Reciprocating Compressor Simulation Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not grown. Activity peaked at 6 families in 2022 and shows no upward trend since 2017, despite steady baseline interest.
- Citation weight sits on one storage concept. The five most-cited records all trace to a single compressed-air energy storage family using two-phase flow heat exchange, not to core valve or thermodynamic modeling claims.
- Filing is concentrated in the United States. 56 of the tracked records went through the USPTO, more than five times the next-largest receiving office (WIPO PCT at 11).
What this patent set actually covers
Reciprocating compressor simulation and modeling sits at the intersection of mechanical design and computational engineering: patents in this set combine claims on physical reciprocating or piston compressor hardware with claims on simulation methods — thermodynamic cycle modeling, valve dynamics, or CFD. That dual requirement narrows the field considerably compared to compressor hardware patents generally. The IPC composition confirms this hybrid character: F01B (reciprocating machines) leads, but steam and gas-turbine plant classes (F01K, F02C) and fluid-actuator classes (F15B, F04B) all carry meaningful weight, showing that simulation claims here are frequently filed alongside adjacent power-conversion or fluid-handling systems rather than in isolation.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the tail end of the filing trend understates true recent activity — 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as later-filed applications publish. Even accounting for that lag, the mid-decade plateau after 2022 is a genuine signal worth weighing against any assumption that simulation-driven compressor design is accelerating.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 85-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how those families distribute across IPC subclasses.
A flat trajectory since 2017
Filings rose modestly from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2022, then eased off. There is no sustained growth curve here — treat any pitch that frames this as a fast-emerging field with caution, and weigh the 2025-2026 dip against publication lag before concluding the field is contracting.
Hardware classes dominate over pure simulation classes
F01B (reciprocating machines & engines) accounts for the largest single share at 30 records, roughly double the next subclass. The presence of F01K, F02C, B05B, F03C, F15B, F16D and F04B alongside it shows that simulation and modeling claims in this space are rarely filed as standalone software patents — they ride along with mechanical system claims across power generation, hydraulics and fluid actuation.
Shares are the percentage of the 85 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Reciprocating Compressor Simulation and Modeling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about reciprocating compressor simulation and modeling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a recent representative filing
System and method for obtaining coolant flow rate(s) for a power cell of a variable frequency drive
A variable frequency drive system includes a power converter with a plurality of power cells supplying power to one or more output phases, each power cell having multiple switching devices, a plurality of sensors monitoring values of the power converter, and a control system in communication with the power converter and controlling operation of the plurality of power cells, wherein the control system is configured via computer executable instructions to access and utilize a multi-dimensional response surface to obtain an internal coolant flow rate.Filed by Innomotics GmbH, published 2025-06-19. Notably, this claim targets thermal management of drive electronics via a modeled response surface rather than the compressor's mechanical or thermodynamic cycle directly — illustrating how simulation claims in this space have drifted toward adjacent power-electronics cooling.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110115223A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 220 |
| 2 | US20100326075A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 143 |
| 3 | US20100329903A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 136 |
| 4 | US8436489B2 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 128 |
| 5 | US20110023488A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 110 |
| 6 | US20110023977A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 109 |
| 7 | US20110030359A1 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 105 |
| 8 | US8065874B2 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 102 |
| 9 | US8240142B2 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 98 |
| 10 | US8191360B2 | Compressed air energy storage system utilizing two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange | 91 |
All five top-cited records trace to the same compressed air energy storage family built around two-phase flow heat exchange — a strong signal that this specific configuration, not general valve or cycle modeling, has drawn the most downstream citation.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data implies for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once family counts, citation weight and receiving-office data are read together.
The plateau predates any citation-driven surge
Filing activity peaked in 2022 and has since fallen off, with the 2026 figure still partial. This is not a field in visible acceleration; new entrants should verify current market interest independently rather than assume patent volume signals commercial momentum.
