrial gas incumbents co-file with their own subsidiaries
Of 10 identified co-assignee pairs, the strongest links a major chemical-technology group with its own management entity at 6 joint filings, while Chinese university-contractor pairs and a US inventor-company pair each show 4. Co-filing here mostly reflects corporate structure, not open collaboration between competitors.
Several deep-portfolio holders show no recent filings
Assignees with historically strong positions in industrial gas and packing hardware report zero filings in the latest year, and at least one shows a full year-over-year decline. That combination — deep back catalogue, no new activity — is the clearest sign the core geometry claims are already staked out.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Koch-Glitsch, LP | 0 | -100% |
| Praxair Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| The BOC Group, Inc. (USA) | 0 | — |
| Sulzer Chemtech Ltd. | 0 | — |
| ABB Lummus Global Inc. | 0 | — |
| Sulzer Management AG | 0 | -100% |
| Tianjin University | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and classification data point to a mature but still commercially active field. These are the follow-up questions worth running before committing filing budget.
Check freedom-to-operate against the cited core
Before filing a new packing geometry or distributor design, run a citation-tree check against the most-cited records in this corpus, several of which remain active reference points despite their age.
Explore prior art with Patsnap EurekaWatch for revival among quiet incumbents
Multiple leading assignees show zero recent filings. A sudden resumption from any of them would be a meaningful competitive signal worth tracking rather than a one-off.
Set up assignee monitoring in Patsnap EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
Liquid distributor design and heat-exchanger-integrated packing show thinner filing density than the core geometry claims. A targeted search would confirm how much genuine white space remains before drafting.
Run a white-space search in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The corpus is led by a mix of industrial gas companies and dedicated packing and column-internals specialists, several of which appear repeatedly in the receiving-office and citation data. A number of these same leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent year, which suggests the leaderboard reflects historical depth of portfolio more than current filing activity. Anyone benchmarking against these players should look at both cumulative family counts and recent-year momentum, since the two tell different stories here.
No — filings peaked at 57 in 2020 and had fallen to 18 by the 2022 midpoint, with only 2 recorded in the still-partial 2026 count. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the very latest years will always look weaker than they eventually turn out to be, but the decline from the 2020 peak through 2022 is a real trend rather than a lag artefact. This points to a field where the core claim space is largely staked out rather than one still attracting a wave of new entrants.
US20140158519A1, assigned to Praxair Technology, claims a structured packing made of corrugated sheets with straight parallel corrugation sections at the sheet edges — to cut interface pressure drop — connected via arcuate transition regions to an acute-angle main contact zone. It blocks designs that combine that specific edge-geometry-to-main-region transition for reducing inter-layer pressure drop while maintaining vapor-liquid contact. Designers working on alternative corrugation angles, different transition geometries, or non-corrugated contact surfaces would sit outside its literal claim scope, but a full claim-chart comparison is needed before relying on that distinction.
This landscape was built on B01D3 (distillation), B01J19 (chemical and physical apparatus, including reaction and contact equipment) and B01D53 (separation of gases or vapours), and the resulting corpus shows heavy overlap into F25J (gas liquefaction and separation), F28F and F28D (heat-exchanger details and apparatus), and B01F (mixing). A search limited to B01D alone would miss the 860 of 999 records that also touch B01J, so any freedom-to-operate or landscape search in this space should span all of these classes rather than treating distillation as a single-class technology.
The classification data shows thinner filing density in areas that overlap distillation internals with adjacent equipment classes — liquid distributor design for difficult feeds, heat-exchanger-integrated packing spanning F28F and F28D, mixing-assisted mass transfer internals under B01F, and cryogenic packing tied to F25J gas separation. These are branches where the core geometry claims are dense but the equipment-integration angle is not, making them reasonable starting points for a first claim, subject to a dedicated novelty search.
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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.