Rare Earth Recovery from Phosphogypsum Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
Rare Earth Recovery from Phosphogypsum and Tailings: Patents and Who Files Them
Filing nearly quadrupled from 2021 to 2024, climbing from 6 to 20 records a year (+233%) before publication lag makes the last two years look artificially quiet. Filing rose from 6 records in 2021 to 20 in 2024, a +233% increase over that three-year span, with 2022 standing as the peak year so far at 25 records. Readings for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because of publication lag and should not be treated as a decline.
- 1ARAFURA RESOURCES24
- 2EASYMINING SWEDEN AB19
- 3GRIREM ADVANCED MATERIALS CO LTD12
- 4TECH REUNIDAS SA9
- 5INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYKHARAGPUR8
See the full rare earth recovery from phosphogypsum and tailings 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 about this landscape
What counts as rare earth recovery from phosphogypsum versus tailings in this dataset?
This landscape scopes in patents that recover rare earth elements from secondary acidic sources — phosphate industry byproducts like phosphogypsum, coal waste leachate, and legacy mineral tailings — rather than from freshly mined ore. The claims typically combine a recovery step with leaching efficiency, acid consumption, selective precipitation, radionuclide handling, gangue mineral separation, or solid-liquid separation. Records that only describe primary ore processing without a secondary-source or byproduct angle fall outside this scope.
Why does the filing trend look like it drops off after 2022?
Patent publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so records filed in 2025 and 2026 are still working their way through publication and are undercounted in this dataset. The real peak so far is 2022 at 25 records, and growth from 2021 to 2024 was +233%, rising from 6 to 20 records. Treat the last one to two years of any trend chart as incomplete rather than as a genuine decline.
Is this a concentrated field or an open one for new entrants?
Both, depending on where you look. The top 5 assignees hold 54.5% of all 132 records in scope and the top 10 hold 74.2%, which is a meaningfully concentrated core — but that still leaves a long tail of single-filing entrants below the ranked leaders. Concentration is heaviest in core extraction chemistry (C22B), while fertiliser-integration and waste-handling classes show comparatively thinner filing density.
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 Rare Earth Recovery from Phosphogypsum and Tailings 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.