Rheometry Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Flat filing activity. Filings peaked at 8 in 2024 after sitting near 3 a year through the late 2010s and 2022 — this is a maturing field, not a fast-growing one.
- US-centred filing. United States receives more than double the filings of the next-largest office (Europe), with WIPO PCT filings close behind Europe, pointing to a global-protection strategy concentrated on a few applicants.
- Drilling and pressure-sensing pull rheometry outward. Beyond core G01N material-testing claims, the next-largest IPC blocks sit in well drilling (E21B) and force/pressure measurement (G01L), showing where rheometer methods get re-claimed for downhole and industrial use.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 227 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine rheometer or dynamic mechanical analysis instrumentation with claims on storage/loss modulus, yield stress, time-temperature superposition, wall slip or geometry selection. The scope sits inside G01N material-testing classifications, with secondary activity spilling into drilling, pressure measurement, bearings, plastics shaping and glass compositions.
Publication for the most recent filing year is necessarily incomplete, since patent applications typically publish around eighteen months after filing — so the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart will rise as backlog clears, even though the underlying growth pattern already looks flat rather than accelerating.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 227 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A flat filing curve
Annual filings moved from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 8 in 2024, passing through 3 again at the 2022 midpoint. That is not a growth curve — it is a technology where claim space has been staked out gradually rather than rushed, and where a sudden competitive entrant would be unusual given the historical pace.
Concentrated in G01N, with instrumentation crossover
All 227 families touch G01N material analysis and testing, the expected core. The next-heaviest blocks are E21B (well drilling, 21 records) and G01L (force and pressure measurement, 16 records), showing rheometry claims migrating into oilfield and process-industry sensing rather than staying confined to lab instruments. Smaller pockets in F16C (bearings), B29C (plastics shaping) and C03C (glass) mark niche application claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 227 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Rheometry and Viscoelastic Characterization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about rheometry and viscoelastic characterization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
Measurements of yield stress and plastic viscosity of cement-based materials via concrete rheometer (US20080060423A1)
The claim covers a rheometer using a drum and a replaceable adaptive vane assembly on a rotating shaft, with the vane-to-drum radius ratio fixed between 0.1 and 0.6 and a minimum rotational speed above 0.001 rad/s, measuring torque at constant speed to derive yield stress and plastic viscosity while reducing slippage against the tested material.Cited 71 times in this dataset — the single most-cited record in the corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080060423A1 | Measurements of yield stress and plastic viscosity of cement-based materials via concrete rheometer | 71 |
| 2 | US5532593A | Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging rheometer | 61 |
| 3 | US5277058A | Adjustable gap rheometer | 52 |
| 4 | US20180045630A1 | Method to estimate strain rate dependent elastic modulus of materials using dynamic mechanical analysis data | 50 |
| 5 | US6588254B1 | Rotary rheometer | 38 |
| 6 | US20080034844A1 | Method and Device for Characterizing a Fluid | 37 |
| 7 | US20130118235A1 | Combined rheometer/mixer having helical blades and methods of determining rheological properties of fluids | 29 |
| 8 | US5315863A | Continuous on-line measurement of fluid or slurry rheology | 27 |
| 9 | US5652376A | Method of measuring yield stress | 26 |
| 10 | US6484566B1 | Electrorheological and magnetorheological fluid scanning rheometer | 25 |
Citation counts reward older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited — read this table as a map of influential prior art, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about this field
Three read-throughs from the filing and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file next.
Growth is modest, not explosive
The filing count nearly tripled from 2017's low of 3 to a peak of 8 in 2024, but passed back through 3 at the 2022 midpoint — an uneven, low-volume pattern rather than sustained acceleration. A new entrant does not need to out-file an incumbent at speed; the bar is claim quality, not filing volume.
US-first, PCT-backed protection
United States filings roughly double the next office (Europe), with WIPO PCT filings close behind at 32 — a pattern consistent with US-headquartered or US-focused applicants extending protection abroad through the PCT route rather than filing nationally in each market up front.
