Membrane Bioreactor Miniaturization Patent Landscape 2026
- One record carries 165 citations — an order of magnitude above the rest, concentrating influence in shipboard/combined-stream MBR rather than spreading across the field.
- Filing peaked at 5 in 2017 and the 2022 midpoint sits at zero, with every tracked assignee showing no activity in the latest year — this is a stalled, not accelerating, field.
- B01F and B63B each carry just one record against 20 in core wastewater IPC C02F, leaving mixing/aeration hardware and non-shipboard mobile units thinly claimed.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (0) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field.
A narrow niche built around one dominant claim
Membrane bioreactor miniaturization covers systems that shrink or modularize the core MBR process — combining biological treatment and membrane filtration in a footprint small enough for a ship, a shipping container, or a household — rather than the large fixed-tank MBR plants that dominate municipal wastewater treatment. The searched corpus of 20 patent families spans 2015 through mid-2026 and sits almost entirely inside IPC C02F (water and wastewater treatment), with thin extensions into filtration hardware, mixing equipment, and marine vessel integration.
The shape of the data is unusual for a technology area: one record — a modular shipboard MBR system for combined wastewater streams — carries far more citations than everything else combined, while overall filing activity peaked in 2017 and has not rebounded since. That combination points to a field where one architecture set an early reference point and subsequent filers have not displaced it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Twenty published families across 2015-2026 show a single sharp peak and no sustained follow-through — read the shape before the ranking table.
A 2017 peak with no rebound
Filings hit 5 in 2017, the high point for the whole window, then fall away; the 2022 midpoint sits at zero and nothing in the listed assignees shows latest-year activity. Publication lag means the final 12-18 months are always undercounted, but a flat or declining midpoint on top of an already-small population is a genuine signal, not just a reporting gap.
Concentrated in C02F, thin everywhere else
All 20 records touch C02F (water and wastewater treatment); 5 also carry B01D (separation/filtration), and B01F (mixing) and B63B (marine vessels) each carry exactly one. That lopsided spread means claim space outside core wastewater-treatment processing is barely staked.
Shares are the percentage of the 20 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Membrane Bioreactor Miniaturization and Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about membrane bioreactor miniaturization and integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe claim shaping this niche
US9321666B1 — Wastewater treatment with modular membrane bioreactor cartridges
Embodiments of the invention describe an apparatus, method, and system of wastewater treatment using modular membrane bioreactor (MBR) cartridges. In one embodiment, said method of wastewater treatment includes adjusting the number of activated modular MBR cartridges in a container and adjusting the wastewater processing rate of the container to dynamically change the throughput of a fixed-size wastewater processing container. According to one embodiment, said method can include utilizing modular MBR cartridges to provide for a fault-tolerant wastewater treatment container.Granted to LIBERTY EVANS, LLC on 2016-04-26 — assignee and date rendered separately above.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5254253A | Modular shipboard membrane bioreactor system for combined wastewater streams | 165 |
| 2 | US9321666B1 | Wastewater treatment with modular membrane bioreactor cartridges | 13 |
| 3 | US20160200610A1 | Cost Optimized System for WWTP Using Lagoons and In-Situ Membrane Bio Reactor Modules | 7 |
| 4 | US9828267B1 | MBR frame | 6 |
| 5 | AU2020102464A4 | A miniaturized air-lift membrane bioreactor for decentralized sewage treatment | 5 |
| 6 | AU2020100706A4 | A membrane bioreactor system for rural decentralized wastewater | 5 |
| 7 | US10099951B2 | Wastewater treatment with modular membrane bioreactor cartridges | 3 |
| 8 | US20170121193A1 | Wastewater treatment with modular membrane bioreactor cartridges | 3 |
| 9 | US20220411298A1 | Process and plant for treating wastewater containing micropollutants of pharmaceutical origin | 2 |
| 10 | US20180141839A1 | MBR frame | 2 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus; older filings accumulate citations by default, so read this as influence within the dataset, not as a current importance score.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern actually tells you
Three readings of the same small corpus — citation concentration, timing, and technology spread — each point the same direction: a narrow, stalled field with one dominant claim cluster.
Influence sits almost entirely with one architecture
The shipboard combined-wastewater-stream record's 165 citations dwarf the next entrant's 13, meaning most of what the field cites as foundational traces to a single integrated design rather than a broad base of prior art.
No rebound after the 2017 peak
Filing hit its high point in 2017 and the 2022 midpoint shows zero activity; publication lag understates the last year or two, but a flat middle of the window on a 20-family base is a real signal of cooling interest.
Adjacent hardware classes are barely touched
Mixing/stirring (B01F) and marine vessels (B63B) each appear once, against near-universal coverage of core water-treatment IPC C02F, showing claim activity has stayed inside processing method territory.
