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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/seismic-isolation-system-structural-system-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Construction & Civil · Patent LandscapeSeismic isolation structural system patents: who is filing, where, and what is still open
- Filing has cooled since its 2020 peak. 23 families filed that year against 284 total, with the 2022 midpoint at 16 and only 2 recorded so far in the most recent (partial) year.
- Japan and China dominate the receiving offices. 128 Japanese and 118 Chinese filings dwarf the 19 filed in the United States, 10 via WIPO/PCT, and single digits in Korea and Canada.
- Vibration-damper claims (F16F) sit under building-structure claims (E04H, E04B) in most filings. 118 records touch F16F springs/dampers versus 250 in E04H and 158 in E04B, showing the mechanical isolator is usually claimed as part of a larger structural system, not standalone.
284
Published Records
33%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+42%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
JP
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this landscape covers
Seismic isolation decouples a building or structure from ground motion using bearings, sliders or dampers placed between the foundation and the superstructure. The filings tracked here sit at the intersection of specialised building structures (E04H), building elements (E04B) and vibration-damping mechanisms (F16F), meaning most documents claim a bearing or isolator as part of a complete structural system rather than as an isolated component.
The corpus spans 284 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawing from filings in Japan, China, the United States, and smaller volumes via WIPO/PCT, South Korea and Canada. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend chart will read lower than actual filing activity once the backlog clears.
Filing activity and IPC composition, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 284-family corpus: filings by year, and how those filings distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the field's technical boundary.
Filings peaked in 2020, then flattened
Annual filings ran from 18 in 2017 to a peak of 23 in 2020, sat at 16 by the 2022 midpoint, and show only 2 in the most recent partial year. Read the tail end cautiously: publication lag means recent years are always undercounted at the point of measurement, so the apparent decline is likely less steep than the raw curve suggests once later filings clear examination and publish.
Structural claims outweigh isolator-only claims
E04H (specialised buildings & structures) appears in 250 of 284 records and E04B (building structures & elements) in 158, versus 118 for F16F (springs & vibration dampers). Smaller counts in E04G (scaffolding), E02D (foundations), E01D (bridges), B32B (laminates) and B66B (lifts) mark adjacent application areas where isolation technology is claimed but filing volume is thin.
Shares are the percentage of the 284 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative and most-cited filings
Representative Filing
US20180106473A1 — Structure for seismic isolation, steel support structure, and method for seismic isolation of existing steel support structures
MITSUBISHI POWER, LTD.
Filed by Mitsubishi Power, this application claims a seismic isolation structure built into a structure plane with paired left and right columns and paired upper and lower beams. A seismic isolation device sits mid-column, displacing toward the upper beam, while a separate horizontal rigid bearing element with a connection beam links the two columns between the isolation device and the lower beam. The claim architecture retrofits isolation into an existing steel-frame column-and-beam system rather than requiring a new foundation-level isolation layer.Numbers in the abstract (10, 17, 5, 7A, 7B, 11, 13) are the drawing reference labels used in the original filing.
View full filingMost-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5881507A | Integrated horizontal and vertical seismic isolation bearing | 42 |
| 2 | JP2002054323A | Seismic isolation building | 39 |
| 3 | JP2007023626A | Vibration-controlled base-isolated structure | 34 |
| 4 | US20030099413A1 | Seismic isolation bearing | 31 |
| 5 | CN106639024A | 限位及自复位橡胶‑滑移隔震支座的施工方法 | 24 |
| 6 | US6971795B2 | Seismic isolation bearing | 24 |
| 7 | JP2001329715A | Method of constructing base-isolated structure | 24 |
| 8 | CN106013489A | 一种附带阻尼多向负刚度装置 | 22 |
| 9 | US20040131287A1 | Seismic isolation bearing | 22 |
| 10 | US20070220815A1 | Seismic isolation access floor assembly | 19 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus; treat this table as a map of foundational influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers say about the field's direction
Three patterns stand out once filing counts, IPC composition and receiving offices are read together.
Geography
128 JP vs 118 CN
leading receiving offices
Filing is concentrated in Japan and China, not the US
Combined, Japan and China account for the large majority of the 284 families, with the United States a distant third at 19 filings and WIPO/PCT accounting for 10. A filer targeting only the US market is working with a much thinner prior-art base than one filing in either Asian jurisdiction.
Receiving office data, 2015-2026
Momentum
23 → 2
peak year to latest partial year
The 2020 peak has not been sustained
Annual filings rose to 23 in 2020 before easing toward the 2022 midpoint of 16, and the latest partial year shows only 2. Some of that drop is publication lag rather than a real pullback, but the multi-year trajectory before the most recent year already points toward a plateau rather than continued growth.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Claim architecture
250 / 158 / 118
E04H / E04B / F16F record counts
Isolators are claimed inside structural systems, rarely alone
E04H and E04B counts both exceed F16F, indicating most applicants frame the isolation bearing or damper as one element of a larger building-system claim rather than pursuing the mechanical device as a standalone invention. That raises the bar for anyone trying to patent an isolator component in isolation from a building application.
