Marine Exhaust Gas Scrubbers Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 49.5% of the 101 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 72.3% — a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants fills the rest of the ranking.
- Filings peaked in 2020. Twelve records published that year, the high point in a series that starts from zero in 2017; the most recent year is still partial because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months.
- Two IPC subclasses dominate claim drafting. F01N (exhaust treatment) and B01D (separation processes) each cover well over half of all records, while chemistry- and disposal-adjacent classes each sit under 6%.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 101 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the scrubber patent record shows
Marine exhaust gas scrubbers sit at the intersection of mechanical exhaust treatment and separation chemistry, and the patent record reflects that split. Filings cluster around washwater discharge, alkali consumption and back pressure control — the operational constraints that actually govern whether a scrubber design survives port inspection and fuel-cost scrutiny. The dataset covers 101 published records from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, searched against the specific technical language operators use to describe scrubber performance rather than the generic term alone.
Filing activity is not evenly spread. A small group of assignees accounts for roughly half of all records, receiving-office activity concentrates in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom, and two IPC subclasses cover the large majority of filings. The picture that emerges is a field with an established mechanical core and comparatively open chemistry and waste-handling branches.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 101 records: how filing activity moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim language.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2020. No growth rate is stated here because fewer than four complete years remain once the roughly 18-month publication lag is accounted for, and the final year in the series is necessarily undercounted.
IPC subclass distribution
F01N (exhaust silencers and treatment) appears in 67.3% of the 101 records and B01D (separation processes) in 58.4%, together forming the mechanical-and-filtration core. Everything else — heat recovery, chemical detox, mixing, catalysis, solid waste disposal, organic chemistry methods — sits at or below 5.9% individually. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 101 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Marine Exhaust Gas Scrubbers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about marine exhaust gas scrubbers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art in the field
US4300924A — Exhaust gas scrubber for internal combustion engines
A closed tank partially filled with water houses a core assembly: a vertical mixing tube open at both ends, a deflector cup at the bottom concentrically aligned within the tube's lower end, and a deflector hood concentrically receiving the tube's upper end. A gas inlet tube runs down through the hood and mixing tube to discharge exhaust gases near the water pool, forcing gas-liquid contact before the treated gas exits the tank.Filed by Atlas Copco Construction and Mining Holding AB; published 1981-11-17. With 104 citations, it is the most-cited record in this dataset and the mechanical reference point most later mixing-tube and deflector designs sit against.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4300924A | Exhaust gas scrubber for internal combustion engines | 104 |
| 2 | US6402816B1 | Gas scrubber | 80 |
| 3 | US6062210A | Portable heat generating device | 67 |
| 4 | US20180361312A1 | Methods and systems for removing contaminants from flue gas on a ship or offshore floating vessel using a rot… | 55 |
| 5 | WO2012113977A1 | A scrubber system for treating exhaust gas in a marine vessel and method of treating exhaust gas in scrubber … | 53 |
| 6 | US6289888B1 | Portable heat generating device | 49 |
| 7 | WO2016167708A1 | Ways to clean FLUE gas emissions in a scrubber | 47 |
| 8 | US2789032A | Method for scrubbing exhaust gases from diesel engines | 32 |
| 9 | JP2020200015A | Straight through type vessel exhaust gas scrubber and operation method for the same | 26 |
| 10 | US20040094144A1 | Reaction system of organic substances employing supercritical fluid or subcritical fluid | 21 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat this table as a signal of foundational influence, not of which claims are commercially active today.
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Three read-throughs from the concentration, timing and jurisdiction data — useful for deciding where a new filing has room and where it does not.
The mechanical core is claimed by a small group
Five assignees hold 49.5% of all 101 records and ten hold 72.3%. That level of concentration in the leading positions, against a ranking of 34 companies overall, means a new entrant targeting core mixing-tube or deflector-hood mechanics is filing into dense prior art held by a handful of parties.
Activity peaked in 2020, not at the data cut-off
The filing trend rises from zero in 2017 to 12 in 2020 and the final years in the series are undercounted because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months. Reading the most recent year as low activity would be a misread of the reporting lag rather than the field.
