Membrane Bioreactor Fouling Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
A data-driven look at 283 membrane bioreactor membrane fouling control patent records: who leads filing, how activity has shifted since the 2019 peak, and where the technology mix leaves claim space open.
Filing growth = 2021 (6 records) → 2024 (1); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 283 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the membrane bioreactor fouling control patent landscape covers
Membrane bioreactor fouling control is the set of techniques used to prevent, delay or reverse the build-up of biological, chemical and particulate matter on membrane surfaces during wastewater treatment. The 283 patent records in scope span filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from the intersection of water-treatment classification C02F and separation-process classification B01D, with a smaller cluster in bioreactor apparatus class C12M. The field covers mechanical cleaning hardware, chemical dosing, membrane surface chemistry, and monitoring approaches, though these are unevenly claimed.
Reading the dataset by assignee, filing year and IPC class together shows a field where a handful of established water-technology companies hold a meaningful but not dominant share of records, where filing activity peaked in 2019 and has since cooled, and where the bulk of claim density sits in mechanical filtration and general wastewater-treatment classes rather than in sensing, materials chemistry or catalysis.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
How membrane fouling control filings break down by geography, class and year
The 283 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, filed across six major receiving offices and clustered into a small number of IPC subclasses. Reading the trend and the class split together shows where claim density has built up and where filing has slowed.
Filing trend: a 2019 peak, then a slide through 2024
Filings ran from 10 in 2017 up to a peak of 15 in 2019, then fell through the following years to 6 in 2021 and 1 in 2024 — an 83% drop over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology mix: filtration and wastewater treatment dominate
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) covers 88.7% of the 283 records and B01D (separation processes including filtration) covers 60.8%; since records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares overlap rather than sum to 100%. Bioreactor apparatus (C12M) trails at 9.9%, and materials- and chemistry-focused classes such as D01F, C08F, C08L, G01N and B01J each sit under 2% of records, marking the thinnest-claimed corners of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 283 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Membrane Bioreactor Membrane Fouling Control Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about membrane bioreactor membrane fouling control patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited membrane fouling control patents in this dataset
US10442712B2 — Membrane bioreactor for strengthening membrane fouling control and method thereof
The patent describes a membrane bioreactor assembly built specifically to strengthen fouling control without relying on chemical cleaning agents. It combines a reactor wall, membrane element, collecting and water-collecting pipes, a vacuum table, suction pump, cleaning unit, air compressor, aeration pipe and head, and inlet and drain pipes into a single integrated system, aimed at reducing the operating complexity and secondary pollution risk that chemical-based cleaning methods introduce.Assigned to Nanjing University; granted 2019-10-15.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6524481B2 | Apparatus and method for cleaning membrane filtration modules | 190 |
| 2 | US20070007214A1 | Mixing chamber | 125 |
| 3 | WO2008153818A1 | Membrane cleaning with pulsed airlift pump | 107 |
| 4 | US20030075504A1 | Apparatus and method for cleaning membrane filtration modules | 86 |
| 5 | US20010047962A1 | Apparatus and method for cleaning membrane filtration modules | 67 |
| 6 | US20110100907A1 | Membrane cleaning with pulsed arilift pump | 66 |
| 7 | US20110198283A1 | Membrane cleaning with pulsed airlift pump | 64 |
| 8 | US20140097132A1 | Membrane Bioreactor System Using Reciprocating Membrane | 51 |
| 9 | US20160326031A1 | Anaerobic electrochemical membrane bioreactor and process for wastewater treatment | 47 |
| 10 | US20120193287A1 | Packed bed bioreactor for biofouling control of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes | 43 |
Ranked by citation count within the 283-record dataset; citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals for anyone entering this field
Three figures from the 283-record dataset matter more than the rest for deciding where to file and who to watch: the concentration at the top of the assignee ranking, the shape of the filing trend since the 2019 peak, and the unevenness of the technology mix.
Ownership is moderately concentrated, not locked up
The leading assignee holds 21 records and the top 5 combined reach 86 records, 30.4% of the field. That is enough to signal established players with defensive filing programmes, but the top 10 only reach 47.0%, meaning over half of all records sit with entities outside the ranked leaders.
