Geothermal Heat Pump Patent Landscape 2026
Geothermal Heat Pump Patent Landscape in 2026
The geothermal heat pump patent corpus spans 948 families, with activity concentrated in China and led by a small number of specialist and oilfield-services filers. Annual volume peaked in 2021 and has since eased, signalling a field that accumulated its foundational IP base and is now consolidating rather than expanding rapidly.
Darcy Solutions leads a fragmented field dominated by oilfield-services clusters
Darcy Solutions Inc holds the largest individual position with 24 patent families, followed by the Schlumberger entity group and South Korea’s Soo Energy Co Ltd at 13 patent families. The top-ranked applicant’s share is modest in absolute terms, reflecting a field with many mid-tier filers rather than a single dominant incumbent.
The top five filers account for 16% of the combined total across the hundred largest filers, a relatively low concentration figure that indicates no single player has locked up the technology. The Schlumberger family of entities — appearing under at least four separate legal names — collectively represents the largest coordinated portfolio when treated as one group.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darcy Solutions Inc | 24 | |
| 2 | Schlumberger Technology Corp | 18 | |
| 3 | Soo Energy Co Ltd | 13 | |
| 4 | Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA | 12 | |
| 5 | Schlumberger Technology BV | 12 | |
| 6 | Won Cheol-ho (individual inventor) | 11 | |
| 7 | J&G CO LTD | 10 | |
| 8 | Southeast University | 9 | |
| 9 | Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 8 | |
| 10 | Inner Mongolia Juneng Energy Saving Service Co Ltd | 8 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | ClimateMaster Inc | 7 | |
| 12 | Hebei Zhongdi Geothermal Development Group Co Ltd | 7 | |
| 13 | Tongji University | 7 | |
| 14 | Tianjin Chengjian University | 7 | |
| 15 | Gree Electric Appliances Inc of Zhuhai | 7 | |
| 16 | Deep Mining Laboratory Branch of Shandong Gold Mining | 7 | |
| 17 | Ellison Environmental Services Ltd | 7 | |
| 18 | Eco Greenland Beijing Energy Technology Co Ltd | 7 | |
| 19 | China Coal Geology General Bureau Hydrogeology Bureau | 6 | |
| 20 | Regents of the University of Minnesota | 6 |
Darcy Solutions and the Schlumberger entities both focus on deep geothermal system integration and wellbore-related IP, suggesting that borehole-design and subsurface-exchange innovations are the strategic battleground. Mid-tier Chinese universities and energy-saving service companies occupy the residential and commercial building-side of the market.
Filing counts for 2024–2026 are subject to publication lag and should not be interpreted as the full picture of recent activity; actual volumes for those years will be higher once all applications are published. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
A 2021 filing peak followed by consolidation, anchored in geothermal-systems IP
Two charts together reveal both the pace of IP creation and the technical spread of geothermal heat pump innovation: the annual trend shows where momentum has come from and gone, while the technology-composition chart shows which engineering disciplines are most densely covered.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew from 44 families in 2017 to a peak of 160 in 2021, then fell back; 2022–2025 figures show a volatile but broadly lower level. The 2024 and 2025 totals are almost certainly under-counted due to publication lag and should not be read as the final tally for those years.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
F24T (Geothermal systems) dominates with the highest record count, followed by F25B (Refrigeration and heat pumps) and F24D (Domestic heating systems). Drilling-related classes E02D and E21B appear with lower but meaningful counts, reflecting borehole and pile-foundation work. Lower-count classes such as F24S (Solar heat collectors), H02J (Power supply) and G06F (Digital data processing) signal early-stage cross-disciplinary activity.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Performance prediction program and performance pre…
A computer which functions by a performance prediction program for a ground source heat pump system of the present invention and a performance prediction system constructed thereby include a dimensionless distance calculating means, a first dimensionless time calculating means, a second dimensionless time calculating means, a boundary time acquiring means… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ground source heat pump system comprising modular … | 125 |
| 2 | Ground source heat pump system comprising modular … | 82 |
| 3 | Geothermal heat pump device, geothermal unit havin… | 77 |
| 4 | HVAC controller with component change notification | 43 |
| 5 | Geothermal plant connectable to a geothermal well | 41 |
| 6 | Performance prediction program and performance pre… | 33 |
| 7 | Heating source supplier for air conditioner utiliz… | 27 |
| 8 | Method and system for controlling the heating and … | 25 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural observations — maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography — together define the strategic environment for an engineer or IP team entering or expanding in this space.
