Fired Heaters and Process Furnaces Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 8 records and had dropped to 0 by the 2022 midpoint, with the most recent year still partial due to publication lag.
- One assignee leads with 10 records against a fifth-place count of 2 and a tenth-place count of 1 — a steep drop-off after the top filer.
- The two most-cited patents are both decoking methods US4297147A (cited 54) and US4203778A (cited 29), decades old but still the reference point for tube-cleaning claims.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of fired heaters, refinery process furnaces and cracking furnaces, filtered to records that address tube skin temperature control, burner NOx, draft control, coking in tube, or excess air optimization. The scope is narrow by design: it is built around the operational control problem inside the furnace, not around furnace hardware or refinery process chemistry generally. Every record in scope carries at least one C10G hydrocarbon-processing classification, and many sit alongside coking, catalysis or control-systems classes.
The 30 records span 2015 to 2026, filed across United States, European, Canadian, Indian and PCT receiving offices, with a smaller cluster of Austrian filings. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the low count in the most recent year understates real activity rather than signalling that the field has gone quiet.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 30-record dataset: activity over time, and where records cluster across IPC subclasses.
Filings peaked in 2017, then went flat
Filing activity reached its high point of 8 records in 2017 and had fallen to 0 by the 2022 midpoint, a pattern consistent with a mature, narrowly-defined control problem rather than a growing one. The 2026 figure is partial because of publication lag and should not be read as a genuine drop to zero.
C10G dominates; secondary classes point to adjacent problems
All 30 records in scope carry a C10G hydrocarbon-refining classification, which is expected given the search construction. Beyond that, B01J (catalysis) and F28G (cleaning heat-exchange surfaces) each appear in 5 records — 16.7% of the 30 records in scope — with C10B (coke and destructive distillation) at 4 records and G05D (non-electric variable control) at 3. These secondary classes mark where furnace-control claims intersect with catalyst regeneration, fouling removal and instrumentation.
Shares are the percentage of the 30 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fired Heaters and Process Furnaces with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about fired heaters and process furnaces and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe patents setting the reference point
US4400784A — Control of a cracking furnace
Measurements of process variables associated with a cracking furnace are utilized to calculate the actual maximum tube skin temperature for the cracking furnace. The thus calculated actual maximum tube skin temperature is then utilized to derive a control signal which may be utilized to manipulate the rate at which heat is supplied to the cracking furnace. The accurate prediction of the actual tube skin temperature based on actual process measurements enables the conversion rate for the cracking furnace to be substantially maximized while preventing damage to the cracking tubes.Filed by Applied Automation, Inc., a DE corporation; granted 1983-08-23. Cited 23 times within this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4297147A | Method for decoking fired heater tubes | 54 |
| 2 | US4203778A | Method for decoking fired heater tubes | 29 |
| 3 | WO2010077461A1 | Process for cracking a heavy hydrocarbon feedstream | 24 |
| 4 | US4400784A | Control of a cracking furnace | 23 |
| 5 | WO2018002330A1 | Cracking furnace | 6 |
| 6 | US8684384B2 | Process for cracking a heavy hydrocarbon feedstream | 5 |
| 7 | CN102227488A | 重质烃原料料流的裂化方法 | 4 |
| 8 | WO2021148942A1 | High gas velocity start-up of an ethylene cracking furnace | 2 |
| 9 | CN102227488B | 重质烃原料料流的裂化方法 | 2 |
| 10 | US20190144759A1 | Cracking furnace | 1 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for decisions
Three read-outs from the filing trend, citation pattern and technology mix that matter for where to file and who to watch.
Activity has flattened, not grown
The peak year of 8 records in 2017 was not sustained; by the 2022 midpoint the trend line reads 0, and it stays low through the partial 2026 count. Read this as a narrowly scoped control problem that saw a burst of filing activity rather than an expanding frontier.
