MOF Catalyst Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Metal-Organic Framework Catalyst Design Patents
Filings peaked in 2021 at 44 and have declined since, with the most recent full year sitting well below the midpoint — a maturing filing cycle rather than a growing one. Annual filings rose from 35 in 2017 to a peak of 44 in 2021, then fell back toward the midpoint of 27 in 2022 and continued down toward 5 in the most recent (partial) year. That trajectory — rise, peak, decline — is more consistent with a technology area moving from active claim-staking into consolidation than one still in an early growth phase, though the last year or two is undercounted due to publication lag.
- 1RGT UNIV OF CALIFORNIA24
- 2MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH21
- 3EXXONMOBIL TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING CO15
- 4THE RGT UNIV OF MICHIGAN15
- 5NUMAT TECHNOLOGIES INC13
See the full metal-organic framework catalyst design 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 MOF catalyst design patents
How many patent families exist for metal-organic framework catalyst design?
The dataset behind this landscape identifies 364 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine MOF or porous-coordination-polymer terminology with catalytic-function claims. Filing families, rather than raw document counts, are used here because they neutralise duplicate continuation filings and multiple jurisdictional copies of the same invention. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the true current total is higher than what has been published so far.
Is metal-organic framework catalyst patenting still growing?
No — filings rose from 35 in 2017 to a peak of 44 in 2021, then declined toward 5 in the most recent partial year, with a midpoint of 27 in 2022. That shape describes a filing cycle that has already crested rather than one still accelerating. Some of the drop in the last year or two is an artefact of publication lag, but the decline is visible well before the most recent year, so it is not fully explained by that lag alone.
Which jurisdictions see the most MOF catalyst patent filings?
China’s patent office leads with 140 filings in this dataset, followed by the United States at 102. WIPO’s PCT route, the European Patent Office, India and South Korea all trail well behind those two, at 43, 29, 17 and 10 respectively. Anyone assessing freedom to operate in this space should prioritise a China and US clearance search before extending to other jurisdictions.
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 Metal-Organic Framework Catalyst Design 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.