Scroll & Rotary Compressor Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Scroll and Rotary Compressor Patents for Refrigeration
Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees together hold 38.1% of all 17,672 records in scope, and the ranked ten hold 53.6% — a field where a handful of incumbents control the core claim space. Filings peaked at 822 records in 2017. On the last complete comparison, volume fell 45% from 471 records in 2021 to 258 in 2024; 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates.
- 1LG ELECTRONICS INC15.6%
- 2EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES INC6.9%
- 3SANDEN CORP6.0%
- 4CARRIER CORP5.4%
- 5MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP4.2%
See the full scroll and rotary compressor for refrigeration 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in scroll and rotary compressor technology?
The assignee ranking behind this landscape lists 100 companies, with the leader holding 2,749 of the 17,672 records in scope. The top five combined hold 38.1% of all records, and the top ten hold 53.6%, so the field is concentrated at the top but still has a long tail of smaller filers below the ranked leaders. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should start with the leading handful before assuming the rest of the field is open.
Is scroll compressor patent filing activity increasing or decreasing?
Filing peaked at 822 records in 2017 and has declined since; comparing the last complete years, 2021 to 2024, volume fell 45%, from 471 to 258 records. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures in any such dataset will always look artificially low and should not be read as a continuation of the decline. The honest read is that the field has cooled from its 2017 peak, not that it is disappearing.
What is the difference between scroll and rotary compressor patent claims?
In this dataset, F04C (rotary-piston pumps) is the dominant classification, covering 72.0% of the 17,672 records, while F01C (rotary-piston machines) and F04B (positive-displacement pumps) each cover around 17%. Scroll-specific mechanical features such as tip seals, Oldham couplings and orbiting-scroll mounting tend to sit within these same broad classes rather than a separate one. F25B, the refrigeration-and-heat-pump class, appears in 13.6% of records and marks where compressor claims connect to system-level refrigeration cycle claims.
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 Scroll and Rotary Compressor for Refrigeration 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.