Shipboard Carbon Capture Patents: Who Leads, White Space 2026
Shipboard Carbon Capture Integration Patents: Filing Trends and Who Holds the Claim Space
Filings grew 43% from 2021 to 2024 (61 to 87 records), the last span the data can treat as complete before publication lag thins out 2025-2026. Annual filings rose from 6 in 2017 to a peak of 147 in 2023. The 2021-to-2024 span shows 43% growth (61 to 87 records) and is the most recent period the data can treat as complete — 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, roughly an 18-month lag, so the apparent tail-off at the end of the chart is an artefact of that lag rather than a real slowdown.
- 1RONDO ENERGY INC100
- 2SAUDI ARABIAN OIL CO31
- 3GENERAL ELECTRIC TECH GMBH27
- 4SHELL INTERNATIONALE RESEARCH MAATSCHAPPIJ BV21
- 5UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY RESEARCH FOUNDATION21
See the full shipboard carbon capture integration 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 shipboard carbon capture patents
How many patents exist for shipboard carbon capture systems?
The dataset behind this landscape contains 715 published records filed or published between 2015 and 2026 that combine onboard carbon capture terminology with shipboard-specific constraints such as storage tank space, offloading logistics and energy penalty. Filing activity grew from 6 records in 2017 to a peak of 147 in 2023, with 43% growth measured between 2021 and 2024 alone. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so the true current total is higher than what has published so far.
Who are the leading patent holders in shipboard carbon capture?
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies by record count, with the top-ranked filer holding 100 of the 715 records — well ahead of the field. The top 5 assignees combined account for 28.0% of all records, and the top 10 account for 40.6%, meaning the field is led by a defined group but still has roughly three-fifths of activity spread across a long tail of smaller filers. Co-filing is uncommon: only 7 co-assignee pairs appear across the entire dataset, and most of those are affiliated entities within the same corporate group rather than independent partnerships.
What technology areas do these patents actually cover?
Most of the claim volume sits in separation-process chemistry: IPC class B01D appears in 61.1% of the 715 records and C01B in 21.5%, reflecting the underlying carbon-capture reaction and filtration technology. Thermal power (F01K, 18.7%) and heat exchange (F28D, 14.0%) classes address the energy penalty that capture systems impose on a ship’s power plant. Marine propulsion and steering (B63H) appears in only 11.5% of records, which means vessel-specific integration — as opposed to generic capture chemistry — is a comparatively thin layer of the total filing activity.
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 Shipboard Carbon Capture Integration 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.