Groundwater Pump and Treat Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (1) — 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 137 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the pump-and-treat patent record actually covers
Groundwater pump and treat is one of the oldest engineered remediation approaches: extract contaminated groundwater, treat it at the surface, and either reinject or discharge it. The patent record for this specific technique, filtered to B09C1 (soil and contaminated land reclamation) and C02F (water and wastewater treatment), spans 137 published records from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off. The scope captures both the treatment chemistry and the wellfield hardware side of the process, which is why drilling and separation classes show up alongside the core water-treatment art.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend understate real activity. Reading the filing curve therefore means anchoring on the last complete year rather than the most recent one, and treating any apparent recent drop with that lag in mind.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 137-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A single peak year, then a pullback
Annual filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2023, then fell to 1 by 2024 — a -67% change over the 2021-to-2024 span, the last window with complete data. Readers should treat 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in rather than as evidence of a continued decline.
Water treatment claims lead, but drilling and separation are present in a quarter of records
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) appears in 74.5% of the 137 records and B09C (soil reclamation) in 45.3%, confirming this is primarily a treatment-chemistry field with remediation framing layered on top. E21B (well drilling, 23.4%) and B01D (separation processes, 21.9%) show that wellfield engineering and filtration hardware are claimed almost as often as a secondary layer, while G01V (geophysics, 10.9%) and G01N (analysis, 6.6%) mark smaller monitoring-adjacent niches.
Shares are the percentage of the 137 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Soil & Groundwater Remediation: Groundwater Pump and Treat Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaA representative pump-and-treat patent
US6491828B1 — Method and system to remotely monitor groundwater treatment
A contaminated aqueous composition is withdrawn from a groundwater extraction well and treated in a pump and treat system to remove a contaminant. The treating step is monitored from a location remote from the extraction well, and the treatment is adjusted to remove the contaminant based on that monitoring. The system includes a capture zone to intercept the contaminated composition, a surface pump and treat unit, and a sensor that detects the contaminant.Filed by SABIC Innovative Plastics IP B.V., published 2002-12-10 — predates the 2015 scope window but anchors the remote-monitoring branch of the art.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20030201098A1 | In situ recovery from a hydrocarbon containing formation using one or more simulations | 310 |
| 2 | US20040020642A1 | In situ recovery from a hydrocarbon containing formation using conductor-in-conduit heat sources with an elec… | 305 |
| 3 | US20030196789A1 | In situ thermal processing of a hydrocarbon containing formation and upgrading of produced fluids prior to fu… | 297 |
| 4 | US20040040715A1 | In situ production of a blending agent from a hydrocarbon containing formation | 237 |
| 5 | US20030173072A1 | Forming openings in a hydrocarbon containing formation using magnetic tracking | 184 |
| 6 | US20030183390A1 | Methods and systems for heating a hydrocarbon containing formation in situ with an opening contacting the ear… | 177 |
| 7 | US20030192691A1 | In situ recovery from a hydrocarbon containing formation using barriers | 172 |
| 8 | US20030205378A1 | In situ recovery from lean and rich zones in a hydrocarbon containing formation | 165 |
| 9 | US20030196810A1 | Treatment of a hydrocarbon containing formation after heating | 156 |
| 10 | US20030196788A1 | Producing hydrocarbons and non-hydrocarbon containing materials when treating a hydrocarbon containing format… | 140 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to be cited; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and mix mean for a filing decision
Three figures from this dataset matter more than the raw count: how concentrated ownership is, how the technology splits across disciplines, and how few assignees are actually collaborating.
A short leader group, then a long tail
The top 5 assignees combined hold 38.7% of all 137 records, and the top 10 hold 56.9%. With 97 companies ranked in total, that means most of the remaining assignees appear only once or twice — a long tail of single-project or single-site filers rather than a crowded competitive core.
This is a water-treatment field wearing a remediation label
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) appears in nearly three-quarters of records, well ahead of B09C (soil and contaminated land reclamation) at under half. Filers positioning purely as remediation specialists compete against a much larger population of water-treatment claims that happen to touch groundwater.
Activity peaked in 2023 and has since pulled back
Filings rose to a peak of 11 in 2023, then declined sharply through 2024, the last year with fully published data. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025–2026 figures cannot yet confirm whether that pullback continues.
Very little joint filing
Only 8 co-assignee pairings exist across the dataset, and the strongest of them link the same small group of individual co-inventors rather than corporate joint ventures. Most patenting in this field is done by a single assignee acting alone.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to soil & groundwater remediation: groundwater pump and treat patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated core, a treatment-chemistry-heavy claim mix, and several under-filed adjacent branches worth a closer look.
Map the white space in monitoring and control claims
G01V and G01N together cover under 11% of records each, despite remote monitoring being explicitly claimed in the field's most cited early filing. That gap is worth testing against a specific sensing or control architecture before assuming it is occupied.
Explore white space in Eureka →Watch the leader group for renewal and continuation activity
With just 5 assignees holding 38.7% of records, tracking their prosecution activity year over year is a faster signal of where the field is heading than watching the long tail.
Track assignees in Eureka →Re-run the trend once 2025–2026 data settles
The apparent post-2023 decline is only confirmed through 2024; publication lag means the true 2025 filing level is not yet visible. Revisit the curve in a future cut before drawing conclusions about a slowdown.
Set a landscape alert in Eureka →Questions practitioners ask about this landscape
This dataset, scoped to IPC classes B09C1 and C02F with pump-and-treat search terms, contains 137 published records from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off. That is a filtered figure covering the specific extraction-and-surface-treatment approach, not all groundwater remediation patents generally, since techniques like in-situ chemical oxidation or bioremediation sit under different IPC classes. Treat the 137 as the boundary of this particular search, not as the size of the whole remediation patent space.
Ownership is moderately concentrated but not monopolised: the top 5 assignees hold 38.7% of the 137 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 56.9%. With 97 companies appearing in the ranking overall, the majority of assignees file only once or twice, which points to a long tail of site-specific or project-driven filers behind a small leading group. A new entrant is more likely to be competing against that long tail than against a handful of dominant portfolios.
Filings peaked at 11 in 2023 and then fell through 2024, the last year with complete published data, producing a -67% change over the 2021-to-2024 window. Part of that apparent drop is real, but part of it is a publication-lag artefact: patent applications typically publish about 18 months after filing, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete. It is premature to call this a durable slowdown until later years finish publishing.
US6491828B1 claims a method and system for remotely monitoring a groundwater pump-and-treat operation: withdrawing contaminated water from an extraction well, treating it at the surface, and adjusting the treatment based on remote sensor monitoring of the contaminant. It does not claim the basic act of pumping and treating groundwater, which long predates this filing; it specifically covers the remote-monitoring and feedback-adjustment layer on top of that base process. A team building a pump-and-treat system without remote sensing and automated adjustment would sit outside its core claims, but any offering that closes the loop between a remote sensor reading and treatment adjustment should be reviewed against it directly.
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) appears in 74.5% of the 137 records and is the largest single class, followed by B09C (soil and contaminated land reclamation) at 45.3%. E21B (well drilling) and B01D (separation processes) each show up in roughly a fifth to a quarter of records, reflecting the wellfield-hardware and filtration side of these systems. A filing strategy that only searches B09C soil-reclamation art will miss most of the relevant prior art, which sits in the water-treatment class instead.
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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.