Decoking method claims are the reference point
The two most-cited records, US4297147A and US4203778A, both cover methods for decoking fired heater tubes. Their citation counts (54 and 29) far exceed the rest of the table, meaning later filers in tube-cleaning approaches are almost certainly citing or designing around these two.
Fouling removal sits alongside core control claims
F28G and B01J each appear in 5 of the 30 records in scope, showing that furnace control patents frequently reach into cleaning-surface and catalytic-process claims rather than staying confined to temperature or draft control alone.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fired heaters and process furnaces, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 11 companies and inventor-assignees returned by the data endpoint — not a top-50 or top-100 cut — with a steep drop from the leader to the rest of the field.
One filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 10 records against a fifth-place count of just 2 and a tenth-place count of 1, a drop-off steep enough that the rest of the ranking reads as a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants rather than a second tier of active competitors.
No assignee shows recent-year activity
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the leader, shows 0 filings in the latest year. Combined with the flat post-2017 trend, this points to a field where the core control claims were staked out early and have not been actively contested since.
Inventor-assignee pairs cluster around a few names
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest links repeating around the same individual inventor-assignee appearing with different co-inventors, suggesting a small working group rather than a broad multi-company collaboration pattern.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Technip France SA | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Chemical Patents Inc. | 0 | — |
| Union Carbide Corp. | 0 | — |
| NOVA Chemicals (International) SA | 0 | — |
| SPICER DAVID B | 0 | — |
| SCHERER CALEB M | 0 | — |
| FRYE JAMES M | 0 | — |
| ANNAMALAI SUBRAMANIAN | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow, well-staked field with a small number of load-bearing patents. These are the next steps worth taking before committing engineering or filing resources.
Map claims against the two decoking patents
US4297147A and US4203778A carry the highest citation counts in this set. Any new decoking method should be checked against their claim scope before development work goes further.
Explore claim charts in EurekaCheck the under-claimed control branches
Burner NOx optimization and in-situ tube-skin sensing show thinner filing density than core temperature control. That gap is worth a freedom-to-operate check before assuming it is open.
Run a white space search in EurekaWatch for renewed filing activity
Every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year. A single new entrant filing in this space would be a meaningful signal worth monitoring given how flat the trend has been.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on fired heater and process furnace patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 10 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked entity at 2 and the tenth-ranked at 1. The ranking covers 11 companies and named inventors returned by the search, not a broader top-50 or top-100 list. This gap between the leader and the rest suggests the leading filer staked out the core control claims early and the remaining activity is a long tail of smaller or single-patent entrants.
Filing peaked at 8 records in 2017 and fell to 0 by the 2022 midpoint, staying low through the most recent partial year. This does not necessarily mean the technology stopped mattering; it more likely means the core tube-skin temperature and draft-control problems were addressed early and the claim space filled in before 2020. Publication lag of roughly 18 months also means the most recent year or two will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be.
The two most-cited records in this dataset, US4297147A and US4203778A, both describe methods for decoking fired heater tubes, cited 54 and 29 times respectively within this corpus. US4400784A, cited 23 times, covers control of a cracking furnace using calculated maximum tube skin temperature to manage heat input. These three patents anchor the decoking and temperature-control claim space that later filings in the field tend to reference.
The IPC composition shows heavier density in coking, cleaning and general hydrocarbon-refining classes than in some adjacent control problems. Burner NOx optimization under variable feedstock conditions, in-situ tube-skin sensing that avoids shutdown, and early coking-in-tube detection all show thinner representation in this dataset than the core decoking and temperature-control claims. That said, thinner filing density in a narrow search scope is a starting signal, not a substitute for a dedicated freedom-to-operate search.
Based on this dataset, no: the trend is flat to declining, with the 2017 peak of 8 records not repeated since and recent-year momentum at 0 across every tracked assignee. That pattern is more consistent with a mature, narrowly bounded control problem than an expanding one. A reader deciding whether to invest in new filings here should weigh that low activity against the possibility that it reflects saturation of the core claims rather than declining industrial relevance of fired heaters themselves.
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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.