Nuclear I&C Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2018 at 10 and have not returned to that level, with the 2022 midpoint down to a single filing before a modest late uptick — a flat-to-declining curve rather than a growing one.
- One co-assignee pair accounts for 23 of the 45 families, concentrating a large share of documented activity in a single collaboration rather than spreading it across the field.
- G21D coverage sits at 45 of 45 records but G06F, H02H and H05K each register only single digits, showing that digital data processing, protective circuitry and board-level hardware are still thinly claimed relative to the core nuclear-plant category.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families addressing nuclear instrumentation and control, reactor protection systems and digital nuclear I&C, filtered to claims touching diversity and defense in depth, qualification, common cause failure, aging of analog systems, or cybersecurity, and classified under G21D, G21C or G05B. It spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with 45 published records and 45 distinct families — a small, tightly scoped corpus rather than a broad sweep of general nuclear-plant art.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is necessarily undercounted; treat the last one or two years as a floor, not a ceiling. Receiving-office data shows the United States as the dominant venue, with Canada, the EPO and PCT filings forming a secondary tier and China and the UK trailing.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below separate when filings happened from what they claim — useful for spotting whether a slowdown in volume is matched by a narrowing or a broadening of subject matter.
A peak in 2018, not since repeated
Filings rose to 10 in 2018, then fell back toward single digits, hitting 1 at the 2022 midpoint. The pattern reads as a burst tied to a specific regulatory or product cycle rather than sustained investment, with only a partial rebound visible before the data cut-off.
Concentration in G21D and G21C, thin coverage elsewhere
Every record touches G21D (nuclear power plants), and most also sit in G21C (reactors, 26) or G05B (control systems, 22). Digital processing (G06F, 8), protective circuits (H02H, 8), and printed circuit assemblies (H05K, 5) each appear in only a fraction of records, and pulse/logic circuits (H03K) and digital transmission (H04L) appear just once each — the hardware and cybersecurity layers of I&C are claimed far less densely than the plant-level system itself.
Shares are the percentage of the 45 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Nuclear Instrumentation and Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about nuclear instrumentation and control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Devices, systems, and methods for enhancing the implementation of control circuits for nuclear instrumentation and control systems
Filed by Westinghouse Electric Company and published 2024-01-18, this application covers a nuclear I&C system built from selectively removable finished board assemblies inside a housing, each electrically coupled to the reactor's instrumentation and control system. A daughter card carrying a control circuit couples selectively to a base board, allowing input/output circuitry to be swapped without redesigning the housing.The claims center on modular board-level architecture rather than the control logic itself, which narrows what the filing can block for algorithmic or software-only approaches.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200343009A1 | Nuclear Reactor Protection Systems and Methods | 14 |
| 2 | US20180330837A1 | Digital protection system for nuclear power plant | 10 |
| 3 | CN108022662A | 核电站数字化保护系统 | 8 |
| 4 | US11017907B2 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 6 |
| 5 | US20240087761A1 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 5 |
| 6 | US20180122524A1 | Digital protection system for nuclear power plant | 4 |
| 7 | US11069450B2 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 3 |
| 8 | CA3144136A1 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 3 |
| 9 | US20210287813A1 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 2 |
| 10 | US11961625B2 | Nuclear reactor protection systems and methods | 2 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited; read them as a signal of past influence, not current relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once family counts, IPC spread and co-filing behaviour are read together.
A burst, not a build
The 2018 peak of 10 filings was not sustained; by the 2022 midpoint activity had dropped to a single filing. Anyone reading this as a growth market should note the shape of the curve, not just the historical peak.
Activity clusters around one partnership
The strongest co-assignee pair in the dataset links two related entities across 23 families — roughly half the entire corpus. A second pair adds 5 more. Most of the remaining filings are single-assignee, single-family entrants.
System-level claims dominate; hardware and cyber layers are thin
Every record sits in G21D, and most add G21C or G05B, but only 8 records each reach digital data processing (G06F) or protective circuitry (H02H), and just 5 reach printed-circuit assemblies (H05K). Cybersecurity-adjacent claim language exists in the search terms but has not produced dense IPC coverage in H04L or H03K.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to nuclear instrumentation and control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum sits now
Recent-year momentum is muted across the board — most named assignees show zero filings in the latest year, consistent with the broader flat-to-declining trend.