A small cooperative cluster, separate from the solo filers
Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI), LIST Luxembourg and CEBEDEAU co-file with each other at equal strength, forming a triangle distinct from the individually-assigned shipboard and cartridge patents.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to membrane bioreactor miniaturization and integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI) | LIST LUXEMBOURG INST OF SCI & TECH | 2 |
| Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI) | CENT BELGE DETUD & DE DOCUMENTATION DE LEAU EN ABREGE CEBEDEAU ASBL | 2 |
| LIST LUXEMBOURG INST OF SCI & TECH | CENT BELGE DETUD & DE DOCUMENTATION DE LEAU EN ABREGE CEBEDEAU ASBL | 2 |
| Zhejiang Kaichuang Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. | Hangzhou Qiushi Membrane Technology Co., Ltd. | 1 |
Only 4 co-assignee pairs exist in this 20-family set, and three of them link the same three organisations to each other at equal strength — there is no broader collaboration network to speak of here.
Who holds ground, and where it is thin
No assignee in this set shows filings in the latest tracked year, and the collaboration network is limited to one three-way cluster — a landscape better described as staked-but-stalled than actively contested.
LIBERTY EVANS, LLC
Holds the representative record in this dataset, covering dynamic throughput control via modular cartridge activation inside a fixed-size container — a process claim that reaches beyond one specific housing design.
Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI) + LIST Luxembourg + CEBEDEAU
These three organisations co-file with each other at equal pairwise strength, forming the only meaningful collaboration network in the dataset, distinct from the individually-filed shipboard and cartridge patents.
Xue Tonglai and other single-name filers
Individual and small-entity filers, including Xue Tonglai, appear alongside larger organisations in this compact 20-family set, reflecting how a niche this size can be moved by a handful of independent inventors as easily as by established players.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BLUE ARRAY LLC | 0 | — |
| Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI) | 0 | — |
| LIST LUXEMBOURG INST OF SCI & TECH | 0 | — |
| CENT BELGE DETUD & DE DOCUMENTATION DE LEAU EN ABREGE CEBEDEAU ASBL | 0 | — |
| Zenon Environmental Inc. | 0 | — |
| Xue Tonglai | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang Kaichuang Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hangzhou Qiushi Membrane Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this landscape next
The filing pattern here is narrow enough that a targeted freedom-to-operate check and a claim-scope comparison are more useful next moves than a broader field scan.
Check freedom-to-operate against US9321666B1
Before committing to a cartridge-based modular design, map your control logic against the dynamic-throughput and fault-tolerance limitations in this claim specifically, since it is the most structurally significant record in the set.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaStress-test a claim in the under-claimed sub-areas
Mixing/aeration hardware and non-shipboard mobile units show almost no filing density in this corpus; drafting and searching around a claim there before the field fills in is the clearer opportunity.
Draft and search in EurekaCommon questions on MBR miniaturization patents
This dataset, built from a targeted search across membrane bioreactor terms combined with compact/decentralized/modular/household qualifiers and the relevant IPC codes, returns 20 published families between 2015 and mid-2026. That is a small, specialized corpus rather than a broad MBR search, which is why single records can move the ranking noticeably. Filing peaked at 5 in 2017 and has not returned to that level since.
Based on the available filings, activity is flat to declining: the 2022 midpoint shows zero filings and no assignee in the tracked set shows any activity in the most recent year. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the very last year or two will always look thinner than it eventually turns out to be, but a zero midpoint on a base this small points to a genuine slowdown rather than a reporting artifact. Anyone treating this as a hot, accelerating field should weigh that against the flat trend directly.
US9321666B1, assigned to LIBERTY EVANS, LLC, claims a method of adjusting the number of activated modular MBR cartridges within a fixed-size container to dynamically change wastewater throughput, including using that cartridge activation as a fault-tolerance mechanism. It blocks systems that scale capacity by turning cartridges on or off inside a shared housing and that rely on the same mechanism to keep operating around a failed module. It does not obviously reach fixed-cartridge systems, shipboard-integrated architectures, or air-lift/aeration-driven decentralized designs, which are documented separately in this same corpus.
Mixing and aeration hardware purpose-built for a compact MBR shell (IPC B01F) and mobile or vessel-mounted treatment units outside the dominant shipboard cluster (B63B) each show only one record against 20 in the core water-treatment class. Combined with zero latest-year filings across every tracked assignee, that points to control-and-dosing hardware sized for household- or container-scale units as a workable, currently under-claimed direction. Verifying this with a fresh freedom-to-operate search before filing is still advisable given how quickly a small corpus like this can shift.
The tracked assignee set includes LIBERTY EVANS, LLC (holder of the representative US patent), BLUE ARRAY LLC, Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI) (Cochlear Repair Engineering, rendered per the co-assignee cluster), LIST Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology, CEBEDEAU, and Zenon Environmental Inc., among others. Three co-assignee pairs recur at a strength of 2 each, linking Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie (CMI), LIST Luxembourg and CEBEDEAU into a cooperative filing cluster distinct from the individually-filed shipboard and cartridge patents. None of these assignees show filings in the most recent tracked year.
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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.