High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Patents: Filing Trends and Leading Claimants
Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 42.8% of all 292 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 59.2% — a narrow set of filers controls most of the documented claim space. Publications climbed from 6 in 2017 to a peak of 30 in 2018, then declined steadily; the 2021-to-2024 span alone shows a -93% drop (15 to 1). Treat 2025 and 2026 as undercounted rather than as confirmation the field has gone quiet.
- 1X ENERGY LLC39
- 2SEABORG APS31
- 3ULTRA SAFE NUCLEAR CORP23
- 4BAE SYSTEMS PLC19
- 5WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP13
See the full high temperature gas cooled reactors 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 about HTGR patents
Who holds the most patents on high temperature gas cooled reactor technology?
Among the 72 ranked assignees in this dataset, one company leads clearly with 39 of the 292 records, ahead of the fifth-place holder at 13. The top 5 assignees together hold 42.8% of all records, and the top 10 hold 59.2%, so filing activity is concentrated in a small group rather than spread evenly across the field. That said, dozens of other organisations, including universities and national labs, hold a handful of records each, forming a long tail worth checking individually for any specific claim area.
Is HTGR patent activity growing or slowing down?
Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 30 published records and declined sharply afterward, with the fully-published 2021-2024 window showing a -93% drop from 15 to 1. However, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart understate real activity and should not be read as confirmation the field has gone quiet. A clearer read on recent momentum will only be available once those years finish publishing.
What technology areas dominate HTGR patent filings?
The nuclear reactor classification G21C appears in 84.9% of the 292 records in scope, making it by far the dominant technology class. Other classes appear far less often: shaping of plastics (B29C) at 8.2%, nuclear power plants (G21D) at 7.9%, and electric motors and generators (H02K) at 5.1%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, but the gap between G21C and everything else is large enough to show where the core claim density sits.
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 High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors 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.