Open Rotor Engine Advanced Materials Patent Landscape 2026
- Only 3 published families sit inside this exact claim intersection — a genuinely thin filing base, not a mature crowded field.
- Filing peaked in 2021 at two records then dropped to zero by the 2022 midpoint, suggesting programme-driven rather than continuous filing.
- All three records route through the United States as sole receiving office, with no filings yet visible from other jurisdictions in this dataset.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 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, programme-driven filing base
The intersection of open rotor and unducted fan architectures with composite blade, ceramic matrix composite and titanium alloy claims is small: three published families across more than a decade of coverage. That scarcity is itself the finding — it means the underlying engineering work is either still proprietary trade secret, concentrated in a handful of large aircraft-engine programmes, or filed under IPC codes this search intentionally excludes. Filing activity is not steady; it peaked at two records in 2021 and had fallen to zero by 2022, which reads as a burst tied to a specific development cycle rather than a continuously growing field.
Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the apparent silence in the most recent years is partly an artefact of the data cut-off rather than a real stop in R&D. Readers should treat the 2022–2026 portion of the trend as provisional and expect it to fill in as later filings publish.
Filing trend and technology composition
The dataset is small enough that every record carries weight in the ranking below — read the trend and IPC split as directional signals, not statistically dense curves.
A single peak, then a gap
Zero filings in 2017, a rise to two records in 2021, and zero again from 2022 onward in this cut. With only three total families, this is a spike-and-pause pattern rather than a growth curve, and the most recent years are also the ones most affected by publication lag.
Composite manufacturing and airframe codes dominate
B29C (shaping of plastics) and B64C (aeroplanes & helicopters) each carry two of the three records, with F03D (wind turbines) also appearing twice — a reminder that unducted fan blade material claims often get filed under adjacent turbine-blade codes. F01D, B64D and F02K each register a single record, marking narrower, more specific claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 3 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Open Rotor Engine Advanced Materials with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe record shaping this space
Aircraft with an unducted fan propulsor
The present disclosure is generally related to aircraft having one or more unducted fan propulsors at locations within specific regions relative to an airfoil, such as a wing or horizontal stabilizer. More specifically, the specific regions are located where there is a relatively higher pressure air flow beneath the wings or above a horizontal stabilizer. That higher pressure air flow can be utilized to provide increased thrust from the unducted fan propulsor.Filed by General Electric Company, published 2026-02-26 — the most recent record in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20230348042A1 | Unducted fan having variable pitch blades comprising reduced disturbance platforms | 2 |
With only three families total, citation counts here should be read as a marker of which claim scope other filers have referenced, not as evidence of broad influence across the field.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (1 of 1 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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With three families total, every insight here is bounded — the value is in what the pattern rules out, not in a large-sample trend.
A single burst, not a trend
Filing rose to two records in the 2021 peak year and has shown none since the 2022 midpoint. That is consistent with claims tied to one or two specific programme milestones rather than an ongoing filing campaign across this exact intersection.
United States as the sole receiving office
Every published record in this dataset entered via the United States. That leaves the question of parallel filing in Europe or Asia genuinely open — either it hasn't happened yet, or it sits outside this search's IPC and keyword boundaries.
Composite process codes carry equal weight to airframe codes
B29C shaping-of-plastics claims appear as often as B64C airframe claims and F03D wind-turbine claims, meaning material and process claims are not clustering under a single dominant subclass — the field is being approached from at least three different drafting angles.
Named assignees show no recent-year activity
Both tracked assignees register zero filings in the latest year, with one showing a -100% year-on-year change. That is consistent with the overall flat-to-declining trend rather than a signal specific to any one filer.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to open rotor engine advanced materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
A field with three families and two named assignees
The assignee ranking is short enough that it should be read record-by-record rather than as a competitive tier list. Two organisations carry named activity; the rest of the claim space is effectively open.
Safran Aircraft Engines
Tracked in this dataset with no filings in the most recent year. Any historical activity from this assignee sits earlier in the window covered here.
General Electric Company
Shows a -100% year-on-year change alongside zero filings in the latest tracked year, despite holding the most recent representative record in the dataset (published February 2026) — a reminder that publication lag can mask work already filed.
United States as the only observed route
Every record in this search published through the United States. Teams benchmarking freedom-to-operate elsewhere should treat other jurisdictions as unverified by this dataset rather than assumed-clear.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Safran Aircraft Engines | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this
The dataset points to open questions rather than a settled competitive picture — these are the next steps worth taking before committing filing budget.
Watch for the 2022–2026 publication catch-up
Given the roughly eighteen-month publication lag, filings made in 2023–2025 have not fully surfaced yet. Re-running this search in twelve months will likely change the trend shape materially.
Explore with Eureka →Test the under-claimed sub-areas for real freedom to operate
The gate chips above are drafting hypotheses, not confirmed white space. Each needs a dedicated prior-art pull before a first claim is drafted.
Run a deeper search in Eureka →Extend the receiving-office scope
All three records observed here entered through the United States. Confirming whether parallel European or Asian filings exist outside this exact IPC/keyword boundary is a natural next check.
Broaden the search in Eureka →Common questions on this landscape
Within the specific search intersection tracked here — open rotor or unducted fan architectures combined with composite blade, ceramic matrix composite, titanium alloy or lightweight material claims — there are three published patent families covering 2015 through mid-2026. This is a narrow slice of the broader open rotor engine patent literature, not a count of every patent touching open rotor propulsion. Broader searches without the materials-specific claim filter would return substantially more records.
The dataset shows two records in 2021, the peak year, followed by no further records through the 2022 midpoint and beyond in this cut. With only three total families, this looks like a burst tied to a specific engine development programme rather than a sustained filing trend. It is also possible that later filings exist but have not yet published, since patent publication typically lags the original filing date by around eighteen months.
Two named assignees appear in this dataset: Safran Aircraft Engines and General Electric Company. Both show zero filings in the latest tracked year, though General Electric holds the most recent representative record in the set, published in February 2026, covering an unducted fan propulsor aircraft configuration. The small sample size means this should not be read as a definitive ranking of who leads the field.
This General Electric filing, published February 2026, claims an aircraft configuration with one or more unducted fan propulsors positioned in specific regions relative to a wing or horizontal stabilizer, chosen to exploit higher-pressure airflow for increased thrust. It is a placement and aerodynamic-integration claim rather than a materials or blade-construction claim, so it does not directly block composite or titanium blade material work, though it does constrain where an unducted fan can be sited relative to airframe surfaces. Anyone designing a competing unducted fan installation should check this claim's specific positional language before finalising propulsor placement.
Based on the IPC composition in this dataset, sub-areas such as CMC blade root attachment, titanium fan blade erosion coatings, variable-pitch platform disturbance reduction and hybrid composite-titanium spar joints carry little dedicated claim language despite sitting inside the search scope. This does not guarantee true freedom to operate — it means the specific keyword and IPC combination used here surfaced few or no records, and a dedicated prior-art search is still needed before drafting. The overall low filing volume across the whole topic makes it plausible that several of these sub-areas are genuinely open rather than merely mis-classified.
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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.