Liquid Hydrogen Storage for Aircraft Patents: Leaders & Gaps 2026
Liquid Hydrogen Storage for Aircraft Patents
73.6% concentration. The top five assignees hold 39 of 53 records in scope — filings are concentrated at the top with a long tail below. Filings climbed from 2 in 2017 toward a peak of 10 in 2023, with 2021 to 2024 alone showing a +100% rise (2 to 4). 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
- 1AIRBUS OPERATIONS GMBH18
- 2SPACE ACCESS6
- 3NEOEX SYSTEMS INC6
- 4WARTSILA FINLAND OY5
- 5THE BOEING CO4
See the full liquid hydrogen storage for aircraft 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
Who holds the most patents in liquid hydrogen storage for aircraft?
Filing activity in this 53-record dataset is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 18 records, and the top five assignees combined hold 39 records, or 73.6% of everything in scope. Below the top ten, holdings drop sharply to single- or double-digit counts, meaning most of the ranked twenty companies are minor players by volume. This concentration suggests that any new entrant should expect to negotiate around a small number of established portfolios rather than a fragmented field.
What technology areas dominate liquid hydrogen aircraft tank patents?
Pressure vessel and gas storage engineering, classified under F17C, appears on 52.8% of the 53 records in scope, making it the single densest technology area. Aircraft equipment integration (B64D, 34.0%) and airframe-level claims (B64C, 28.3%) follow behind it. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, so a filing that touches both tank pressure and airframe integration counts toward both shares.
Is patent filing activity in this field growing or slowing down?
Recorded filings rose from 2 in 2021 to 4 in 2024, a +100% increase over that span, with a peak of 10 records in 2023. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual slowdown, since recently filed applications have not all published yet. The safest complete-year read is through 2024, which still shows clear upward movement from the early part of the decade.
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 Liquid Hydrogen Storage for Aircraft 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.