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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/industrial-catalytic-reforming-process-control-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Chemical & Process EngineeringIndustrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control Patents
- Flat since the peak. Filings topped out at 10 in 2020 and the 2022 midpoint sits at 8 — this is a mature, not growing, filing pattern.
- Control-specific IPC codes are a minority. G05B and G05D together account for 43 of 225 records against 225 in C10G, meaning most refining patents still frame control as a secondary claim, not the core one.
- Citation weight sits in decades-old FCC hardware. The five most-cited records date back to 1971–2004, so influence in this corpus is concentrated in injection and feed-handling patents, not recent control algorithms.
225
Published Records
54%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-25%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of catalytic reforming, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and hydrocracking with process-control elements — riser temperature control, regenerator control and conversion optimisation — filed between 2015 and mid-2026. The search combines refining-process language with control-system IPC codes (C10G11/18, G05B13, C10G35) to isolate patents where control logic, not just reactor hardware, is the claimed subject matter.
225 published records map to 225 patent families, so the ranking below is not inflated by continuation filings or multi-jurisdiction duplicates. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent filing year in any trend line understates real activity.
Filing activity, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 225 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A peak in 2020, then a plateau
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2020, then held near that level — the 2022 midpoint of 8 shows growth has flattened rather than continued to climb. That pattern is consistent with a field where the core control architectures were staked out early in the window and later filings are refinements rather than new claim territory.
Control codes are a minority share
Every record carries a C10G hydrocarbon-refining code, and more than half carry B01J catalysis codes, but only 23 records sit in G05B (control and regulating systems) and 20 in G05D (control of non-electric variables). Analytical and monitoring codes — G01N at 12 — are smaller still, indicating that sensor and analytics claims are the least-crowded slice of this landscape relative to the reactor and catalyst claims around them.
Shares are the percentage of the 225 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control with Eureka
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Try EurekaPrior art
Most-cited records and a representative filing
Representative filing
US9701914B2 — Advanced control of severe FCC process for maximizing propylene production
SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY
Petroleum oil such as gas oil is catalytically cracked using a base cracking catalyst containing stable Y-type zeolite plus a shape-selective zeolite additive, in a down-flow FCC apparatus with regeneration, separation and stripping zones, under relatively severe conversion conditions. The stated aim is to maximise propylene yield through applied process control and monitoring rather than catalyst chemistry alone.Filed by Saudi Arabian Oil Company, published 2017-07-11.
Highest-citation records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20040099572A1 | FCC catalyst injection system having closed loop control | 91 |
| 2 | US6859759B2 | Method and apparatus for monitoring catalyst requirements of a fluid catalytic cracking catalyst injection sy… | 77 |
| 3 | US5173175A | FCC feed injector | 72 |
| 4 | US4764268A | Fluid catalytic cracking of vacuum gas oil with a refractory fluid quench | 71 |
| 5 | US3617497A | Fluid catalytic cracking process with a segregated feed charged to the reactor | 65 |
| 6 | US20040166032A1 | Method and apparatus for metering catalyst in a fluid catalytic cracking catalyst injection system | 56 |
| 7 | US4872969A | Method for valveless control of particle transport | 54 |
| 8 | US20050103684A1 | Mobile fluid catalytic cracking injection system | 53 |
| 9 | US6974559B2 | Apparatus for metering catalyst in a fluid catalytic cracking catalyst injection system | 50 |
| 10 | US5768904A | Processes for integrating a continuous sorption cooling process with an external process | 50 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate references — read this as a map of influence on later filers, not a ranking of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data actually indicates
Three read-throughs from the filing pattern, IPC split and citation graph, each with a direct implication for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Filing pace
Peak 10 (2020)
families filed
A plateau, not a growth curve
Activity climbed from zero in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2020 and has not exceeded that since, with the 2022 midpoint at 8. Treat any 2024–2026 dip as a publication-lag artefact rather than a real slowdown, but do not read this as an expanding field either.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Claim concentration
225 vs 23
C10G vs G05B records
Control claims ride on refining claims
Nearly every record in this set is anchored in C10G hydrocarbon-processing language; only a minority carry a dedicated control-systems code. A control innovation filed purely under G05B/G05D logic, without refining-process framing, sits in noticeably thinner claim territory.
IPC composition
Prior art age
1971–2004
top-cited filing years
Influence sits in feed and injector hardware
The five most-cited records in this corpus are FCC feed injectors, catalyst injection systems and feed-quench methods, not control algorithms. New filings on riser or regenerator control logic are less likely to collide with this old, heavily-cited hardware than with more recent, less-cited software claims.
