Hydrogen Refueling Station Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (95 records) with 2024 (61) — 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 485 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 485 published patent records filed against a search built around hydrogen refueling station safety, spanning pressure vessel design, pipeline transport, leak detection and alarm systems, and the data-processing layers that manage dispensing and monitoring. The scope runs from 2015 through the current filing year, with 2026 data still partial because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Records are drawn overwhelmingly from Chinese receiving offices, with smaller but meaningful volumes from the United States, Europe, the WIPO PCT route, Australia and India. That distribution says as much about where refueling infrastructure is being built out fastest as it does about where safety-specific claims are being drafted.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views matter here: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which technical subclasses carry the claim density. Both come from the same 485-record set.
Filing trend: a 2021 peak, then a real pullback
Annual filings rose from 15 in 2017 to a peak of 95 in 2021, then declined to 61 by 2024 — a 36% fall over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 show lower counts, but those years are still filling in as publications catch up with filings, so they should not be read as a continuing decline on their own.
Technology composition: containment and pipeline dominate
F17C (pressure vessels and gas storage) appears in 53.4% of the 485 records, and F17D (pipeline transport) in 18.6% — together these physical-containment classes dwarf the software and monitoring classes (G06Q, G06F, G08B) and the materials and electrolysis classes (C01B, H01M, C25B), each in the single-to-low double digits. A record can sit in more than one class, so these shares add up past 100%, but the pattern is clear: the mechanical hardware problem still absorbs most of the claim activity.
Shares are the percentage of the 485 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hydrogen Safety & Detection: Refueling Station Safety Patent Landscape with Eureka
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A gas-electricity interconnection system for a reversible fuel cell under compound gas conditions
Filed by Xi'an Jiaotong University, this record describes a reversible fuel cell connected to both a hydrogen refueling station and a natural gas transmission pipeline via a hydrogen-methane-carbon monoxide line, with a pressure-reducing station positioned upstream of the pipeline junction. It illustrates a system-level integration approach that ties refueling infrastructure directly into gas grid interconnection, rather than treating the station as a standalone dispensing point.Abstract condensed from the original filing.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170248976A1 | Communication system for a hydrogen refuelling system | 74 |
| 2 | US20070181083A1 | System and method for producing, dispensing, using and monitoring a hydrogen enriched fuel | 65 |
| 3 | CN112966378A | 一种基于安全评价模型的氢泄露的预测方法及系统 | 25 |
| 4 | CN206682593U | 一种加氢瓶阀模块 | 25 |
| 5 | CN111928111A | 一种模块化加氢站及其氢敏示踪泄漏监测系统 | 24 |
| 6 | CN111928116A | 一种模块化加氢站及其氮气抑爆系统 | 23 |
| 7 | US7721682B2 | System for producing a hydrogen enriched fuel | 23 |
| 8 | CN112819097A | 一种加氢站中氢能设备的风险评价方法 | 22 |
| 9 | CN113719746A | 一种加氢站全自动氢气接收和加注系统 | 20 |
| 10 | US20070159345A1 | Safety warning and shutdown device and method for hydrogen storage containers | 20 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older records simply because they have had longer to be cited — treat them as a signal of influence within the searched set, 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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The ranking, the citation table and the co-filing pairs each point to a different kind of risk or opportunity for someone entering this space.
A leader well ahead of the pack, then a long tail
The leading assignee holds 40 records on its own, with the fifth-ranked company at 13 and the tenth at 7. The top 5 combined account for 19.0% of all 485 records, and the top 10 for 28.0% — meaning more than two-thirds of the field is spread across the remaining 90 ranked companies and unranked filers.
Past the peak, but not yet a settled market
Filing volume fell 36% from its 2021 peak of 95 to 61 in 2024, the last year with reliable publication coverage. That pullback is worth watching rather than treating as a verdict — 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete and will revise upward as publications catch up.
Containment hardware, not software, is the crowded ground
F17C and F17D together cover well over half of all records once overlap is accounted for, while the monitoring and alarm class G08B sits at just 4.7%. Anyone assuming sensing and detection is the saturated part of this field should check that assumption against the vessel and pipeline classes first.
A handful of tight filing partnerships
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest two both involve the same corporate family filing jointly on 9 records each. Co-filing here looks more like internal corporate structuring than open industry collaboration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hydrogen safety & detection: refueling station safety patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going record by record.
Map claims against the F17C cluster
With over half of records touching pressure vessel and gas storage claims, a targeted claim-chart pass against that subclass will tell you faster than any summary statistic where a new containment design actually has room.
Explore this landscape in EurekaTrack the post-2021 pullback by assignee
The aggregate filing drop from 2021 to 2024 hides very different trajectories across individual companies. Pulling assignee-level trend lines separates genuine pullback from a leader simply slowing its own pace.
Run an assignee trend queryWatch the under-represented classes
G08B, C01B and C25B each sit under 5% of records. That is either genuine white space or a sign the safety problem in those areas is being solved outside patent claims — worth checking before assuming either.
Compare technology branchesCommon questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 40 of the 485 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 13 and the tenth at 7. The top 5 assignees combined account for 19.0% of all 485 records, and the top 10 for 28.0%, which leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of smaller filers. This pattern — one clear leader, then a gradual drop-off — is typical of an infrastructure niche where a handful of equipment makers built early positions before the wider supply chain caught up.
Filings rose steadily through the late 2010s and peaked in 2021 at 95 records, then fell 36% to 61 by 2024, the most recent year with complete publication coverage. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is expected: publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so recent years are undercounted until the backlog clears. Treat the 2021-to-2024 decline as the reliable signal, and wait for revisions before concluding the field has cooled further.
Pressure vessel and gas storage design, classified under F17C, appears in 53.4% of the 485 records in scope, making it by far the largest single technology cluster. Pipeline transport (F17D) follows at 18.6%, with data-processing, alarm and materials classes each in single digits. Because a record can carry more than one classification, these figures add up to more than 100%, but the takeaway is consistent: physical containment and transport hardware absorb far more claim activity than sensing, software or fuel-cell chemistry in this dataset.
The smallest technology shares in this dataset belong to signalling and alarm systems (G08B, 4.7%), non-metallic inorganic compounds (C01B, 4.3%), fuel cells and batteries (H01M, 4.1%) and electrolytic production (C25B, 3.7%). Each of these sits well below the pressure-vessel and pipeline classes that dominate filings, which suggests detection, alarm logic and the chemistry side of the station are comparatively open relative to the hardware. That gap is worth verifying against recent individual filings before committing, since low counts can also reflect a genuinely smaller technical problem rather than unclaimed space.
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies across the 485 records, and concentration is moderate rather than extreme: the top 5 hold 19.0% of all records and the top 10 hold 28.0%, leaving more than two-thirds of filings distributed among the remaining ranked companies and unranked filers. Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the data, and the strongest pairs look like affiliated entities within the same corporate group rather than arm's-length collaborations. A new entrant is more likely to face a crowded but fragmented field than a small number of blocking incumbents.
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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.