Neutron Resistant Material Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (17 records) with 2024 (10) — 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 767 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Neutron resistant materials sit at the intersection of reactor engineering, radiation shielding and alloy metallurgy. The claims in scope run from structural steels engineered to resist irradiation-induced segregation and embrittlement in reactor vessels, through shielding composites and coatings, to measurement and drilling-tool applications that borrow the same radiation-hardened material science. This is not a single technology family — it is a material-science problem addressed independently across nuclear power, downhole oilfield instrumentation, and fusion-adjacent plasma components.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has since thinned, with the most recent complete three-year window showing a marked pull-back. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still filling in and should not be read as a continued decline on their own.
Filing trends and technology composition
The 767 records in scope span reactor structural claims, shielding formulations, alloy compositions and adjacent measurement and drilling applications. The patterns below use family-level counts and IPC subclass shares as given, not raw sums across overlapping classes.
A 2018 peak followed by a cooling trend
Annual filings ran from 18 in 2017 to a peak of 21 in 2018, then eased. The last complete three-year comparison, 2021 (17) to 2024 (10), shows a 41% decline — a real signal, though the 2025-2026 tail is still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be added to the trend line as further decline.
Reactor structures and shielding dominate the class mix
G21C (nuclear reactors) covers 32.5% of the 767 records and G21F (radiation protection and shielding) covers 21.3% — together the two largest single-class shares by a wide margin. Alloys (C22C, 7.3%), radiation measurement (G01T, 6.0%), drilling (E21B, 5.3%), ceramics (C04B, 5.1%), coatings (C23C, 4.6%) and plasma/particle accelerators (H05H, 4.0%) form a secondary tier, each addressing a narrower slice of the same underlying material problem.
Shares are the percentage of the 767 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaA structural steel claim that still shapes the field
Austenitic stainless steel structural members with superior irradiation-segregation resistance
The filing claims a nuclear reactor whose structural members are made of austenitic stainless steel formulated with precise, narrow weight-percent ranges of one or more of Ti, Zr, Hf, V, Nb or Ta held in solid solution alongside Cr and Ni. The stated purpose is suppressing stress corrosion cracking and embrittlement under neutron irradiation — a direct answer to the degradation mechanisms that limit reactor vessel life.Filed by Hitachi; the claim's value lies in its narrow compositional windows rather than the general alloy family, which is common ground.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6252923B1 | In-situ self-powered monitoring of stored spent nuclear fuel | 148 |
| 2 | US20070068605A1 | Method of metal performance improvement and protection against degradation and suppression thereof by ultraso… | 138 |
| 3 | US6800352B1 | Wood-based composite panel having foil overlay and methods for manufacturing | 121 |
| 4 | US20090279658A1 | Molten salt nuclear reactor | 105 |
| 5 | US4827139A | Spent nuclear fuel shipping basket and cask | 103 |
| 6 | US20050220247A1 | Nonintrusive method for the detection of concealed special nuclear material | 78 |
| 7 | US5969359A | Monitoring of neutron and gamma radiation | 76 |
| 8 | US20090061152A1 | Methods for fabricating isolated micro- and nano- structures using soft or imprint lithography | 69 |
| 9 | US6166390A | Radiation shielding composition | 69 |
| 10 | US5944124A | Composite material structures having reduced signal attentuation | 67 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Four figures matter more than the rest for anyone deciding where to file or where to look for a licence: the concentration at the top, the cooling filing trend, the class split, and the jurisdictional spread.
A leader, then a long tail
The single leading assignee holds 42 records, well ahead of fifth place at 15 and tenth place at 10. Yet the top 5 combined still account for only 14.9% of all 767 records in scope, and the top 10 for 23.2% — this is a field with one clear leader but a wide base of smaller filers rather than a tight oligopoly.
Activity has cooled from its 2018 peak
Filings ran from 18 in 2017 to a 2018 peak of 21, then declined through the last complete comparison window to 10 in 2024 — a 41% drop over three years. The 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as confirming further decline.
Reactor structures and shielding lead the class mix
G21C (nuclear reactors) and G21F (radiation protection and shielding) together cover the majority of claim activity, at 32.5% and 21.3% of the 767 records respectively. Alloys, measurement, drilling, ceramics, coatings and plasma components form a secondary tier, each under 8% of records.
US and UK offices lead, China close behind
The United States receives the most filings (171), followed by the United Kingdom (102) and China (98), with WIPO PCT filings (83), the EPO (53) and Japan (48) rounding out the major offices. The UK's strong second place reflects concentrated reactor-materials research activity tied to national nuclear programmes.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fusion materials & components: neutron resistant material patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or licensing decision means drilling into specific claim language and the assignees who hold it.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top holders
With the top 5 assignees holding only 14.9% of all 767 records, most white space sits outside the leader's portfolio — but the specific compositional ranges each holder claims still need checking claim by claim.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTrack the cooling trend against your own filing calendar
A 41% drop from 2021 to 2024 suggests the easiest compositional claims may already be filed; new entrants should look at the secondary IPC classes with lower density.
Run a fresh landscape query in EurekaFollow citations back to foundational claims
The most-cited records in this set date from earlier filing years, reflecting citation lag rather than current relevance — verify novelty against recent filings, not just the most-cited ones.
Search recent filings in EurekaCommon questions about neutron resistant material patents
This dataset identifies 767 patent records published between 2015 and mid-2026 that match neutron resistant material claims across nuclear reactors, radiation shielding, alloys and related fields. The count is drawn from a targeted search string covering both explicit neutron-resistant-material language and combined nuclear/radiation/reactor terms, so it understates any activity described with different terminology. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete and will rise as more records publish.
The ranking covers 100 assignees, with the single leader holding 42 records — well ahead of the field. However, concentration at the top is modest: the top 5 assignees combined hold only 14.9% of all 767 records, and the top 10 hold 23.2%, meaning the majority of filing activity comes from a long tail of smaller contributors rather than a handful of dominant players. Reviewing the full ranking is more useful than focusing only on the leader.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 21 records and has since cooled, with the last complete three-year comparison — 2021 to 2024 — showing a 41% decline from 17 to 10 filings. That is a genuine signal of reduced filing activity in the mid-2020s. The most recent years in any dataset like this are always understated because patent publication lags filing by about 18 months, so the apparent drop in 2025-2026 specifically should not be treated as confirmed until later data cuts.
Nuclear reactor structures (IPC class G21C) account for 32.5% of the 767 records, and radiation protection and shielding (G21F) account for 21.3% — together the two largest categories by a wide margin. Alloys, radiation measurement, drilling tools, ceramics, coatings and plasma/particle-accelerator components each cover a smaller secondary share, generally under 8% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
US5316597A claims a nuclear reactor with structural members made of austenitic stainless steel containing narrow, specified weight-percent additions of elements such as Ti, Zr, Hf, V, Nb or Ta held in solid solution, aimed at resisting irradiation-induced segregation, stress corrosion cracking and embrittlement. Filed by Hitachi, it is a representative example of how this field's most durable claims are built on precise compositional ranges rather than broad alloy families. Anyone filing similar steel compositions for reactor use should check their ranges against this and neighbouring prior art.
The United States receiving office leads with 171 filings, followed by the United Kingdom at 102 and China at 98. WIPO PCT applications (83), the European Patent Office (53) and Japan (48) make up the remaining major offices in this dataset. The UK's strong position likely reflects concentrated national nuclear materials research rather than broad commercial filing volume.
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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.