Past-peak, consolidating field
Annual filing volume peaked in 2021 and has eased since, placing geothermal heat pump IP in a declining phase on an annual basis. The multi-year corpus of 948 families represents a substantial but not yet overwhelming prior-art base. New entrants will find room to differentiate on subsystem integration, controls, and hybrid configurations rather than core geothermal-loop principles, which are well-covered.
Lifecycle: ConsolidationLow concentration — no single dominant owner
With the top five filers holding 16% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, no single entity controls access to the core technology. The Schlumberger group’s fragmented legal-entity structure suggests its portfolio is functionally larger than any single ranking entry implies. This low concentration is an opportunity for focused players to build meaningful share in under-served sub-domains without immediately triggering a defensive response from a single gatekeeper.
HHI: LowSchlumberger entities and Southeast University are the most active co-filers
The most frequent co-filing relationships are among the Schlumberger entity family itself — Schlumberger Technology LLC and Schlumberger Corporation jointly filed on 12 occasions — reflecting cross-entity portfolio coordination rather than external partnerships. Southeast University partnered with China Railway 12th Bureau Group on 3 joint filings and with Qingdao Haier Air Conditioning Electronics on 1, illustrating the university-industry collaboration model common in Chinese geothermal R&D. External cross-sector alliances remain sparse, indicating an ecosystem that has not yet opened to broad consortium-style development.
Ecosystem: Intra-groupChina overwhelmingly leads; North America and South Korea are the main secondary markets
China accounts for 684 patent records, far ahead of the United States at 93 and South Korea at 68. Europe (EPO) has 36 records and Canada 35, with PCT filings at 28. This geographic skew means that IP strategies targeting European or North American markets face a less crowded prior-art landscape from Chinese filers, but also that technology developed in China may not be protected in Western markets — a freedom-to-operate consideration for non-Chinese entrants.
Lead office: ChinaGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Corporation | 12 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 6 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | Schlumberger Technology LLC | 6 |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | Schlumberger Corporation | 6 |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 6 |
| Schlumberger Corporation | Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 6 |
| Southeast University | China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co Ltd | 3 |
| Southeast University | China Railway 12th Bureau Group Construction and Installation Engineering Co Ltd | 3 |
| Southeast University | Qingdao Haier Air Conditioning Electronics Co Ltd | 1 |
| Southeast University | Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co Ltd | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Darcy Solutions leads on volume; Schlumberger entities are the most active new arrivals
The ranking is shaped by two distinct strategic archetypes: pure-play geothermal specialists such as Darcy Solutions, and oilfield-services multinationals (Schlumberger) entering with wellbore-centric IP. Both groups anchor their portfolios in F24T geothermal systems and E21B drilling.
Darcy Solutions Inc
Darcy Solutions holds 24 patent families — the largest individual portfolio in scope — concentrated heavily in F24T geothermal systems and E21B earth-drilling, with a minor position in F28D heat-exchange apparatus. Its recent momentum has declined (down 67% in the most recent period versus its prior three-year base), suggesting the core portfolio has been filed and the company may be shifting from IP accumulation to commercialisation or litigation defence.
families: 24Schlumberger Technology Corp
Schlumberger Technology Corp holds 18 patent families in the ranking, but the broader Schlumberger group — including Services Petroliers Schlumberger SA (12), Schlumberger Technology BV (12), and Schlumberger Canada Ltd (8) — represents a coordinated portfolio of considerable combined scale. All Schlumberger entities entered the corpus as new arrivals in the recent period, signalling a deliberate strategic push into geothermal heat pump IP from an oilfield-services base. Technology emphasis spans F24T geothermal systems, F24T50 (Geothermal systems, broader sub-class), and E21B36/33 wellbore-related classes.
