Water-Network Pressure Management Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (127 records) with 2024 (102) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 3,174 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps 3,174 published records filed against water-network pressure management: pressure reducing valves, distribution-network pressure control, and the sensing and control systems that regulate them. Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, though the most recent one to two years are understated because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months. The scope pulls in adjacent classes too — horticulture and irrigation control, water treatment, and general valve and testing art — because pressure management claims routinely cite or overlap with them.
Reading the data as patent families rather than raw document counts is the fairer lens here, since it neutralises continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates that can otherwise inflate a single applicant's apparent footprint.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,174-record dataset: activity over time, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the composition shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
A decade of filing activity
Filings rose from 87 in 2017 to a peak of 247 in 2018, then eased. The 2021-to-2024 window shows a 20% decline (127 to 102) — treat 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in rather than confirmation of a continued drop.
Where the claims sit
Control of non-electric variables (G05D, 15.9% of records) and water supply/distribution (E03B, 14.5%) are the two densest classes, followed by valves and taps (F16K, 9.9%) and horticulture/irrigation (A01G, 10.0%) — the latter reflecting how much pressure-control art originates in agricultural water delivery.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,174 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Smart Water & Utility Infrastructure: Water-Network Pressure Management Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about smart water & utility infrastructure: water-network pressure management patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing
ZA202206728A — Leakage control method for water supply network
Filed by Jilin Jianzhu University, this record describes a leakage-control method spanning pipe material selection by regional geology, metering-accuracy verification, corrosion-resistant fittings and valves, service-life checks on large-bore meters, a GPS-based maintenance and scheduling platform, and pressure setting across the network — bundled into one multi-stage claim set.Filed 2022-06-29 · South Africa
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110265951A1 | Twin chamber processing system | 732 |
| 2 | US20110265549A1 | Methods and apparatus for calibrating flow controllers in substrate processing systems | 545 |
| 3 | US8496756B2 | Methods for processing substrates in process systems having shared resources | 517 |
| 4 | US7031880B1 | Method and apparatus for assessing performance of an environmental control system | 507 |
| 5 | US20020104751A1 | Method and apparatus for ionized physical vapor deposition | 504 |
| 6 | US20110269314A1 | Process chambers having shared resources and methods of use thereof | 362 |
| 7 | US6832542B2 | Method and device for preparing a hot beverage | 258 |
| 8 | US20040219079A1 | Trifluid reactor | 238 |
| 9 | US20060229531A1 | Blood monitoring system | 235 |
| 10 | US7523603B2 | Trifluid reactor | 223 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not current relevance.
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Three patterns stand out once the assignee ranking, the trend line and the IPC composition are read together.
No single assignee controls the field
The leader holds 180 records and fifth place holds 61 — a real gap, but nowhere near dominance. With the top 10 combined at only 21.5% of records in scope, freedom-to-operate analysis has to look across a long tail of ranked entrants rather than clearing against one or two blockers.
Activity has cooled from its 2018 peak
Filings peaked at 247 in 2018 and the last complete comparison window (2021-2024) shows a 20% decline. That is a real pullback, not a publication-lag illusion, since 2024 is treated as complete — but it says nothing about 2025-2026, where data is still arriving.
Control-system claims lead, distribution claims follow closely
G05D and E03B together anchor the field, each near or above 1 in 7 records. The strong A01G (horticulture/irrigation) presence at 10.0% signals that a meaningful share of pressure-control art was drafted for agricultural rather than municipal supply, a distinction worth checking before assuming a prior-art hit blocks a municipal claim.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to smart water & utility infrastructure: water-network pressure management patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy, or identifying open claim space.
Check claims against the densest classes first
G05D and E03B together cover the largest share of records — any new pressure-control or distribution filing should be screened against these classes before broader searching.
Explore the IPC breakdown in EurekaWatch the long tail, not just the leader
With the top 10 assignees holding only 21.5% of records, competitive monitoring needs to cover a wide set of smaller filers rather than a handful of majors.
Track assignee activity in EurekaTreat 2025-2026 filings as incomplete
Publication lag means the most recent years will keep filling in; re-run trend analysis periodically rather than treating the current dip as final.
Set up trend alerts in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The dataset ranks 100 companies by patent family count, with the leader holding 180 records and fifth place holding 61. However, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 14.5% of all 3,174 records in scope, and the top 10 reach just 21.5% — so this is a field with a visible leader but no dominant controller. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at the full ranked list rather than assuming a small set of majors controls the space.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 247 records and has since cooled: the most recent complete comparison window, 2021 to 2024, shows a 20% decline from 127 to 102 filings. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as confirming a continued drop. The honest read is that activity has softened from its peak but the very latest trend is not yet fully visible in the data.
Control of non-electric variables (IPC class G05D) leads at 15.9% of the 3,174 records in scope, closely followed by water supply and distribution (E03B) at 14.5%. Valves and taps (F16K) and horticulture/irrigation (A01G) each account for roughly one in ten records, showing that a meaningful share of the art originates in agricultural water delivery rather than municipal supply. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares overlap rather than sum to 100%.
The technology composition shows density in core control and distribution classes but thinner, less concentrated activity around specific combinations — such as GPS-linked leak-scheduling platforms, corrosion-resistant fittings for buried mains, and multi-sensor calibration routines for pressure-reducing valves. These sub-areas appear in the dataset without a clear specialist assignee behind them, which is a more actionable signal of open claim space than raw filing volume alone. A freedom-to-operate search focused on these specific combinations, rather than the broad IPC classes, is the more efficient path.
ZA202206728A, filed by Jilin Jianzhu University in 2022, bundles several steps into one method: selecting pipe materials by regional geology, verifying meter accuracy, applying corrosion-resistant treatment to fittings and valves, checking large-bore meter service life, building a GPS-based maintenance and scheduling platform, and setting network pressure. Because it claims the combination rather than any single step in isolation, it is more useful as a map of how leakage-control claims get structured than as a hard blocker for narrower, single-step innovations. Anyone working on one piece of that chain — say, meter calibration alone — should check whether their claim reads narrower than the full bundled method.
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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.