Hydrogen DRI Shaft Furnace Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Three assignees account for every one of the 18 records in scope, a field small enough that a single new filer can shift the ranking outright.
- Filing peaked in 2023 at six records, with 2024–2026 too recent to read as decline given typical publication lag.
- Steelmaking and blast-furnace classes cover the bulk of filings, while furnace-detail and metal-extraction classes remain comparatively thin.
What this landscape covers
Hydrogen direct reduction shaft furnace technology replaces coke-based reduction with hydrogen or hydrogen-rich gas to convert iron ore into direct reduced iron (DRI), cutting the carbon intensity of primary ironmaking. The search scope here is narrow by design: it isolates records that combine shaft-furnace or hydrogen-based ironmaking language with process-control terms like metallization degree, reduction kinetics and gas utilization, rather than pulling in every steelmaking patent that mentions hydrogen in passing.
That precision is why the corpus is small — 18 published records across the 2015–2026 window — but it also means each record is more likely to be substantively about the shaft-furnace reduction process itself, not a peripheral mention.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 18 records: how filings have moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were at zero in 2017, rose to a peak of six records in 2023, and the trend cannot support a growth-rate claim because fewer than four complete years remain once the roughly 18-month publication lag is accounted for. Treat 2024–2026 counts as understated rather than as a real slowdown.
IPC subclass composition
C21C (steelmaking) and C21B (blast-furnace iron production) each cover the large majority of the 18 records, at 88.9% and 83.3% respectively, showing that most filings frame the invention as a steelmaking or ironmaking process rather than as furnace hardware. C22B, F27B and F27D sit lower, and because a record can carry several IPC classes these shares add up to more than 100% against the same 18-record base.
Shares are the percentage of the 18 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hydrogen Direct Reduction Shaft Furnace with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hydrogen direct reduction shaft furnace and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
WO2024237847A1 — molten iron production from low-carbon DRI in an electric arc furnace
The disclosure relates to a process for producing molten iron or an alloy thereof from low-carbon direct reduced iron (DRI) in an electric arc furnace (EAF). The DRI comprises less than 0.1 wt% carbon. The process comprises a combined charging and melting stage comprising continuously charging DRI to a molten metal bath in the EAF and concurrently operating the EAF to continuously melt the DRI, maintained within a defined operational window for bath temperature, FeO in slag, and slag B2 basicity.Filed by HYBRIT Development AB, published 2024-11-21.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IN201821040473A | A process for beneficiation and iron making from lean iron ore fines using high ash coals. | 5 |
| 2 | US20240026476A1 | Method and apparatus for metals, alloys, mattes, or enriched and cleaned slags production from predominantly … | 4 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records; read them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (2 of 2 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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The dataset is small enough that individual records move the picture, so read these as directional signals rather than statistical trends.
A field with no long tail
The top 3 and top 5 concentration figures are identical at 100.0% of all 18 records — there is no long tail of single-filing entrants here because there are effectively no filers outside the ranked three. A new entrant with even one or two solid filings changes the competitive map materially.
Peak already behind the reported curve
Filing activity rose to six records in 2023 before falling off in the most recent years, but with fewer than four complete years available after accounting for publication lag, that apparent drop cannot be read as a real slowdown yet.
Claims cluster in steelmaking framing
Almost nine in ten records sit in C21C and over eight in ten in C21B, meaning the crowded ground is the steelmaking/ironmaking process claim itself, not the furnace equipment. F27B and F27D furnace-hardware classes are comparatively open at 38.9% and 33.3%.
Filing is spread thin across offices
India leads with 4 filings, with Australia, Canada, EPO and Mexico each at 2 and the United States at 2 — no single office dominates, which is unusual for a steel-process technology and suggests applicants are still testing where to seek protection.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hydrogen direct reduction shaft furnace, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
Three assignees hold the entire ranked set of 18 records. The leader has filed 9, roughly half the corpus on its own, with the other two splitting the remainder.
The dominant filer
The leading assignee holds 9 of the 18 records in scope — half the entire corpus — giving it the deepest claim coverage on hydrogen-based shaft-furnace reduction process control in this dataset.
A distinct process route
The second-ranked assignee's filings sit alongside the leader's but with -100% YoY momentum in the most recent year, consistent with the general slowdown expected from publication lag rather than a withdrawal from the field.
Steel producer with direct operating stake
The third assignee is a steel producer rather than a pure technology developer, which typically signals filings tied to plant-level process integration rather than licensable core IP.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Hybrit Metals | 0 | -100% |
| Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology Development | 0 | -100% |
| JSW Steel | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The published record set is a starting point for freedom-to-operate work, not a substitute for it.
Map claim boundaries on the leader's 9 filings
With half the corpus held by one assignee, a claim-by-claim read of its filings is the fastest way to find where its process-control claims actually end.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCheck the under-claimed sub-areas before drafting
Reformer-free operation and pellet-sticking mitigation carry fewer filings than the core steelmaking classes — worth confirming before assuming open ground.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaRe-run the trend once 2024–2026 fully publishes
Publication lag means the apparent post-2023 drop is partly an artefact; revisit filing counts once these years mature.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on hydrogen DRI shaft furnace patents
The assignee ranking for this dataset returns only 3 companies against 18 total published records, and together they account for 100% of the records in scope. That is not a top-50 or top-100 cut — it is the complete ranked set the data endpoint returns for this search. A field this concentrated means a new filer with even a handful of applications can meaningfully change the competitive picture.
Filings peaked at six records in 2023, and the count is lower in 2024 through 2026, but that apparent decline should not be read as a real slowdown. Patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years in any dataset are always undercounted, and there are fewer than four complete years available here to compute a reliable growth rate. The honest read is 'not yet enough data,' not 'declining interest.'
C21C (steelmaking) and C21B (blast-furnace iron production) dominate, covering 88.9% and 83.3% of the 18 records respectively, which shows most applicants frame their inventions as process claims over the ironmaking method itself. Furnace hardware classes F27B and F27D are comparably lighter, at 38.9% and 33.3%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages sum to more than 100% and should be read against the 18-record total, not against each other.
WO2024237847A1 claims a process for producing molten iron or an alloy from low-carbon direct reduced iron, containing less than 0.1 wt% carbon, in an electric arc furnace. The core claim is a combined charging-and-melting stage where DRI is continuously fed into a molten bath while the furnace is operated within a specific window for bath temperature, slag FeO content and slag B2 basicity. Anyone integrating low-carbon DRI into EAF melting should check whether their operating window overlaps these ranges before finalising a process design.
Based on the IPC composition in this dataset, furnace-detail and accessory classes (F27B, F27D) and compounds-of-other-metals class C01G carry noticeably fewer filings than the dominant steelmaking and blast-furnace classes. Sub-areas like reformer-free hydrogen supply integration, pellet sticking mitigation, and metallization degree sensing show up in the search terms but are not densely claimed in the top classes. That does not guarantee the ground is free, but it is a reasonable starting point for a freedom-to-operate search before drafting new claims there.
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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.