Fusion Blanket Patents: Who Leads, Trends & White Space 2026
Fusion blanket patent landscape covering 162 records from 2015-2026: leading assignees, filing trends, IPC composition and citation leaders across G21B and adjacent classes.
Filing growth = 2021 (20 records) → 2024 (8); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 162 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the fusion blanket patent record actually shows
A fusion blanket sits at the boundary between the plasma and the reactor’s structural shell: it breeds tritium, absorbs neutron energy, and shields the magnets behind it. Patent activity in this space is small in absolute terms but concentrated — 162 records span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, and the assignee ranking shows a leader at 16 records against a field where the tenth-placed filer holds only 5. That gap between the top of the ranking and the long tail is the first thing worth reading correctly: it is not evidence of a mature, settled technology, it is evidence that a handful of national labs and reactor developers have claimed early and repeatedly while most other entrants filed once or twice.
Almost every record classifies under G21B, the fusion-reactor subclass, which is expected given the search scope. What differs is the secondary classification pattern: plasma and accelerator technology (H05H) and general nuclear-reactor claims (G21C) both appear meaningfully, while structural alloys, welding/joining and digital-processing classes each sit under 7% of records. That secondary pattern is where the competitive detail lives — it shows which supporting technologies around the blanket itself are being claimed, and which are still comparatively open.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 162-record dataset: the year-by-year filing curve, and the IPC subclasses those filings carry. Both are read against the full record count, not against the ranked assignee list.
A 2021 peak followed by a real but incomplete decline
Filings rose from 6 in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2021, then fell to 8 by 2024 — a 60% drop over that three-year window. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation the field is cooling further; the 2021-2024 comparison is the most recent reliable signal.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
G21B dominates; supporting classes are thinner
G21B (fusion reactors) appears in 95.7% of the 162 records, essentially defining the search scope. H05H (plasma and particle accelerators) reaches 15.4%, G21C (nuclear reactors) 7.4%, and G21G (conversion of nuclei) 6.8%. Materials and joining classes — C22C alloys at 6.2%, B23K welding/brazing at 3.1% — are the thinnest bands, and G06F digital processing sits at just 2.5%.
Shares are the percentage of the 162 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fusion Blanket Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about fusion blanket patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records other filings cite most
Method and system to directly produce electrical power within the lithium blanket region of a magnetically confined, deuterium-tritium (DT) fueled, thermonuclear fusion reactor
A method for integrating liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic power generation with fusion blanket technology to produce electrical power from a thermonuclear fusion reactor located within a confining magnetic field and within a toroidal structure. A hot liquid metal flows from a liquid metal blanket region into a pump duct of an electromagnetic pump which moves the liquid metal to a mixer where a gas of predetermined pressure is mixed with the pressurized liquid metal to form a froth mixture. Electrical power is generated by flowing the froth mixture between electrodes in a generator duct.Filed by the US Department of Energy, published 1999-11-23 — one of the earliest records to tie blanket-region liquid metal flow directly to power generation rather than treating the blanket purely as a breeding/shielding structure.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2013030554A1 | Efficient compact fusion reactor | 122 |
| 2 | US5160694A | Fusion reactor | 108 |
| 3 | US3762992A | Laser-driven fusion reactor | 81 |
| 4 | US4663110A | Fusion blanket and method for producing directly fabricable fissile fuel | 47 |
| 5 | US5991351A | Method and system to directly produce electrical power within the lithium blanket region of a magnetically co… | 43 |
| 6 | US4749540A | Demountable tokamak fusion core | 30 |
| 7 | US20240290505A1 | Magnetic confinement fusion reactor | 29 |
| 8 | WO2015021403A1 | Ternary alloy and eutectic heat transfer fluid composition for fusion blankets | 18 |
| 9 | US4430291A | Packed fluidized bed blanket for fusion reactor | 16 |
| 10 | GB2494185A | Efficient compact fusion reactor | 13 |
Citation counts are drawn from within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation data mean for filing strategy
The numbers below are the ones a filing or freedom-to-operate decision should actually rest on — not the full ranking, but the shape of it.