Activity has cooled since the 2019 peak, but recent years are unread
Filings rose to a peak of 15 in 2019 then dropped sharply, falling 83% between 2021 and 2024. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025–2026 counts in the underlying data are not yet complete and should not be read as a continuation of that decline.
Wastewater treatment and filtration dominate the claim space
C02F and B01D between them cover the large majority of records, while classes tied to sensing, catalysis, fibre chemistry and polymer composition each sit under 2%. That gap is where claim space remains comparatively open.
Filing activity spans six major offices, led by China
China accounts for 63 filings, ahead of the United States (49), EPO (35), South Korea (30), WIPO/PCT (20) and Australia (12). A freedom-to-operate check limited to one jurisdiction would miss most of the field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to membrane bioreactor membrane fouling control patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd. | HO JAEHO | 9 |
| General Electric Co. | WANG SIJING | 2 |
| Nalco Co. | YOON SEONG HOON | 1 |
| Nalco Co. | KOPPES JEROEN A | 1 |
| Nalco Co. | HUSN INGMAR H | 1 |
| Nalco Co. | COLLINS JOHN H | 1 |
| Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd. | HO JAEHO TAMPA | 1 |
| Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies Support SAS | WITTMANN ERICH | 1 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pair shows 9 joint filings — a concentrated, deliberate collaboration rather than a broadly networked field.
Where to take this analysis next
The filing and class data point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking, or identifying open claim space.
Check freedom to operate against the dense cleaning-hardware claims
The most-cited records cluster around mechanical membrane-cleaning apparatus. Before designing a physical cleaning system, chart your architecture against the element lists in these claims rather than assuming the general cleaning principle is blocked.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTrack the ranked assignees for renewed filing activity
Filing has cooled since the 2019 peak, but the top 10 ranked assignees still hold 47.0% of all records. Watching their filing behaviour once 2025–2026 data completes will show whether the slowdown holds or reverses.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaExplore the thin sensing and materials-chemistry classes
Classes covering monitoring, catalysis, fibre features and polymer composition each sit under 2% of the 283 records. That is comparatively open claim space for a first-mover strategy focused on detection-integrated or materials-based fouling control.
Explore white space in EurekaQuestions practitioners ask about membrane bioreactor fouling control patents
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 21 of the 283 records in scope, with the fifth-placed assignee at 14 and the tenth at 8. Filing is moderately concentrated: the top 5 assignees together account for 86 records, or 30.4% of the field, and the top 10 combined reach 133 records, or 47.0%. That leaves a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants covering the remainder, so no single company controls the field outright.
Filings peaked at 15 in 2019 and fell to 1 by 2024, an 83% decline over that 2021-to-2024 span using the last years that can be treated as complete. Publication lags filing by about 18 months, so the apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 data partly reflects records not yet published rather than a real stop in filing activity. Read the 2019 peak and the subsequent decline as the confirmed trend; treat the most recent two years as provisional.
Most records sit in C02F, the water and wastewater treatment class, covering 88.7% of the 283 records, closely followed by B01D, separation and filtration processes, at 60.8%. Bioreactor-specific apparatus claims under C12M appear in 9.9% of records. Smaller classes covering fibre features, polymer chemistry, testing and catalysis each account for under 2% of records, marking areas with far less claim density.
China leads with 63 filings in this dataset, ahead of the United States at 49, the European Patent Office at 35, South Korea at 30, WIPO/PCT filings at 20, and Australia at 12. This spread indicates the technology is being protected across multiple major water-treatment markets rather than concentrated in one jurisdiction, which matters for any freedom-to-operate check that only looks at a single country's filings.
US10442712B2, assigned to Nanjing University and granted in 2019, claims a specific integrated membrane bioreactor assembly combining a reactor wall, membrane element, collection piping, vacuum table, suction pump, cleaning unit, air compressor and aeration components, aimed at chemical-free online fouling control. It blocks that particular combined hardware architecture, not the general concept of aeration-assisted or vacuum-assisted cleaning. New entrants should compare their specific component arrangement against this claim's element list rather than assume the whole cleaning approach is closed off.
Research Membrane Bioreactor Membrane Fouling Control Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole membrane bioreactor membrane fouling control patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.