Industrial Gases Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings grew 23% from 2021 to 2024 (149 to 184) the field is still adding volume through the last complete year, not cooling off.
- The top 5 assignees hold just 18.6% of all 6,098 records concentration is real but far from a duopoly — a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants files behind the leaders.
- Separation processes (B01D) and medicinal preparations (A61K) each cover roughly a fifth of records a signal that industrial gas claims increasingly overlap purification and pharmaceutical delivery work, not just bulk gas production.
Filing growth compares 2021 (149 records) with 2024 (184) — 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 6,098 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
This landscape covers 6,098 published records matched against industrial gas production, process gas handling and related synthesis-route claims, filtered for technical specificity through terms like molecular formula, additive concentration, product purity, chemical stability and reaction catalyst. Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-08-31 data cut-off, capturing both bulk separation technology and adjacent claims in medicinal preparation and semiconductor processing that reuse industrial gas purification methods.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity; 2024 is the last year that can be read as complete, and the growth figures on this page are anchored there rather than to the partial 2025-2026 tail.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 6,098 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 190 in 2017 to a peak of 279 in 2022, then held in a similar range through 2024 (184), up 23% from 2021's 149. The 2025-2026 figures are still filling in under publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B01D (separation processes) and A61K (medicinal preparations) each sit near a fifth of all records, with C01B, B01J and C23C close behind — evidence that industrial gas claims now span purification, catalysis, coating and pharmaceutical delivery rather than one narrow process category. Shares are computed against the full 6,098-record base and overlap because records carry multiple classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 6,098 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Industrial Gases Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about industrial gases patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
WO2026174117A1 — closed-loop stoichiometric combustion for concurrent energy and industrial gas production
A method and system for concurrent production of useful energy, high-purity industrial gases, and purified water by combusting non-carbon fuels (hydrogen, ammonia) with atmospheric air at stoichiometric conditions. The combustion consumes substantially all molecular oxygen, producing an exhaust of water vapor, chemically unchanged atmospheric nitrogen and argon, and, when ammonia is the fuel, additional nitrogen from ammonia dissociation. After water condensation, the oxygen-free, CO2-free dry gas stream is separated to recover high-purity products.Filed 2026-08-20 — near the data cut-off, so its downstream citation and family activity are not yet visible in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6248363B1 | Solid carriers for improved delivery of active ingredients in pharmaceutical compositions | 2,390 |
| 2 | US6569463B2 | Solid carriers for improved delivery of hydrophobic active ingredients in pharmaceutical compositions | 1,094 |
| 3 | US20030077297A1 | Pharmaceutical formulations and systems for improved absorption and multistage release of active agents | 1,039 |
| 4 | US6923988B2 | Solid carriers for improved delivery of active ingredients in pharmaceutical compositions | 1,006 |
| 5 | US20160045841A1 | New and improved system for processing various chemicals and materials | 860 |
| 6 | US5338625A | Thin film battery and method for making same | 856 |
| 7 | US20030180352A1 | Solid carriers for improved delivery of active ingredients in pharmaceutical compositions | 711 |
| 8 | US6756085B2 | Ultraviolet curing processes for advanced low-k materials | 692 |
| 9 | US20060199357A1 | High stress nitride film and method for formation thereof | 672 |
| 10 | US20040016637A1 | Multi-chemistry plating system | 652 |
Citation counts favour older filings by construction — a searched corpus accumulates citations over time, so high counts here signal influence within the dataset, not current relevance to active filing.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the concentration, class and geography data that matter for deciding where to file or license next.
Leadership is real but not a barrier to entry
The top 5 assignees combined hold 18.6% of all records and the top 10 hold 29.3% — meaningful share, but it leaves more than two-thirds of the field to entities outside the ranked leaders. A new entrant is not filing into a two-player market; it is filing into a fragmented one with room to build a position.
Separation and purification, not bulk production, is where claim density sits
B01D leads the IPC composition at 20.0% of records, but A61K medicinal preparations sits almost as close at 19.2% — an unusual pairing that reflects how purity and delivery claims for gases increasingly cross into pharmaceutical formulation. Filers narrowly focused on classic gas-plant process claims are competing in a smaller slice of the field than the category name suggests.