IPC composition, full corpus
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
joint-filing relationships
Co-filing is limited and clustered around a few individuals
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest links are between the same small group of named inventors filing repeatedly together. That is a thin collaboration network compared to the number of distinct assignees in the ranking, suggesting most organisations file independently.
Co-assignee pairs, full corpus
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to seismic isolation system structural system, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gate sits for new entrants
Large Japanese general contractors and a cluster of individual/small-entity filers make up most of the visible activity; recent-year momentum has cooled across the named leaders.
Contractor incumbents
0 in latest year
recent-year filings, named leaders
Major Japanese contractors have gone quiet in the most recent year
Shimizu, Takenaka, Taisei and Kurosawa Construction all show zero filings in the latest recorded year, despite historical presence in the corpus. That is consistent with the broader flattening in the annual trend rather than a company-specific retreat.
Recent-year momentum table
Individual filers
8 shared filings
strongest co-assignee pair
A small inventor cluster files repeatedly together
Liang Zach and Lee George C. co-appear on 8 records, with Niu Tie Cheng linked to each of them on 5 more, forming the densest collaboration cluster in an otherwise sparsely connected assignee network.
Co-assignee pairs, full corpus
Long tail
284 families
total ranked
A long tail of single- or few-filing entrants
Beyond the named contractors and the inventor cluster, the ranking includes university departments, regional construction firms and specialty material suppliers with small filing counts each — evidence of a fragmented field rather than one locked up by a handful of players.
Assignee ranking, full corpus
Recent-year momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Shimizu Corporation | 0 | — |
| Takenaka Corporation | 0 | — |
| Taisei Corporation | 0 | — |
| LIANG ZACH | 0 | — |
| LEE GEORGE C | 0 | — |
| Kurosawa Construction Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Worksafe Technology Corporation | 0 | — |
| Obayashi Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The trend and ranking answer what has been filed. The next questions are what to file, and where it is still open.
Map claim scope against the most-cited bearing patents
The five most-cited records, several dating to the late 1990s and early 2000s, still anchor much of the citation network in horizontal and vertical bearing design. Any new bearing claim should be checked against their independent claims first.
Run a claim comparison in Patsnap EurekaWatch the receiving-office gap
With only 19 US filings against 128 in Japan and 118 in China, a US-first filing strategy faces a thinner domestic prior-art field but may still be blocked by PCT-routed foreign priority.
Check office-by-office prior art in Patsnap EurekaTrack whether the 2020 peak was cyclical
Filing eased from 23 in 2020 toward 16 by 2022. Confirming whether that reflects a genuine slowdown or publication lag requires re-pulling the trend once later years finish publishing.
Set an alert for new filings in Patsnap EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on seismic isolation patents
The ranking is led by a mix of large Japanese general contractors, including Shimizu, Takenaka and Taisei, alongside a cluster of individually named inventors who co-file repeatedly. None of these named leaders show filings in the most recent year, which lines up with the broader cooldown in annual filing volume across the corpus. A buyer or licensor should treat the ranking as historical concentration rather than current filing momentum.
Japan and China account for 128 and 118 of the 284 tracked families respectively, far ahead of the 19 filed in the United States. Both countries have significant seismic exposure and large domestic construction industries that have historically driven early adoption of base-isolation and vibration-damping building codes, which explains the concentration of receiving-office activity there rather than in jurisdictions with lower earthquake risk.
Filings rose to a peak of 23 in 2020, sat at 16 by the 2022 midpoint, and the latest partial year shows only 2 recorded so far. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years will always look lower than the true filing rate at the time of measurement. Taken together, the multi-year trend before the most recent partial year points to a plateau rather than continued growth.
A bearing-only patent typically falls under F16F (springs and vibration dampers) and claims the mechanical isolator device itself. A structural system patent, which is more common in this corpus, falls under E04H or E04B and claims the bearing or damper as one element within a larger building or column-and-beam arrangement. E04H appears in 250 of 284 records against 118 for F16F, showing most applicants pursue the system-level claim rather than the component alone.
IPC composition shows deep coverage in specialised buildings (E04H, 250 records) and building elements (E04B, 158) but much thinner activity in adjacent applications: bridges (E01D, 15), foundations (E02D, 23), scaffolding (E04G, 26), laminated materials (B32B, 6) and lifts (B66B, 5). Those low counts mark branches where isolation technology is applied but claim density is light, making them worth checking before assuming the core building-structure space is the only viable filing angle.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seismic Isolation System Structural System covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.