Gas Pipeline Leak Detection Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
Gas Pipeline Leak Detection and Methane Survey Patents
A single filer leads with 11 records while the rest of the ranked field never exceeds a handful each, pointing to one dominant technical position rather than broad competition. Filings climbed to a peak of 5 records in 2021, then declined to 0 by 2024 — a -100% move over that three-year span, the only complete window this dataset supports. Years after 2024 should not be read as a continued decline; they are still accumulating publications.
- 1BRIDGER PHOTONICS INC11
- 2ITT制造企业有限责任公司7
- 3艾克塞里斯股份有限公司4
- 4不列颠哥伦比亚大学2
- 5西京学院1
See the full gas pipeline leak detection and methane survey analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in gas pipeline leak detection?
In this 27-record dataset, one assignee leads with 11 records, well ahead of the rest of the ranked field of 10 companies. From fifth place down, counts drop to a single record per filer, which points to one company running a sustained filing programme while others file opportunistically around it. This pattern typically means the leader’s granted claims set the boundaries that later filers have to design around.
Is patent filing in methane leak survey technology growing or slowing down?
Filing rose to a peak of 5 records in 2021 and fell to 0 by 2024, a -100% move over that three-year span — the only complete year-over-year comparison this data supports. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the years after 2024 are still filling in and should not yet be read as a continued decline. A fair read is that activity cooled through the early 2020s, with the true 2025-2026 picture not yet visible.
What does US6995846B2 actually cover, and does it block new filings?
US6995846B2, assigned to Harris Corporation, covers an airborne system that illuminates target fluids and background with laser light at differing absorption wavelengths, points the illumination via a positioning system along a scan path, and applies quantitative signal processing to detect and measure the fluids. It sits in a family with US6822742B1 and US20050134859A1, together the three most-cited records in this dataset. Anyone filing on airborne, multi-wavelength quantitative leak detection needs to check their claims against this family specifically, not just against the general concept of laser-based gas detection.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Gas Pipeline Leak Detection and Methane Survey covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.