A small group holds the core claim space
Five assignees account for 42.0% of all 162 records in scope, with the leader alone at 16. Extending to the top 10 lifts that to 58.6%, meaning well over half the field's activity runs through a group small enough to track individually rather than treat as a diffuse market.
A real pull-back from the 2021 peak
Filings peaked at 20 in 2021 and dropped to 8 by 2024, a 60% decline over three years. That is a genuine slowdown in completed filings, not an artefact of publication lag, since 2024 is the last year that can be treated as fully reported.
Structural materials are thinly claimed
While 95.7% of records touch G21B fusion-reactor claims, only 6.2% carry a C22C alloy classification and just 3.1% touch B23K welding/brazing. For a component that must survive sustained neutron flux, that gap suggests the materials and joining side of blanket design is comparatively under-claimed relative to the reactor-architecture side.
Influence sits with early, broad-scope filings
The most-cited record in the set draws 122 citations, and the top five most-cited records include filings from as far back as the early 1970s through the late 1990s. That pattern is typical of a searched corpus: older, broad filings accumulate citations simply by having been available longer, so citation rank should not be read as a ranking of current relevance.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fusion blanket patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. | Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute | 3 |
| Toshiba Corporation | Japan Nuclear Fuel Co., Ltd. | 3 |
| Toshiba Corporation | Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute | 1 |
Co-assignment is rare in this dataset — only 3 co-assignee pairs appear across 162 records, and the strongest pairings link a single reactor developer with national research institutes rather than showing a broader collaboration network.
Turning this landscape into a filing decision
The dataset shows where claim density is high and where it is thin. Turning that into an actual filing or freedom-to-operate position means going record by record in the areas that matter to a specific design.
Check freedom-to-operate against the concentrated leaders
With 42.0% of records held by five assignees, a new blanket design should be checked claim-by-claim against that group before anywhere else in the ranking.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaProbe the materials and joining gap
C22C and B23K classifications sit under 7% of records each. If a design depends on a specific alloy or joining method for neutron-flux survival, that thinner band is worth a dedicated search before assuming it is open.
Search structural-material claims in EurekaRead the 2021-2024 filing pull-back into timing
A drop from 20 filings in 2021 to 8 in 2024 changes the calculus for when to file, and against whom, in a field that is smaller and more concentrated at the top than the raw record count suggests.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions about fusion blanket patents
The dataset covering 2015 through the 2026 cut-off contains 162 published records classified under fusion-reactor and related nuclear IPC codes. Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 20 records in that year and had fallen to 8 by 2024, a 60% decline over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags the original filing by roughly 18 months, so the true recent trend will only become clear as those records continue to publish.
The assignee ranking covers 52 companies and research institutes, with the leader holding 16 records and the fifth-placed filer holding 12. The top five assignees combined account for 42.0% of all 162 records in scope, and extending to the top ten raises that to 58.6%. That leaves a long tail of entrants with only one or two filings each, so the field is best described as concentrated at the top with a wide spread beneath it rather than evenly competitive.
Nearly all records — 95.7% of the 162 in scope — carry a G21B fusion-reactor classification, which reflects the search scope itself. Beyond that, 15.4% touch plasma and particle-accelerator technology (H05H), 7.4% touch general nuclear-reactor design (G21C), and smaller shares cover structural alloys (C22C, 6.2%), nuclear power plant systems (G21D, 4.9%), and welding or brazing methods (B23K, 3.1%). Because a single record can carry several classifications, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
The data shows filings falling from a peak of 20 in 2021 to 8 in 2024, a drop of 60% over that period, and 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as a complete count. This is a genuine slowdown rather than a publication artefact, since it is measured on years old enough to have finished publishing. It is worth noting this alongside the concentration data: a smaller pool of active filers publishing fewer records each year is consistent with a field where the core claim space is already held by a small group of repeat filers.
The most-cited record in this dataset is a filing on an efficient compact fusion reactor, drawing 122 citations within the searched corpus, followed by records dating back to the early 1970s and 1980s on fusion reactor design and blanket-based fuel production. Older filings tend to accumulate more citations simply because they have been available longer for later filers to cite, so this ranking is better read as a map of technical influence than as a guide to which patents are commercially dominant today. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should still review these highly cited records directly, since influence often correlates with broad claim scope.
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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.