Foundational geometry patents still anchor the field
The most-cited record concerns concrete rheometer vane geometry and yield-stress measurement, and the next four most-cited records are all core instrument patents — NMR rheometers, adjustable-gap designs, rotary rheometers. New filings in basic geometry or gap-adjustment claims are filing into dense, well-cited prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to rheometry and viscoelastic characterization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
Recent-year momentum across the leading assignees is flat: every top assignee identified in this dataset shows 0 filings in the latest year, consistent with the overall lag in recent publication rather than a sign that these players have exited the field.
One tight collaboration dominates co-filing
Of 10 identified co-assignee pairs in the dataset, the strongest links Victoria Link with an individual inventor, Galvosas Petrik, across 12 shared families, with a related three-way overlap involving Brox Timothy at 10 families each. This looks like a university-linked research group patenting jointly rather than a corporate joint venture.
Publication lag masks true recent activity
Every top assignee tracked here, from Waters Investments to Halliburton and Schlumberger, shows zero filings in the most recent year. Given the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, this reflects incomplete data for 2025-2026 rather than a genuine pullback by these firms.
Entry gate runs through the US and PCT
With US filings roughly double any other single office and WIPO PCT filings close behind Europe, a new entrant's practical filing gate is a US-first strategy backed by a PCT application, not a scattershot national filing approach.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Waters Investments Limited | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (US) | 0 | — |
| Victoria Link Limited | 0 | — |
| GALVOSAS PETRIK | 0 | — |
| UWS Ventures Limited | 0 | — |
| Schlumberger | 0 | — |
| BROX TIMOTHY | 0 | — |
| Malvern Instruments Limited | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation data point to a mature, US-anchored field with pockets of open claim space in cross-industry applications.
Map the white space claims
Draft candidate claims in the under-claimed sub-areas identified here — wall-slip correction, downhole rheometry and bearing-integrated sensing — and check them against the dense prior art in core geometry patents before committing to a filing strategy.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the flat-momentum leaders
The leading assignees show no recent filings in this dataset, which may reflect either the publication lag or a genuine pause. Track their filing behaviour over the next reporting cycle to tell which it is.
Monitor assignees in EurekaCommon questions about rheometry patents
This dataset identifies 227 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine rheometer or dynamic mechanical analysis instrumentation with claims on properties such as storage and loss modulus, yield stress, time-temperature superposition or wall slip. All 227 fall under the G01N material-testing IPC classification, with smaller overlapping groups in drilling, pressure measurement and plastics shaping. Because recent filings take time to publish, the true current total is somewhat higher than what is visible today.
The dataset's assignee ranking includes instrumentation and oilfield services companies such as Waters Investments, Halliburton, Schlumberger and Malvern Instruments, alongside a research-linked cluster built around Victoria Link and named inventors Galvosas Petrik and Brox Timothy. Notably, every one of these leading assignees shows zero filings in the most recent year in this dataset, which is more likely a publication-lag artefact than a sign these organisations have stopped filing. Confirming current activity requires checking more recent filings once they publish.
Filing activity in this dataset is essentially flat rather than growing. Annual filings moved from 3 in 2017 up to a peak of 8 in 2024, but passed back through 3 again at the 2022 midpoint, meaning growth has been uneven rather than sustained. This pattern suggests a mature field where claim space has already been substantially staked out, rather than one experiencing a filing surge.
US20080060423A1 is the most-cited record in this dataset, with 71 citations, and it claims a concrete rheometer using a replaceable adaptive vane assembly on a rotating shaft, with the vane-to-drum radius ratio fixed between 0.1 and 0.6 and rotational speed above 0.001 rad/s, measuring torque at constant speed to derive yield stress and plastic viscosity. It specifically blocks vane-and-drum geometry configurations within that radius ratio range used for cement-based material testing. Anyone designing a similar concrete or slurry rheometer needs to check their vane geometry and speed ranges against this claim rather than assume general rheometer prior art clears it.
Based on the IPC composition and citation density in this dataset, lighter-claimed areas include wall-slip correction algorithms, downhole rheometry for drilling fluids, automated time-temperature superposition workflows, bearing-integrated viscoelastic sensing and glass-melt rheometry. These sit adjacent to the dense core of rheometer geometry and torque-measurement claims rather than replacing them. A practitioner should still run a focused prior art search on any specific claim language before filing, since white space at the IPC-subclass level does not guarantee an individual claim is novel.
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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.