LNG Fuel Systems for Ships Patents: Who Leads, Filing Trends 2026
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 10 records, then eased toward 2026 — a plateau, not a growth curve, once the latest partial year is set aside.
- 36.0% of all 86 records sit with just five assignees, but the ranked field runs to 53 companies, so half the landscape is a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
- F02M fuel-supply claims touch 64.0% of records, while ship-specific classes like B63J auxiliaries (7.0%) and B63H propulsion (11.6%) are comparatively thin.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 86 published records filed against LNG fuel supply, bunkering and boil-off gas management for marine vessels, spanning filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off. The search combines system-level terms — LNG fuel system ship, LNG bunkering vessel, gas fuel supply system — with claim-level qualifiers covering cryogenic tanks, hazardous-zone safety, methane slip and bunkering interface standards, so the scope favours engineering and safety claims over pure shipbuilding hull design.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in the trend is undercounted by construction and should not be read as a drop-off yet. Patent families are used in the ranking rather than raw document counts, which keeps duplicate continuation and multi-jurisdiction filings from inflating any single assignee's position.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 86-record set: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 10 in 2021, sat at 3 by the 2022 midpoint, and have not recovered since — read as flat-to-declining once the undercounted final year is excluded.
IPC subclass composition
F02M (fuel supply and carburettors) appears in 64.0% of the 86 records, well ahead of F02B engine claims at 38.4% and F02D engine control at 26.7%. Ship-specific classes — B63B hulls at 14.0%, B63H propulsion at 11.6%, B63J auxiliaries at 7.0% — are present but thin, which is consistent with a field still framed mostly as a fuel-delivery engineering problem rather than a vessel-architecture one. Classes overlap on individual records, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 86 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on LNG Fuel Systems for Ships with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lng fuel systems for ships and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US20230117362A1 — Gas fuel supply system
Discloses a gas fuel supply system linking a main fuel inlet, pressure regulating valve, pneumatically controlled shutoff bleeder valve and main fuel outlet through connected pipes. The shutoff bleeder valve opens or closes the gas delivery passage from inlet to outlet, or discharges gas held in the pipe, under control of a pneumatic control valve. The design is claimed to avoid needing connection to an additional gas source for actuation.Filed by Yantai Jereh Petroleum Equipment & Technologies Co., Ltd., published 2023-04-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5632250A | Gas fuel supply system for vehicle | 84 |
| 2 | US5291869A | Liquified petroleum gas fuel supply system | 78 |
| 3 | US5540208A | Liquefied gas fuel supply system | 74 |
| 4 | US4817568A | Dual fuel compression ignition engine | 65 |
| 5 | US20230117362A1 | Gas fuel supply system | 52 |
| 6 | JP2000303909A | Gas fuel supply system of vehicle | 49 |
| 7 | US20060054145A1 | Heating apparatus for liquefied gas fuel supply system | 33 |
| 8 | JP2006053073A | Gas flow state recognizer | 25 |
| 9 | US20060054144A1 | Gas fuel feed device | 19 |
| 10 | KR1020120075941A | LNG bunkering vessel using liquefied fuel gas supply for vapour reliquefaction | 18 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply by virtue of being searchable longer; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting new claims in this space.
The top of the field is modest, not dominant
A leader with 9 records and a fifth-place holder at 3 means no single assignee has cornered fuel-supply claims. Top 5 combined hold 36.0% of all 86 records, and the top 10 reach 50.0% — meaningful but not a chokehold on the space.
Growth has flattened since the 2021 peak
Filings hit 10 in 2021 and fell to 3 by the 2022 midpoint, with no clear rebound through the most recent years in scope. Combined with a 53-company ranked field, this reads as a technology past its initial filing rush rather than one still accelerating.