Two subclasses carry most of the claim language
F01N and B01D together dominate the composition chart while chemistry-adjacent classes such as A62D, B01J and C07B each sit at 4.0%. High density in the two lead classes signals occupied claim space, not that the underlying separation chemistry is settled.
Filing strategy still centres on three offices
The United States leads receiving-office counts, followed by Europe and the United Kingdom, with Canada, WIPO/PCT and Australia each in single digits by comparison. A scrubber-focused filer weighing where to seek protection first is following a pattern already set by the leading assignees.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to marine exhaust gas scrubbers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The ranking spans 34 companies counted in records, from a clear leader down to a long tail of one- or two-filing entrants — read the leaderboard on the page for exact names and counts.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 14 records, well ahead of fifth place at 7 and tenth place at 4. That gap between first and fifth is the clearest signal of where sustained R&D investment in scrubber mechanics has concentrated.
A shallow drop-off through the top ten
Counts fall from 14 at the top to 7 by fifth place and 4 by tenth, a gentler slope than the overall 72.3% concentration figure might suggest. Several assignees in this band are close enough in count that a handful of new grants could reorder the middle of the table.
Co-assignment is rare and mostly individual-linked
Only five co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest is a two-person pairing rather than a corporate joint venture. This suggests most scrubber IP in scope is developed and held by single entities rather than through formal filing partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Wartsila Finland Oy | 0 | — |
| Alfa Laval Corporate AB | 0 | — |
| Wagner Mining & Construction Equipment Co. | 0 | — |
| PACCAR Inc | 0 | — |
| TRIVETT GORDON S | 0 | — |
| TRIVETT D ANDREW | 0 | — |
| SODAFLEXX DISTRIBUTION LLP | 0 | -100% |
| Yanmar Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next checks depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying open claim space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on F01N and B01D claims
Given that two subclasses cover the large majority of records, a targeted claim-chart review of the leading assignees' F01N and B01D families is the fastest way to confirm whether a specific mixing-tube, deflector or separation design is clear to file.
Explore claim scope in EurekaMap the under-claimed chemistry branches in detail
A62D, B01J, B01F and C07B each sit at 4.0% of records, well below the mechanical core — worth a closer look at whether washwater chemistry and catalysis claims are genuinely open or simply under-searched.
Review white space in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's recent filings
With the top assignee holding 14 of 101 records, monitoring its ongoing publications is the most direct way to anticipate where the mechanical core of this field moves next.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaCommon questions on marine scrubber patents
The dataset ranks 34 companies by record count, with the leading assignee holding 14 of the 101 records in scope. The top five assignees combined hold 49.5% of all records, and the top ten hold 72.3%, so filing activity is concentrated at the top with a long tail of entrants holding only one or two records each. Exact names and counts are shown in the ranking table on this page rather than repeated here, since the ranking updates as new records publish.
Most records fall into two IPC subclasses: F01N, covering exhaust silencers and treatment, appears in 67.3% of the 101 records, and B01D, covering separation processes such as filtration, appears in 58.4%. Smaller shares sit in heat recovery, chemical detoxification, mixing, catalysis, solid waste disposal and organic chemistry methods, each at 5.9% or below. Because a record can carry more than one IPC code, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should be read individually, not summed.
Filing activity in this dataset peaked in 2020 with 12 published records, rising from zero in 2017. Filings in the most recent years are understated because patent publication typically lags the underlying filing by around 18 months, so the true recent-year total will be higher once those applications publish. A reliable multi-year growth rate cannot be computed from the current series for this reason.
The United States leads as a receiving office with 24 records, followed by Europe (EPO) at 14 and the United Kingdom at 12. Canada and WIPO/PCT each show 9 records, and Australia shows 7. This pattern suggests that filers seeking protection for scrubber technology prioritise the US and European markets first, with PCT filings used as a route to broader coverage.
US4300924A, filed by Atlas Copco Construction and Mining Holding AB and published in 1981, describes a closed-tank exhaust gas scrubber with a vertical mixing tube, a bottom deflector cup and a top deflector hood arranged to force gas-liquid contact in a water pool. It is the most-cited record in this dataset at 104 citations, making it the reference point that later mixing-tube and deflector-based scrubber designs are typically distinguished against. Its age means the core mechanical concept is long out of any original term, but its citation network shows where downstream claim drafting has focused.
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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.