Electrolyte Analyzer Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 43.7% concentration. The top five assignees hold 45 of the 103 records in scope — dense at the top, with a long tail below tenth place.
- G01N dominates at 84.5%. Material analysis and testing claims cover 87 of 103 records; every other IPC subclass sits under 10%.
- Filing has gone quiet since the 2020 peak. 2021 to 2024 fell from 5 to 0 filings, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in due to publication lag.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 103 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers patent families addressing electrolyte analyzers and ion-selective electrode measurement, filtered to documents that also address a practical failure mode: electrode lifetime, protein fouling, reference junction behaviour, dilution error, whole blood comparison, or quality control drift. That combination narrows the field to the engineering problems that determine whether a sensor design actually survives clinical use, rather than every general electrochemistry filing that mentions an electrode.
The scope spans 103 published records dated between 2015 and 2026, drawn from receiving offices led by the United States, the European Patent Office and the WIPO PCT route. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate actual filing activity.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 103 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2020 peak followed by a sharp drop-off
Filings rose to a peak of 12 in 2020, then declined; the tracked span from 2021 (5 filings) to 2024 (0 filings) marks a -100% move over three years. Because 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete in the data due to publication lag, this should be read as a slowdown through 2024, not a verdict on current-year activity.
G01N carries the field
Material analysis and testing (G01N) appears on 84.5% of the 103 records, reflecting the sensor-measurement core of this search. Water treatment (C02F), electrolytic production (C25B), diagnostics (A61B) and batteries (H01M) each sit near or under 10%, marking them as adjacent rather than central to this claim set.
Shares are the percentage of the 103 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electrolyte and Ion-Selective Measurement with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electrolyte and ion-selective measurement and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this landscape
US5174872A — Metal-free buffer for ion selective electrode-based assays
A heavy metal-free composition and its method of use in an ion selective electrode-based assay are disclosed. The composition includes a borate compound and an alkalinity adjusting compound, used to dilute the test sample, buffer it, and substantially reduce interferent effects on the ion-selective electrode assay — particularly for carbonate ion concentration in blood serum, plasma, urine or cerebrospinal fluid.Filed by Technicon Instruments Corporation; granted 1992-12-29.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4822456A | Ion measuring apparatus and monitoring system | 78 |
| 2 | US4431508A | Solid state graphite electrode | 70 |
| 3 | US5174872A | Metal-free buffer for ion selective electrode-based assays | 50 |
| 4 | US20110048971A1 | Robust potentiometric sensor | 48 |
| 5 | US4891125A | Reference electrode and method of making it | 37 |
| 6 | US5830338A | Combination ISE and solutions therefor | 33 |
| 7 | US4360415A | Noise suppressing bypass for reference electrode | 31 |
| 8 | US5571396A | Fluid analysis system and sensing electrode, electrode assembly, and sensing module components | 25 |
| 9 | US20100285210A1 | Multifunctional micropipette biological sensor | 24 |
| 10 | US6054031A | Composite channel junction | 24 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of foundational status, not current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are broken down by concentration, technology class and jurisdiction.
The top of the field is dense, the rest is thin
Five assignees account for 45 of 103 records, and the top ten reach 67.0%. Below tenth place — held at 4 records — the ranking spreads across a long tail of single- and double-filing entrants, which is where freedom-to-operate is easiest to find.
One class, most of the claim space
Material analysis and testing (G01N) dominates the corpus. The remaining IPC subclasses — water treatment, electrolytic production, diagnostics, batteries, flow measurement — each cover under 10% of records, suggesting claim activity outside core sensor measurement remains comparatively open.
Activity cooled after a 2020 peak
Filings peaked at 12 in 2020 before falling to zero by 2024. Recent-year momentum tables show the leading assignees each recorded zero filings in the latest tracked year — consistent with either a genuine pause or with publication lag still catching up on the newest work.