Filing is US-anchored with a strong European and PCT layer
The United States receives more than double the filings of the next office (EPO, 829), with WIPO/PCT (633), Canada (407), Australia (356) and Japan (323) forming a secondary tier. A freedom-to-operate check that skips the PCT and EPO layers will miss a meaningful share of the enforceable claim base.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to industrial gases patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has slowed
The ranked leaders span pharmaceutical carrier technology, refining, semiconductor equipment and traditional industrial gas majors — a mix that reflects how broadly the search terms cross into medicinal and coating claims.
The top-ranked assignee holds a clear but not dominant lead
At 300 records the leading assignee is well ahead of fifth place (157) and tenth place (119), but the gap narrows quickly after the top few positions — this is a field with one strong filer, not a single monopoly holder.
Recent-year activity has dropped sharply for the biggest historical filers
Several of the assignees with the largest cumulative record counts show zero or near-zero filings in the latest year, with year-on-year drops as steep as -100% and -93%. Read this alongside the 18-month publication lag: it reflects incomplete recent data as much as any real pullback.
Co-filing is concentrated among a small handful of pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairing linking a semiconductor equipment major to a university research partner, and two more pairings built around a medical products specialist and its formulation and packaging partners. Co-filing here looks like targeted technical partnerships, not broad industry consortia.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc | 1 | -93% |
| ExxonMobil Technology & Engineering Co | 0 | — |
| SiO2 Medical Products Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Applied Materials Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Air Products & Chemicals Inc | 0 | — |
| Shell Oil Co | 0 | — |
| Gilead Pharmasset LLC | 0 | — |
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij BV | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to where claim density sits and where it thins out. Turning that into a filing or licensing decision means going deeper on specific branches.
Map claim scope inside the under-claimed branches
The white-space chips above name sub-areas with filing activity but no entrenched leader. A closer read of the actual claim language in those branches shows whether a first-filed claim there is genuinely open or already narrowly blocked.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the leaders showing renewed activity
Momentum figures shift quickly once recent-year data fills in under the publication lag. Re-checking assignee activity closer to real time avoids reading a temporary reporting gap as a real slowdown.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaCheck freedom-to-operate against the representative filing
WO2026174117A1 sits close to the data cut-off and claims a specific combustion route for concurrent gas and energy production. Anyone working on non-carbon fuel combustion for industrial gas recovery should map its claims before committing engineering resources.
Review the filing in EurekaCommon questions on the industrial gases patent landscape
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 300 records, well ahead of fifth place at 157 and tenth place at 119, and the top 5 assignees combined account for 18.6% of all 6,098 records in scope. That leaves more than 80% of filings outside the top 5, spread across pharmaceutical carrier specialists, refiners, semiconductor equipment makers and traditional gas majors. No single company controls the field, so a competitive review needs to look past the top names to the long tail of moderate filers.
Filings grew from 149 in 2021 to 184 in 2024, a 23% increase over that three-year span, and 2022 was the peak year so far at 279. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower, but publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those recent years are still filling in and should not be read as a genuine drop. Based on the last complete year of data, the field is expanding rather than contracting.
Separation processes (IPC class B01D) lead at 20.0% of the 6,098 records, closely followed by medicinal preparations (A61K) at 19.2%, non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds (C01B) at 15.0%, and catalysis-related processes (B01J) at 14.4%. The near-tie between separation and medicinal preparation classes shows that purity and delivery claims for industrial gases increasingly overlap pharmaceutical formulation work, not just conventional gas-plant engineering. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read individually, not summed.
The clearest opportunities sit in branches with filing activity but no entrenched leader, such as non-carbon fuel combustion routes that co-produce energy and gas, closed-loop stoichiometric combustion control, and cross-class purity claims that bridge inorganic chemistry and medicinal preparation categories. These are areas where the dataset shows activity without the concentration seen at the top of the assignee ranking. Any specific claim direction still needs a targeted freedom-to-operate search before committing engineering resources, since a thin ranking does not guarantee an empty claim space.
The United States receiving office leads with 1,862 records, more than double the next largest office, the EPO at 829. WIPO/PCT filings account for 633, with Canada at 407, Australia at 356 and Japan at 323 forming a secondary tier. A filing or freedom-to-operate strategy focused only on the US would miss a substantial share of the enforceable claim base sitting in the European and PCT layers.
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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.