Nuclear Fuel Design Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings have fallen since 2020. The peak year was 2020 at 124 records; by the most recent full year the count had dropped to a handful, and momentum tables show every major assignee at zero or negative year-on-year filings.
- Activity concentrates in cladding alloys and ceramics, not core reactor claims. Alongside 4,242 records tagged to nuclear reactors generally, the meaningful secondary clusters sit in alloys (206), non-ferrous metal treatment (98) and ceramics/refractories (64) — the material-science layer of fuel fabrication.
- Japan is the dominant receiving office, not the US. Japan accounts for 1,248 records versus 998 for the United States and 723 for the EPO, reflecting where fuel-fabrication R&D and filing discipline have concentrated over the coverage period.
Filing growth compares 2021 (108 records) with 2024 (42) — 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 4,257 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A mature, slowing filing field built on cladding and pellet chemistry
Nuclear fuel design and fabrication patents cover how fuel pellets, cladding materials and fuel assemblies are engineered to survive burnup, limit fission gas release and resist pellet-cladding interaction. The dataset spans 4,257 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from records tagged against reactor, alloy and ceramics IPC classes. Filing peaked in 2020 at 124 records and has declined since, with the most recent full year showing single-digit counts — consistent with a field where core claim territory was staked out earlier in the coverage window.
Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent year in the trend below reads lower than it will eventually settle once pending applications publish.
Filing trend and technology composition
Annual filing counts and IPC distribution for the coverage period, drawn directly from the underlying patent family dataset.
Filings declined from a 2020 peak
From 123 records in 2017, filings rose to a peak of 124 in 2020, then fell through the midpoint year of 2022 (61 records) down to 2 in the most recent, partial year. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years understate true filing activity, but the multi-year downward slope predates that lag effect.
Reactor claims dominate; alloys and ceramics form the real secondary layer
G21C (nuclear reactors) covers nearly the entire corpus at 4,242 records, with C22C alloys (206), G21D nuclear power plants (114), C22F non-ferrous metal treatment (98), C04B ceramics and refractories (64), C23C coatings (59), G21G nuclide conversion (51) and C01G metal compounds (48) forming the material-science tail where cladding and pellet innovation is actually differentiated.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,257 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Nuclear Fuel Design and Fabrication with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about nuclear fuel design and fabrication and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Method of manufacturing a nuclear fuel assembly (US10991473B2)
A method of manufacturing a fuel assembly for use in a core of a nuclear power reactor. The method includes manufacturing each of a plurality of elongated fuel elements by mixing powdered fuel material with powdered metal non-fuel material. The mixed powdered fuel material and metal non-fuel material is sintered to create a fuel core stock, the fuel core stock is surrounded with a cladding material, and the fuel core stock and cladding material are co-extruded to create the fuel element. The fuel element has a spirally twisted, multi-lobed profile that defines a plurality of spiral ribs.Filed by Thorium Power, Inc., granted 2021-04-27.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP1990032293A | Boiling water nuclear reactor | 486 |
| 2 | US3878041A | Oxynitride fuel kernel for gas-cooled reactor fuel particles | 130 |
| 3 | US5513226A | Destruction of plutonium | 115 |
| 4 | US20080144762A1 | Non Proliferating Thorium Nuclear Fuel Inert Metal Matrix Alloys for Fast Spectrum and Thermal Spectrum Thori… | 100 |
| 5 | US4285769A | Control cell nuclear reactor core | 98 |
| 6 | US5400375A | Transuranium elements transmuting fuel assembly | 83 |
| 7 | US4879090A | Split vaned nuclear fuel assembly grid | 81 |
| 8 | US3166614A | Process of making nuclear fuel element | 70 |
| 9 | US20120087457A1 | Cladding material, tube including such cladding material and methods of forming the same | 67 |
| 10 | US6512805B1 | Light water reactor core and fuel assembly | 67 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and favour older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once filing volume, IPC distribution and citation data are read together.
The field has passed its filing peak
Filings rose from 123 in 2017 to a peak of 124 in 2020, then declined steadily through the 2022 midpoint (61) to just 2 in the most recent year. Recent-year momentum tables show every tracked major assignee at zero or negative year-on-year change, with none showing renewed growth.
Cladding alloys outweigh ceramic fuel work
Alloy composition (C22C, 206 records) and non-ferrous metal treatment (C22F, 98) together outnumber ceramics and refractories (C04B, 64), suggesting metallic cladding chemistry has drawn more claim activity than ceramic fuel-pellet routes within this corpus.
Japan leads as receiving office
Japan received 1,248 of the tracked filings, ahead of the United States (998), the EPO (723), the United Kingdom (228), WIPO/PCT (204) and Canada (141). That ordering signals where fuel-fabrication R&D has been most actively protected, rather than where the underlying reactor fleets are largest.