US and EPO lead filing routes
The United States leads receiving offices with 31 records, followed by the EPO at 21 and WIPO's PCT route at 13. Canada, Australia and Japan each register single-digit-to-low-double-digit counts, indicating filing strategy concentrates on US and European protection first.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electrolyte and ion-selective measurement, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
40 assignees make up the entire ranked list the dataset returns. Activity concentrates sharply at the top, with the leader alone holding 16 records against a fifth-place mark of 6 and a tenth-place mark of 4.
A single assignee sets the pace
The leading assignee holds 16 of the 103 records in scope, well ahead of the field. That gap between first and fifth place (6 records) signals a filer that has built sustained coverage rather than a single strong filing.
The top ten hold two-thirds of the field
Combined, the ten leading assignees account for 69 of 103 records. That leaves roughly a third of the corpus spread across 30 further assignees, many with only one or two filings each.
Co-filing is rare in this field
Only seven co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pair recorded just two shared records. Most filings here are single-assignee efforts rather than joint development programmes.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) | 0 | — |
| Invensys Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Nova Biomedical Corporation | 0 | — |
| Rosemount Analytical, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Avantium Holding B.V. | 0 | — |
| KIDWELL DAVID A | 0 | — |
| INSTRUMENTATION LABORATORY SRL | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
This landscape frames where the claim density sits and where it thins out. Two natural follow-ups deepen that picture.
Check freedom-to-operate on a specific mechanism
The under-claimed branches identified here — reference junction stability, fouling mitigation, drift compensation — are starting points, not clearances. A claim-level search against the specific mechanism you plan to file on is the next step.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the leading assignees' active applications
Zero recent-year filings from the top assignees may reflect publication lag rather than a real pause. Monitoring pending applications from the leading filers clarifies whether the 2020 peak was a one-off or the field is quietly resuming.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranked list contains 40 assignees drawn from 103 records in scope, with the leader alone holding 16 records. The top five combined account for 43.7% of all records, and the top ten reach 67.0%, which means the field is concentrated among a small group of established filers with a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants below them. This concentration pattern matters for competitive tracking: watching the leading handful covers most of the active claim space, while freedom-to-operate searches benefit more from checking the long tail for narrow, blocking claims.
Filing activity peaked at 12 records in 2020 and fell to 5 by 2021, continuing down to 0 by 2024 — a -100% change over that three-year span. Part of this apparent decline is real: fewer new filings were made in this specific problem space after 2020. But publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 counts in the dataset are still incomplete and should not yet be read as confirming a continued drop. A clearer read on 2025-2026 activity will only be available once those years finish publishing.
US5174872A claims a heavy metal-free buffer composition — built from a borate compound and an alkalinity adjusting compound — used to dilute and buffer a test sample while reducing interferent effects in ion-selective electrode assays, particularly for carbonate ion measurement in blood serum, plasma, urine or cerebrospinal fluid. It is one of the more heavily cited records in this landscape, which signals it has been treated as a reference point by later filers rather than that it necessarily still blocks new work. Anyone designing a buffer or dilution approach for carbonate or related ion assays should read its claims directly rather than relying on the abstract, since the specific compound classes and metal-free limitation define the actual scope.
G01N (material analysis and testing) covers 84.5% of the 103 records in scope, meaning almost all claim activity sits inside core sensor measurement. Adjacent classes — water treatment (C02F), electrolytic production (C25B), diagnostics (A61B), batteries (H01M) — each cover under 10% of records, and narrower branches like reference junction stabilization, fouling mitigation coatings, and drift compensation methods show comparatively few dedicated filings. That does not guarantee open white space, since a small count can still include a blocking claim, but it does mark these as areas worth a targeted search before assuming the space is crowded.
The United States leads with 31 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 21 and the WIPO PCT route at 13. Canada (10), Australia (9) and Japan (8) round out the receiving offices tracked in this dataset. This distribution suggests most applicants prioritise US and European protection first, using PCT filings to preserve broader international options, with Asia-Pacific coverage trailing behind the two lead markets.
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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.