Fuel-delivery hardware is crowded; ship integration is not
Fuel supply and engine-control classes (F02M, F02B, F02D) cover the majority of records, while vessel-specific classes such as B63J ship auxiliaries and B63H propulsion appear far less often. That gap points to where system-integration claims — rather than component claims — remain comparatively open.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lng fuel systems for ships, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked field spans 53 companies across shipbuilders, engine makers and gas-equipment specialists, with receiving-office data showing China, the United States and South Korea as the busiest filing jurisdictions.
A single leader, no runaway gap
The top-ranked assignee holds 9 of the 86 records in scope, with the fifth-place holder already down to 3 and tenth place at 2 — a steep early drop-off rather than a plateau of comparably sized filers.
Most of the field files rarely
With 53 companies across 86 records and the top 10 accounting for only half of them, the majority of assignees appear a handful of times or less — consistent with a technology still attracting new entrants rather than being locked up by incumbents.
Filing activity clusters in three shipbuilding-heavy jurisdictions
China, the United States and South Korea lead as receiving offices, with Japan close behind and WIPO/EPO filings comparatively few — a pattern that tracks major LNG carrier and engine manufacturing bases rather than broad global filing strategy.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Isuzu Motors Ltd. | 0 | — |
| GASPOWER INT | 0 | — |
| Beijing Aerospace Sanfa High Tech Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hanwha Ocean Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Yantai Jereh Petroleum Equipment & Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Suzuki Motor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Sanoyas Shipbuilding Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with a shallow leadership gap and thin coverage in ship-integration claims — two starting points for deeper work.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on bunkering interfaces
Bunkering interface standard claims sit outside the dense F02M cluster; a targeted FTO pass before drafting could confirm how open this branch actually is.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the top-ranked assignee's recent filings
With only 9 records separating the leader from a crowded mid-field, monitoring their newest filings flags shifts in strategy early.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaModel methane-slip mitigation claims against dual-fuel engine art
F02B and F02D coverage is heavy on engine control generally but methane-slip-specific claims are comparatively sparse within it.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about LNG fuel system patents
This dataset identifies 86 published records covering LNG fuel supply, bunkering and boil-off gas management for marine vessels, filed between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off. The count is based on a targeted search combining system-level terms with claim qualifiers like cryogenic tank and hazardous-zone safety, so it will not match a broader search for all marine LNG-related filings. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the true count for the most recent year is understated until later filings publish.
The ranked field covers 53 companies, with the top-ranked assignee holding 9 of the 86 records and a fairly steep drop to 3 records by fifth place. That means leadership exists but is not overwhelming — the top 5 combined account for 36.0% of all records, and the top 10 reach 50.0%. The remainder of the field is a long tail of companies with only one or a few filings each, spanning shipbuilders, engine makers and gas-handling equipment specialists.
Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 10 records and had fallen to 3 by the 2022 midpoint, with no clear recovery through the most recent years captured. Read together with publication lag, the most recent year or two will always look artificially low, but the multi-year trend from 2021 onward points to a plateau rather than continued acceleration. Anyone using this as a market-timing signal should weight the 2021-2022 comparison more heavily than the tail years.
Fuel supply and delivery hardware, covered under IPC class F02M, appears in 64.0% of the 86 records and is the densest area by far, followed by internal-combustion engine claims (F02B, 38.4%) and engine control (F02D, 26.7%). Ship-specific integration classes are comparatively thin: B63J ship auxiliaries appear in only 7.0% of records and B63H marine propulsion in 11.6%. That gap suggests component-level fuel delivery claims are well-trodden while vessel-level system integration has more room.
US20230117362A1, filed by Yantai Jereh Petroleum Equipment & Technologies, claims a gas fuel supply system built around a pneumatically controlled shutoff bleeder valve that can both control gas delivery and discharge gas held in the pipe, without needing a separate gas source for actuation. Anyone designing a similar valve-and-pipe delivery architecture should check claim scope around that self-contained actuation mechanism specifically. It is one of the more recent highly-cited records in this dataset, indicating the field is actively watching this approach.
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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.