NuScale Power
The only assignee in the momentum data with a nonzero filing in the latest year, and the anchor of the dataset's largest co-assignee pairing at 23 families with a related innovation partner.
Westinghouse Electric
Westinghouse shows zero filings in the latest year against prior-year activity, a full year-over-year drop. Its representative filing in this dataset is board-level and hardware-modular rather than software-centric.
Rock Creek Innovations
Paired with NuScale Power across the dataset's strongest co-assignee relationship, suggesting a structured joint filing arrangement rather than incidental overlap.
China Nuclear Power Engineering & CGN Power
China General Nuclear's research and power arms appear as a co-assignee pair, one of only three such pairs identified in the corpus, reflecting a smaller but present state-backed filing presence.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NuScale Power, LLC | 1 | — |
| Rock Creek Innovations, LLC | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Company | 0 | -100% |
| Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| PARAGON ENERGY SOLUTIONS LLC | 0 | — |
| CHINA NUCLEAR POWER ENG COMPANY LTD & CHINA GUANGDONG NUCLEAR POWER HLDG | 0 | — |
| China General Nuclear Power Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| China General Nuclear Power Corporation | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and IPC patterns above point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white space filing, or partner tracking.
Map the NuScale–Rock Creek claim set in full
With 23 families under one co-assignee pairing, a claim-by-claim comparison would show exactly which board-level and control-circuit elements are locked up versus open for alternative designs.
Explore in EurekaStress-test the cybersecurity and hardware gap
G06F, H02H and H05K each cover only a handful of records against 45 in G21D — worth confirming whether that reflects genuine white space or claims filed under different search terms.
Run a deeper search in EurekaCommon questions on nuclear I&C patents
Within this dataset, activity is concentrated around a co-assignee pairing between NuScale Power and Rock Creek Innovations, which together account for 23 of the 45 total families — roughly half the corpus. Westinghouse Electric also appears prominently through several highly-cited filings on digital protection systems, though its recent-year filing count has dropped to zero. No single independent assignee outside these groupings holds a comparably large share, and most other entrants appear with just one or two families.
In this corpus, reactor protection system claims typically cover the hardware and logic that detects abnormal reactor conditions and triggers automatic safety actions, often described as board assemblies, control circuits or digital protection modules. The most-cited records in the dataset, including several Westinghouse and CGN filings, frame these systems around modular circuit boards and digital signal processing rather than purely mechanical trip logic. Claims commonly reference common-cause-failure mitigation and diversity requirements, reflecting regulatory expectations for redundant, independent protection channels.
The dataset shows filings rising to a peak of 10 in 2018 before falling back to as low as 1 by the 2022 midpoint, with only a partial recovery since. This pattern is consistent with a concentrated development or qualification cycle — likely tied to a specific product certification push — rather than sustained market-wide investment. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in the trend are undercounted and should not be read as the true end state of filing activity.
IPC composition shows every record touching G21D (nuclear power plants) and most touching G21C or G05B, but far fewer reaching G06F (digital data processing, 8 records), H02H (protective circuitry, 8) or H05K (printed circuit assemblies, 5). Subclasses like H03K and H04L each appear only once despite cybersecurity and digital transmission being named in the search criteria. That gap suggests claim space around cybersecurity hardening of protection logic, aging-analog replacement circuits, and printed-circuit qualification testing remains comparatively open.
Common cause failure is one of the core search terms behind this dataset, and it surfaces most often in claims describing diverse, redundant protection channels rather than single-point digital designs. Filings from assignees such as Westinghouse and the CGN-affiliated pair frame diversity and defense-in-depth as architectural requirements — separate hardware paths, independent board assemblies, or mixed analog-digital redundancy — rather than as a single patentable mechanism. Because this concept spans both G21C and G05B classifications, claims addressing it tend to be system-level rather than confined to a narrow circuit implementation.
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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.