The dataset shows filings rising from 17 in 2017 to a peak of 69 in 2019, then falling to 12 by 2022. This tracks the broader capital cycle in upstream oil and gas, where lower sustained oil prices and reduced EOR project sanctioning after 2019 would have reduced the pipeline of new formulation R&D reaching the patent stage. It is worth noting that publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the very last one to two years in any such trend always look thinner than they will eventually prove to be, but the multi-year decline through 2022 predates that lag effect and reflects a real slowdown.

C09K (materials for miscellaneous applications, including oil-well treatment agents) covers 470 of the 509 records and is the dominant class, followed by E21B (earth and rock drilling, including well treatment processes) at 296. Supporting classes — C07C for acyclic and carbocyclic compounds, C08F for addition polymers, C11D for detergent chemistry, and B01F for mixing — show that formulation chemistry, not downhole mechanical process, is where most claim scope sits. A search or clearance strategy for this space should weight the chemistry classes over the process classes.

The recent-year momentum data shows every tracked assignee — including 得克萨斯大学体系董事会 (University of Texas System), 巴斯福股份公司 (BASF), 沙特阿拉伯石油公司 (Saudi Aramco), S P C M 股份公司 and 斯特潘公司 (Stepan Company) — at zero filings in the latest year, with Saudi Aramco showing a -100% year-on-year change. This is consistent across the board rather than isolated to one company, so it should be read as a corpus-wide slowdown, tempered by the 18-month publication lag that always understates the newest year.

Collaboration is limited: only 10 co-assignee pairs exist across all 509 families. The strongest pairing, 得克萨斯大学体系董事会 (University of Texas System) with 巴斯福股份公司 (BASF), reaches 18 shared families, followed by the Texas system with 哈克罗斯化学股份有限公司 (Harcros Chemicals) at 10, and 沙特阿拉伯石油公司 (Saudi Aramco) with 沙特阿美服务公司 (Aramco Services Company) at 6. Most filings in this dataset are made by a single assignee rather than through joint development, which matters when assessing licensing or partnership approaches to an under-claimed sub-area.

US20220157406A1, filed by the University of Wyoming and published 2022-05-19, claims a method that uses molecular dynamics simulation to determine oil-surface association and select a reservoir additive before it is introduced downhole. This is a computational-selection approach rather than a new chemical composition, which sets it apart from the composition-heavy prior art dominating the C09K class. Its presence suggests that simulation-guided additive selection is an emerging claim style worth monitoring, distinct from the surfactant and polymer composition claims that make up most of the corpus.