Marine Sewage Treatment Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
Marine sewage and grey water treatment patents: who holds the claims and where the field is still open
Filing has cooled from its peak. 2017 was the high-water mark at 82 filings, and the 2021-to-2024 window shows a 41% decline; treat 2025 onward as undercounted since publication lags filing by about 18 months. Filings ran to 82 in 2017 and fell through the following years; the 2021-to-2024 window alone shows a 41% decline (32 to 19). The final one or two years in any such trend are always understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the apparent recent drop should not be read as the technology stalling — only as the record catching up.
- 1ELECTROCHAEA GMBH3.4%
- 2PHOTON ECO CAPTURE2.5%
- 3EBARA RES CO LTD2.4%
- 4VEOLIA WATER SOLUTIONS & TECHNOLOGIES SUPPORT SAS2.3%
- 5HASKONING DHV NEDERLAND BV1.8%
See the full marine sewage and grey water treatment 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 on this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in marine sewage and grey water treatment?
The dataset’s assignee ranking covers 100 companies, with the leading filer holding 33 of the 964 records in scope. The top 5 combined account for 119 records, or 12.3% of all records, which means no single company controls the field. Beyond the leading group, filing activity spreads across a long tail of entities with only a handful of records each, so a competitive review needs to look well past the first few names to get a complete picture.
Is patent filing in marine sewage treatment increasing or decreasing?
Filing peaked in 2017 at 82 records and has declined since, with the 2021-to-2024 window showing a 41% drop from 32 to 19 filings. However, publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are undercounted and should not be read as confirmation the field is shrinking. The most defensible read is that activity has stepped down from its 2017 peak but the very latest years are still filling in.
What technology areas dominate marine sewage and grey water treatment patents?
Core water and wastewater treatment processes, classified under IPC C02F, appear in 81.3% of the 964 records in scope, making it by far the dominant classification. Separation processes such as filtration (B01D) follow at 11.4%. Biological and waste-valorisation routes — fermentation, microorganism engineering, bioreactor apparatus, and waste-derived fertilisers and fuels — each sit between roughly 3% and 6%, indicating they are documented but far less densely claimed than mainstream treatment process work.
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 Marine Sewage and Grey Water Treatment 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.