Most-cited records
Collaboration
10 pairs
co-assignee pairings
Filing is mostly solo, not joint
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across 225 families, and the strongest pairing tops out at six shared filings. Co-development is the exception in this landscape, so a partnership-based filing strategy would stand out rather than follow convention.
Co-assignee pairs
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to industrial catalytic reforming process control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who is filing
Assignee landscape and momentum
Filing here is led by refiners and licensors with deep FCC hardware portfolios, alongside control-system specialists who partner into refining claims rather than filing them solo.
Refiner-led filing
0 latest year
momentum for leading assignees
Named leaders show no recent-year filings
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum — including Saudi Arabian Oil Company, UOP, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, and Marathon Petroleum — shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the 18-month publication lag, this is most likely a reporting gap rather than an exit from the space.
Recent-year momentum
Control specialists
4
shared filings, strongest control pairing
Fisher-Rosemount pairs into refiner filings
Fisher-Rosemount Systems' strongest co-assignee pairing (4 shared filings with an individual inventor) shows a control-instrumentation vendor filing alongside refining operators rather than independently — a pattern worth watching for licensing or joint-development angles.
Co-assignee pairs
Geographic filing
76 US filings
leading receiving office
US and EPO dominate, PCT is secondary
The United States receives more than double the filings of any other single office (76), with Europe second at 42 and WIPO/PCT third at 26. Canada's 25 filings are close behind PCT, suggesting deliberate direct national filing rather than PCT-route entry for this technology.
Receiving offices
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Intercat Equipment, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Saudi Arabian Oil Company | 0 | — |
| UOP LLC | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company | 0 | — |
| MARATHON PETROLEUM COMPANY LP | 0 | — |
| Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Engelhard Corporation | 0 | — |
| Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next steps
Where to take this analysis
This landscape frames where claim density sits and where it does not. The next step is testing a specific claim or design-around against the full family set.
Check freedom-to-operate on a specific control loop
Run a targeted search against the G05B/G05D subset to see which specific riser or regenerator control claims are live and enforceable before drafting around them.
Explore in EurekaTrack the named assignees for renewed filing
Given the zero-momentum reading is likely a publication-lag artefact, set an alert on the leading assignees to catch the next wave of disclosures as it clears the 18-month lag.
Explore in EurekaMap the co-assignee network in full
With only 10 co-assignee pairs in 225 families, a full network view could reveal which control-vendor and refiner pairings are worth approaching for licensing or joint filing.
Explore in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions
In this landscape, a record must combine refining-process language — catalytic reforming, fluid catalytic cracking or hydrocracking — with a control-specific element such as riser temperature control, regenerator control or conversion optimisation, and it must sit under at least one of the IPC codes C10G11/18, G05B13 or C10G35. This excludes pure catalyst-composition patents that make no control claim, and it excludes generic industrial control patents that do not name a refining process. The result is 225 patent families where control logic is a claimed feature, not incidental language in the specification.
The trend is flat rather than growing: filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2020, and the 2022 midpoint of 8 shows no further acceleration. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent drop in the most recent years is partly a reporting artefact and should not be read as an abrupt exit from the field. Taken together, the pattern is best described as a mature, steady-state filing rate rather than an expanding one.
Filing is led by major refiners and process licensors alongside at least one control-instrumentation vendor that files jointly rather than solo. Saudi Arabian Oil Company, UOP, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, Marathon Petroleum and Fisher-Rosemount Systems all appear among the tracked assignees, though all show zero filings in the latest tracked year — most plausibly a publication-lag effect given the field's historical activity. No single assignee's recent momentum currently stands out above the others in this dataset.
The smaller IPC branches point to the gaps: G01N (material analysis and testing) has only 12 records and F02M (fuel supply integration) has 11, both far behind the 225 C10G and 122 B01J records that dominate the corpus. This suggests analytics-driven catalyst injection monitoring and fuel-supply-linked reforming control are comparatively open relative to core reactor and catalyst claims. A first filing in these branches would face a thinner prior-art field than one targeting riser or regenerator hardware directly.
The most-cited records in this corpus date from 1971 to 2004 and cover FCC feed injectors and catalyst injection systems, which reflects how citation counts accumulate over time rather than which technology is most relevant today. High citation counts here signal foundational hardware that later filings had to reference, not necessarily the state of the art in control software. Anyone assessing current freedom-to-operate should weight recent, lower-citation filings alongside these historical anchors rather than relying on the citation ranking alone.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Industrial Catalytic Reforming Process Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.