Influence is concentrated in one storage architecture
The five most-cited records are all variants of the same compressed air energy storage system using two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange. That concentration means citation counts here measure the pull of one influential family, not broad-based interest in reciprocating compressor simulation generally.
Filing is heavily US-centric
The United States receives the large majority of filings, with WIPO PCT, EPO, Canada, Australia and India trailing well behind. Competitors building a global freedom-to-operate picture should not assume EPO or PCT coverage mirrors US claim scope in this space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to reciprocating compressor simulation and modeling, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee concentration and collaboration patterns
Co-assignee pairings point to a small cluster of individual inventors and one company working closely together, rather than a broad competitive field.
One company-inventor pairing anchors the dataset
The strongest co-assignee link pairs a single company with an individual inventor across 6 shared filings, with two more inventor pairs each appearing on 5 filings. This points to a tight core team rather than a wide field of independent competitors.
No assignee shows active recent-year filing
Every one of the top-ranked assignees, including the core cluster, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Combined with the overall filing plateau, this suggests the most active period for this specific claim combination has already passed, pending any lag-driven correction.
A flat family-to-record ratio
Every published record in this set maps to its own patent family, with no evidence of heavy continuation filing concentrating volume behind a few applicants. That keeps the ranking relatively fragmented below the top cluster.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| LightSail Energy | 0 | — |
| InMotion LLC | 0 | — |
| CRANE STEPHEN E | 0 | — |
| POURMOUSA ABKENAR AMIRHOSSEIN | 0 | — |
| FONG DANIELLE A | 0 | — |
| BERLIN EDWIN P JR | 0 | — |
| JANHUNEN TIMO | 0 | — |
| Tyco Fire & Security LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature, US-centric filing pattern with specific under-claimed branches. Two directions make sense from here.
Map claim scope on the top-cited storage family
Since citation weight concentrates on one compressed air energy storage architecture, a claim-by-claim comparison against that family is the fastest way to understand what freedom to operate actually looks like for any new two-phase flow heat exchange design.
Explore claim charts in EurekaCheck the under-claimed branches before drafting
Valve dynamics co-simulation and power-cell coolant modeling both show thinner claim density than the core mechanical classes. Running a targeted search across recent adjacent filings before drafting can confirm whether that space is still genuinely open.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions about this patent set
The tracked dataset contains 85 published records, all mapped one-to-one to 85 distinct patent families, filed between 2017 and mid-2026. This reflects a fairly narrow, hybrid category that combines reciprocating or piston compressor hardware claims with simulation method claims such as thermodynamic cycle modeling, valve dynamics or CFD. It is not the full universe of reciprocating compressor patents generally, only the subset that explicitly ties hardware to a simulation or modeling method.
Filing activity rose from 3 records in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2022, then declined through the most recent tracked years. That is a flat-to-declining pattern rather than sustained growth. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years will likely revise upward as pending applications publish, so the true 2025-2026 picture is understated in current data.
The dataset shows a concentrated core cluster built around one company and a small group of individual inventors who co-file repeatedly, with the strongest co-assignee pairing appearing on 6 shared filings. Beyond that cluster, filing is fragmented across many single-filing entrants, and none of the top-ranked assignees show any filings in the latest tracked year. This suggests the most active phase of filing for this specific niche has already passed.
The five most-cited records in this dataset are all variants of the same compressed air energy storage system that uses two-phase flow to facilitate heat exchange, with citation counts ranging up to 220. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favor older, earlier-published records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so treat this as a measure of historical influence on that specific storage architecture rather than a signal of what is most commercially important today.
IPC composition shows dense filing in core reciprocating machine classes (F01B) and adjacent power and fluid classes (F01K, F02C, F15B, F04B), but thinner coverage in specific combined areas such as valve dynamics co-simulation with CFD, two-phase flow heat exchange control logic, and power-cell coolant response-surface modeling. These branches sit adjacent to well-covered classes rather than being entirely unclaimed, so a freedom-to-operate check against nearby filings is a sensible first step before drafting new claims there.
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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.