Radiative-Cooling Coating Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- A single Ningbo cluster anchors the field. The leading assignee holds 26 records against a fifth-place figure of 5 and a tenth-place figure of 2 — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one.
- Filing peaked in 2019 at 9 records, then eased; the 2026 count of 0 is a partial year under the roughly 18-month publication lag, not evidence the field has gone quiet.
- Coating-formulation classes dominate the claim map, with C09D at 52.5% and C08K at 47.5% of the 61 records in scope, while heat-exchange integration classes like F28F sit at just 9.8%.
What this landscape covers
Passive radiative-cooling coatings reflect solar radiation and emit heat as infrared through the atmospheric window, cooling a surface without any electrical input. This landscape draws on 61 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine radiative- or passive-cooling coating language with functional or smart-coating framing. It spans pigment chemistry, layered laminate structures and the heat-exchanger and solar-collector hardware that these coatings get applied to.
The scope mixes materials-science assignees working on titanium dioxide and polymer-based reflective formulations with university groups and a small number of hardware integrators. Receiving-office data shows filing activity concentrated in the United States, with meaningful volume also routed through Australia, India, WIPO and the EPO.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 61-record set: how filing activity has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend: a 2019 peak, then a cooling-off
Recorded filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 9 in 2019, before easing. The 2026 figure of 0 reflects a partial year and the publication lag inherent to patent data — recent activity is always understated until later filings publish.
Where the claims sit
C09D (coatings, paints and inks) and C08K (polymer additives) each cover roughly half the 61 records, with C09C (inorganic pigment treatment) close behind at 39.3%. Structural and hardware classes — B32B laminates, F24S solar collectors, F25B refrigeration and F28F heat-exchanger detail — trail well behind, each under a quarter of records. Because a record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 61 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Functional & Smart Coatings — Passive Radiative-Cooling Coatings Patent Landscape with Eureka
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US20210002491A1 — Radiative cooling functional coating material and application thereof
The disclosure covers a radiative cooling functional coating material and its application, built from a granular filler distributed in a radiative cooling functional resin. The resulting layer reflects ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared sunlight while emitting heat through the atmospheric window as infrared radiation.Filed by Ningbo Radi-Cool Advanced Energy Technologies, published 2021-01-07.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20180180331A1 | Systems and methods for radiative cooling and heating | 73 |
| 2 | WO2009136141A1 | Titanium dioxide | 73 |
| 3 | US20110041726A1 | Titanium dioxide | 46 |
| 4 | US20210002491A1 | Radiative cooling functional coating material and application thereof | 35 |
| 5 | US5132631A | Glass surface coating detector | 27 |
| 6 | US20080248242A1 | Surfacing media with flame retarding effects and high solar reflectance, and method of making same | 17 |
| 7 | US10386097B2 | Systems and methods for radiative cooling and heating | 16 |
| 8 | EP2285912A1 | Titanium dioxide | 15 |
| 9 | US20150218823A1 | Surfacing media with flame retarding effects and high solar reflectance, and method of making same | 11 |
| 10 | IN202024018781A | Radiative cooling functional coating material and application thereof | 8 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not current importance.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the IPC mix are read together.
One cluster, then a steep drop
The leading assignee's 26 records sit well above the fifth-ranked figure of 5 and the tenth-ranked figure of 2. That gap suggests a founder-style position built on a dense internal citation and co-assignee network, rather than an evenly contested field.
Claims cluster on the coating, not the system
Coating and pigment classes (C09D, C08K, C09C) each cover a large share of the 61 records, while heat-exchanger and refrigeration integration classes sit in single digits to low double digits. Most protected ground is the material itself, not how it is built into a cooling system.
Momentum cannot yet be called
Filings rose to 9 in 2019 and have not clearly repeated that level since. With fewer than four complete years available once the publication lag is accounted for, a growth or decline rate is not yet computable from this data.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to functional & smart coatings — passive radiative-cooling coatings patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
Twenty-three companies and inventors make up the ranked field, from a dominant materials cluster to individual named inventors filing alone.
A dense internal network
The top-ranked assignee's position is reinforced by the strongest co-assignee pair in the dataset, a link of 9 shared filings with an affiliated research institute, plus a further pairing of 4 with a related environmental-innovation institute.
A sharp fall-off past the leader
Filing counts drop quickly outside the top ranks — fifth place holds 5 records and tenth place holds only 2. Named individual inventors appear alongside corporate assignees, pointing to a field still open to smaller or first-time filers.
Universities hold foundational ground
University groups sit among the ranked assignees alongside pigment and materials companies, a mix that typically signals licensing-oriented rather than product-oriented filing strategies.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tioxide Europe | 0 | — |
| Ningbo Radi-Cool Advanced Energy Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Ningbo Ruiling Advanced Energy Materials Institute Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York | 0 | — |
| The University of Sydney | 0 | — |
| CertainTeed Corp | 0 | — |
| Ningbo Radi-Cool Energy-Saving and Environmental Protection Innovation and Industry Research Institute | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies (USA) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to open questions rather than settled ones. These are the natural next steps for a team acting on it.
Check freedom to operate around the leader's coating claims
With one assignee holding 26 of 61 records and a dense internal co-assignee network, any new filing on granular-filler coating formulations should be checked against that cluster specifically, not just the field broadly.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaWatch the structural-integration classes for movement
F28F and F25B sit well below the coating classes today. A rise in filings there would signal the field moving from material claims toward system-integration claims.
Track this landscape in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads this landscape with 26 of the 61 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 5 and the tenth-ranked filer at 2. That leader also shows the strongest co-assignee link in the dataset, a pairing of 9 shared filings with an affiliated research institute, which points to a coordinated internal filing programme rather than a single inventor working alone. Universities and pigment-materials companies fill out the rest of the ranked list of 23 assignees.
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 9 in 2019, and the years since have not clearly repeated that peak. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the low count in the most recent year is expected and does not by itself mean interest has dropped. There are not yet four complete post-lag years of data, so a reliable growth or decline rate cannot be stated from this dataset.
The bulk of claim activity sits in coating and pigment chemistry: C09D covers 52.5% of the 61 records and C08K covers 47.5%, with C09C pigment treatment close behind at 39.3%. Structural classes like B32B laminates and hardware classes like F24S solar collectors, F25B refrigeration and F28F heat exchangers each cover a smaller share, generally under a quarter of records. This means most protected ground today is the coating material itself rather than the systems it gets built into.
US20210002491A1 describes a radiative cooling functional coating built from a granular filler distributed in a radiative cooling functional resin, designed to reflect UV, visible and near-infrared sunlight while emitting heat as infrared through the atmospheric window. It is one of the more heavily cited records in this landscape and was filed by Ningbo Radi-Cool Advanced Energy Technologies, part of the cluster that leads the assignee ranking. Anyone formulating a similar filler-in-resin reflective coating should review its claims closely before filing.
The clearest gap sits between the coating-formulation classes, which are heavily claimed, and the system-integration classes, which are not. F28F heat-exchanger detail and F25B refrigeration integration each cover under 12% of the 61 records, well below the coating classes above 39%. That gap suggests more open claim space around how these coatings are engineered into cooling hardware than around the coating chemistry itself.
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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.