Tritium Breeding Blanket Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 records) with 2024 (7) — 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 181 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the tritium breeding blanket patent record shows
A tritium breeding blanket sits inside a fusion reactor’s first wall, absorbing neutrons to regenerate the tritium fuel a deuterium-tritium reaction consumes. It is one of the few fusion subsystems where the physics is settled enough that patent claims can specify actual materials, geometries and coolant loops rather than reactor concepts in the abstract. That makes the patent record here a reasonable proxy for where engineering effort is concentrating, even though the underlying reactors themselves remain pre-commercial.
The 181 records in scope span 2015 through the partial 2026 year, drawing filers that range from state fusion programmes to newer private ventures. Filing activity is not evenly spread: it clusters around a small set of assignees and around one dominant IPC subclass, with the rest of the landscape thinner and more exploratory.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend chart will keep rising as more applications publish — they should not be read as a slowdown in real filing activity.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Three views of the same 181-record dataset: when applications were filed, how concentrated ownership is, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A 2022 peak followed by a real pull-back
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 23 in 2022, then fell to 7 by 2024 — a 36% decline over that three-year span using the last two years that can be treated as complete. Treat 2025 and 2026 counts as still filling in rather than as evidence of a slowdown.
One dominant subclass, several thin adjacencies
G21B (fusion reactors) appears on 87.3% of the 181 records, making it the default classification for anything blanket-related. H05H (plasma and particle accelerators) and C22C (alloys) sit far behind at 12.7% and 6.6% respectively, and G06F (digital data processing) appears on only 4.4% — a sign that computational and materials-science claims are still a minority of the filing activity.
Shares are the percentage of the 181 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fusion Materials & Components: Tritium Breeding Blanket Patent Landscape with Eureka
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EP4174874B1 — computer-implemented optimisation of global tritium breeding ratio for a fusion reactor blanket
Filed by Southwestern Institute of Physics with a 2024-07-10 date, this record claims a computational method for optimising the global tritium breeding ratio of a fusion reactor mantle — a software-and-simulation approach layered on top of the physical blanket design rather than a new material or geometry.It illustrates a second filing pattern in this dataset: claims built around simulation and optimisation methods rather than hardware, which sit in G06F and overlap G21B.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2013030554A1 | Efficient compact fusion reactor | 122 |
| 2 | US3624239A | Pulsed laser-ignited thermonuclear reactor | 77 |
| 3 | US4735762A | Laser or charged-particle-beam fusion reactor with direct electric generation by magnetic flux compression | 66 |
| 4 | US4344911A | Fluidized wall for protecting fusion chamber walls | 63 |
| 5 | US20120014491A1 | Nuclear fusion power plant having a liquid reactor core of molten glass that is made laseractive and function… | 60 |
| 6 | US4663110A | Fusion blanket and method for producing directly fabricable fissile fuel | 47 |
| 7 | US4859399A | Modular fusion power apparatus using disposable core | 32 |
| 8 | US3748226A | Pulsed high beta fusion reactor | 29 |
| 9 | CN104122071A | 一种聚变堆增殖包层球床吹氚氦气热工水力特性实验装置及方法 | 28 |
| 10 | CN101510450A | 一种制备聚变堆包层中陶瓷氚增殖剂的方法 | 27 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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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Four read-outs from the concentration, trend and classification data, translated into what they imply for where to file and who to watch.
The top of the field is dense but not closed
The leading assignee holds 24 records and the top five combined hold 43.6% of all 181 records in scope. That is real concentration, but with 54 companies in the ranked list and a fifth-place holder at only 12 records, there is still room for a new entrant to build a defensible position outside the leader's core claims.
Activity has cooled from its 2022 high
Filings ran from 2 in 2017 up to a peak of 23 in 2022, then declined to 7 by 2024 — a 36% drop over that span. Because 2025–2026 filings are still publishing, this is the most recent trend that can be read with confidence; it points to a genuine pause in blanket-specific filing rather than sustained growth.
Fusion-reactor claims dominate; materials claims are thin
G21B carries the overwhelming majority of records, while C22C (alloys, 6.6%) and C01B (non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds, 3.3%) are comparatively under-claimed. For a materials-focused filer, that thinness is the opening rather than a warning sign.
Filing is split across national offices, not consolidated at one
Japan (41) and China (29) lead the receiving offices, ahead of the United States (23), the EPO (19), the UK (19) and WIPO/PCT (18). No single office holds a majority, which means freedom-to-operate work has to be done jurisdiction by jurisdiction rather than assumed from one search.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fusion materials & components: tritium breeding blanket patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the question is who to watch, where to file, or what is already blocked.
Map the white space in materials and digital-overlay claims
C22C, C01B and G06F all sit under 7% of records despite overlapping directly with blanket design. A structured claim-gap review against the leaders' existing filings would show whether a materials-first or simulation-first approach has room to move.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the ranked leaders' filing cadence past 2024
With filing down 36% from its 2022 peak by 2024, and the ranking spread across 54 companies rather than concentrated in one, watching how the top five's filing rate moves as 2025–2026 data fills in will show whether the pull-back holds.
Set up leader tracking in EurekaRun freedom-to-operate checks per receiving office
With no single office holding a majority of the 181 records, a filing strategy built on one jurisdiction's search results will miss activity concentrated in the others.
Run an FTO search in EurekaCommon questions on tritium breeding blanket patents
The leading assignee in this 181-record dataset holds 24 records, with the top five combined accounting for 43.6% of all records in scope. That is a meaningful concentration but not a monopoly: the ranking runs to 54 companies, and the fifth-place holder has only 12 records. A newer filer entering this space should expect to compete against a handful of well-established programmes at the core of blanket design, while still finding open ground further down the ranking.
Filing peaked in 2022 at 23 records and had fallen to 7 by 2024, a 36% decline over that three-year window. Because patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and will rise as more applications publish, so they should not yet be read as confirmation of a continued slowdown. Based on the last complete years, though, the trend is a genuine pull-back from the 2022 high rather than a plateau.
The large majority — 87.3% of the 181 records — classify under G21B, the fusion-reactor subclass, which is expected given the search scope. Smaller but notable shares sit in H05H (plasma and particle accelerators, 12.7%), C22C (alloys, 6.6%), G21C (nuclear reactors, 5.5%) and G21D (nuclear power plants, 5.0%), with G06F (digital data processing, 4.4%) capturing simulation and optimisation approaches like the EP4174874B1 filing. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Japan leads as a receiving office with 41 of the filings, followed by China with 29 and the United States with 23. The EPO and the UK each show 19, and WIPO/PCT filings account for 18. The spread across six offices with no single majority means a company assessing freedom to operate needs to check multiple jurisdictions rather than relying on one national search.
EP4174874B1, filed by Southwestern Institute of Physics with a 2024-07-10 date, claims a computer-implemented method for optimising the global tritium breeding ratio of a fusion reactor blanket — a simulation and optimisation approach rather than a specific material or geometry. It sits in the G06F/G21B overlap that only 4.4% of records occupy, so its practical reach is over optimisation methodology rather than over physical blanket hardware. A team designing a physical blanket with a different breeding ratio calculation approach would need to review the claim language directly, but a hardware-only design that doesn't rely on this specific optimisation method is a different question entirely.
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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.