families: 18 (lead entity)| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Darcy Solutions Inc | 5 | ▼ -67% |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | 13 | ▲ new entrant |
| Soo Energy Co Ltd | 4 | ▲ new entrant |
| Schlumberger Technology LLC | 8 | ▲ new entrant |
| Schlumberger Corporation | 8 | ▲ new entrant |
| Won Cheol-ho (individual inventor) | 1 | ▼ -90% |
| Southeast University | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| Schlumberger Canada Ltd | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches where geothermal heat pump IP is sparse relative to technical relevance
The branches below have meaningful technical overlap with geothermal heat pump applications but carry comparatively low patent record counts within the corpus, making them worth monitoring for teams considering adjacent IP development.
F24S · Solar heat collectors — hybrid solar-geothermal systems
F24S carries 70 patent records in the corpus, representing 3% of the IPC record total — low relative to the core F24T class. Hybrid systems coupling solar thermal collectors with ground-source heat pumps can reduce borehole depth and peak electrical load, and offer an increasingly relevant proposition as building-integrated renewables converge. The realistic entry path is through heat-pump controls and thermal-storage integration, areas where existing players have limited coverage.
Search this in Eureka →G06F / G06N · Digital data processing and AI-based controls
G06F appears with only 9 patent records and G06N with just 3, indicating that machine-learning-driven optimisation of geothermal heat pump operation is virtually unclaimed. Predictive load management, fault detection, and adaptive refrigerant-cycle control using AI models represent technically plausible extensions of this domain. Given that smart HVAC and building-energy-management systems are active IP spaces in their own right, the intersection with geothermal-specific datasets and loop-performance modelling is a credible area for novel filings.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ by technology route and IPC sub-class emphasis
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | F24T 10 · Geothermal systems | F25B 30 · Refrigeration & heat pumps | F24T 50 · Geothermal systems | F24F 5 · Air conditioning & ventilation | F24D 3 · Domestic heating systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ClimateMaster Inc | Strong · 7 | Absent | Strong · 7 | Strong · 7 | Strong · 7 |
| Soo Energy Co Ltd | Strong · 14 | Strong · 13 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Won Cheol-ho (individual inventor) | Strong · 11 | Strong · 11 | Absent | Absent | Moderate · 3 |
| Darcy Solutions Inc | Strong · 24 | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Schlumberger Technology Corp | Strong · 15 | Absent | Moderate · 5 | Absent | Absent |
| J&G Co Ltd | Strong · 7 | Strong · 8 | Absent | Moderate · 3 | Absent |
| Southeast University | Strong · 7 | Strong · 8 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus in scope contains 948 patent families. China is the lead filing office, accounting for the largest share of patent records among all jurisdictions covered.
Darcy Solutions Inc holds the largest individual portfolio with 24 patent families, concentrated in geothermal systems (F24T) and earth-drilling (E21B) classes. However, the Schlumberger entity group collectively represents a larger combined presence when its multiple legal entities are aggregated.
Annual filing volume peaked in 2021 at 160 families and has eased since, placing the field in a declining phase on an annual basis. Note that 2024 and 2025 figures are subject to publication lag and will rise as pending applications publish.
China leads with 684 patent records, followed by the United States at 93, South Korea at 68, Europe (EPO) at 36, and Canada at 35. WIPO (PCT) filings total 28, indicating some international protection activity but not at scale relative to Chinese domestic filings.
The most-cited work in the corpus includes patents covering modular ground source heat pump systems (cited 125 and 82 times respectively), a geothermal heat pump device and geothermal unit (77 citations), an HVAC controller with component change notification (43 citations), and a geothermal plant connectable to a geothermal well (41 citations).
Two branches stand out as under-served relative to their technical relevance: F24S (Solar heat collectors, 70 records), pointing toward hybrid solar-geothermal systems, and G06F/G06N (digital data processing and AI-based models, 9 and 3 records respectively), where machine-learning-driven heat pump optimisation is virtually unclaimed within this corpus.
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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.
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