Co-filing is concentrated among a small set of Japanese pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset. The strongest pairing accounts for 95 joint filings, with the next two pairs at 47 and 16 — a pattern of a few durable, deep partnerships rather than broad cross-industry collaboration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to nuclear fuel design and fabrication, with the prior art for and against each one.
A small, largely inactive set of established filers
The assignee list is dominated by long-established reactor and fuel manufacturers, nearly all of whom show flat or declining recent-year filing activity.
Westinghouse still files, but is slowing
Westinghouse Electric Company shows 2 filings in the latest tracked year, down 50% year-on-year — the only assignee among the tracked group still filing at all in the most recent period.
Hitachi, Toshiba and GE show no recent activity
Hitachi, Toshiba, General Electric, Westinghouse Electric Sweden and Nuclear Fuel Industries all show zero filings in the latest tracked year, despite appearing among the historically active assignees and co-assignee pairs in this corpus.
Deep pairs, not broad networks
The strongest co-assignee relationship, Toshiba with Japan Nuclear Fuel, accounts for 95 joint filings — far ahead of the next pairing (Hitachi with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy at 47). With only 10 co-assignee pairs total, collaboration in this field runs through a handful of long-standing corporate relationships rather than a wide network.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Westinghouse Electric Company | 2 | -50% |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB | 0 | — |
| Nuclear Fuel Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| TerraPower, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Thorium Power, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with declining new filings but unresolved claim density in specific material sub-areas. Two lines of follow-up are worth prioritising.
Check freedom-to-operate in coated-cladding and thorium-matrix claims
The IPC tail (C23C coatings, C01G compounds) and the thorium-related cited prior art suggest these sub-areas carry fewer but potentially blocking claims. A targeted search against active families in these classes will clarify actual white space versus apparent white space.
Explore this in EurekaTrack whether dormant incumbents resume filing as ATF programmes mature
Zero latest-year activity from Hitachi, Toshiba and GE could reflect either genuine pullback or publication lag. Re-running the momentum view in 12 months will separate the two and flag any re-acceleration tied to accident-tolerant fuel programmes.
Explore this in EurekaCommon questions about nuclear fuel design and fabrication patents
The data shows filings peaking at 124 records in 2020 and falling steadily to just 2 in the most recent tracked year, with the 2022 midpoint at 61. Part of the recent drop is a publication-lag artefact, since filings typically take about 18 months to appear in public records, so the last year or two will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. But the decline is visible well before the lag window, suggesting the core cladding and reactor-fuel claim space staked out earlier in the period has simply been occupied, leaving fewer novel filing opportunities for incumbents.
Among the tracked major assignees, Westinghouse Electric Company is the only one showing any filings in the latest tracked year, with 2 filings representing a 50% year-on-year decline. Hitachi, Toshiba, General Electric, Westinghouse Electric Sweden and Nuclear Fuel Industries all show zero filings in that same period. This does not necessarily mean these organisations have stopped fuel-design R&D entirely — it may reflect the same publication lag affecting the broader trend, but on current public data, filing activity from established players has gone quiet.
The search here is scoped specifically to fuel assembly, cladding, burnup and fission-gas-release claims within the broader G21C reactor classification, plus alloy (C22C), ceramics (C04B) and coating (C23C) classes relevant to fuel materials. G21C nuclear-reactor classification covers the overwhelming majority of records (4,242 of 4,257), but the technically differentiated fuel-design work — cladding alloy composition, pellet ceramics, coated surfaces — sits in the smaller secondary IPC classes. Reading only the top-line reactor count would overstate how much of this corpus is genuinely about fuel-specific engineering.
US10991473B2, assigned to Thorium Power, Inc. and granted in 2021, claims a method of manufacturing fuel elements by mixing powdered fuel and non-fuel metal material, sintering it into a fuel core stock, and co-extruding that stock with cladding into a spirally twisted, multi-lobed profile with defined spiral ribs. It blocks fabrication routes that combine powder-metallurgy fuel cores with co-extruded cladding in that specific twisted multi-lobed geometry, not fuel assemblies generally. Anyone designing around it should look closely at the lobe-tip and inter-lobe intersection geometry claims, since those structural details — rather than the sintering step alone — appear to be the narrowest and most defensible part of the claim.
Relative to the dense reactor-level and core cladding-alloy claim territory, coated cladding surface treatments, thorium-based fuel matrices, spiral-rib fuel element geometries, fission gas release mitigation coatings and non-proliferating fuel alloy blends show thinner filing density in this corpus. That does not guarantee an open field — thin filing density can also mean a technology was tried and abandoned — but it does mean fewer competing claims to search against before drafting new priority filings in those specific sub-areas. A formal freedom-to-operate search against active families in those IPC classes is the necessary next step before relying on apparent white space.
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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.