Soil Vapor Extraction Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 43.3% concentration at the top. The top 5 of 79 ranked assignees hold 97 of 224 records (43.3%), with the leader alone at 45 — a steep drop-off after that into a long tail.
- Thermal desorption still dominates citation influence. The most-cited records in this set are in-situ thermal desorption heater patents from the 1990s-2000s, still drawing citations well above anything filed since.
- B09C dominates, but H05B is the smallest wedge worth watching. 84.8% of records sit in soil reclamation (B09C), while only 7.1% touch electric heating circuits (H05B) — a narrow, thinly claimed corner next to a crowded core.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 224 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the patent record shows about soil vapor extraction and air sparging
Soil vapor extraction (SVE) and air sparging are established vadose-zone and groundwater remediation techniques, and the patent record around them is correspondingly mature rather than fast-moving. Across 224 records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, filing activity has stayed low and roughly flat, peaking at just 7 filings in 2023. This is not a field defined by a rush of new entrants; it is one where a small set of assignees built durable positions years ago and the claim space around well spacing, vapor flow rate control and off-gas treatment has been walked over repeatedly since.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent filing years in this dataset understate real activity — 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as more applications publish. Reading the trend line therefore means discounting the last one to two years rather than treating a flat tail as evidence of decline.
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Filing concentration and technology composition
Two views matter here: how filings are distributed across assignees, and how they are distributed across IPC subclasses. Both point to a field where the core technique is heavily claimed and the adjacent instrumentation and monitoring layers are comparatively open.
A flat filing trend with one notable peak
Filings sat at zero in 2017 and have not trended sharply up or down since; the closest thing to momentum is a peak of 7 records in 2023. With fewer than four complete post-lag years to compare, no growth rate can be stated reliably — the honest read is a mature field with steady, low-volume filing rather than one accelerating or contracting.
B09C anchors the field; H05B and A62D are the thin edges
B09C (soil and contaminated land reclamation) appears in 84.8% of the 224 records in scope, confirming this is fundamentally a remediation-method field rather than a drilling or equipment field, even though E21B (earth and rock drilling) still touches 18.8% of records. A62D (chemical detox, 9.4%) and H05B (electric heating circuits, 7.1%) are the smallest wedges — both plausible entry points for claims that pair SVE/sparging with newer in-situ heating or detox chemistry, since fewer records currently occupy that intersection.
Shares are the percentage of the 224 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Soil Vapor Extraction and Air Sparging with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about soil vapor extraction and air sparging and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe citation heavyweights and a representative filing
System and method for decontamination of contaminated soil in the vadose zone and/or groundwater (US20050276662A1)
A system and method for the accelerated decontamination of contaminated soil, vadose zone and/or groundwater is described. Contaminants are removed from soil and from the groundwater via heat injection through trenching or directionally drilled or horizontally drilled and installed delivery plumbing, pure oxygen injection through separate plumbing installed in the same manner as the plumbing used to deliver the heat, bioventing, sparging, and bioremediation, all through the oxygen delivery plumbing, and soil vapor extraction through vertical wells, all contained in one mobile treatment system. Contaminants are separated from the soil gas via filtration or oxidation.Filed by SMITH, KEITH L., published 2005-12-15 — combines heat injection, oxygen injection, bioventing, sparging and vertical-well SVE in a single mobile system.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20020018697A1 | Heater element for use in an in situ thermal desorption soil remediation system | 245 |
| 2 | US5769569A | In-situ thermal desorption of heavy hydrocarbons in vadose zone | 201 |
| 3 | US6632047B2 | Heater element for use in an in situ thermal desorption soil remediation system | 187 |
| 4 | US6854929B2 | Isolation of soil with a low temperature barrier prior to conductive thermal treatment of the soil | 175 |
| 5 | US5620593A | Multi-stage in-well aerator | 96 |
| 6 | US5271693A | Enhanced deep soil vapor extraction process and apparatus for removing contaminants trapped in or below the w… | 95 |
| 7 | US7003405B1 | Methods for characterizing subsurface volatile contaminants using in-situ sensors | 92 |
| 8 | US5650128A | Method for destruction of volatile organic compound flows of varying concentration | 82 |
| 9 | US5814514A | Biodegradation of the gasoline oxygenates | 79 |
| 10 | US5635139A | Method and apparatus for destruction of volatile organic compound flows of varying concentration | 78 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more years to accumulate citations; treat this as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current technical merit.
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The dataset supports a few concrete, decision-relevant observations rather than a single headline story.
The top of the field is narrow, the rest is a long tail
Five assignees out of 79 ranked hold 97 of the 224 records in scope, with the single leader at 45 filings — roughly half the top-5 total on its own. Beyond tenth place (6 records), the ranking thins quickly, meaning most participants in this space hold only a handful of families each.
Older thermal desorption patents still set the reference frame
The most-cited records in this dataset are heater-element and in-situ thermal desorption patents dating to the late 1990s and early 2000s. New filers in thermal-enhanced SVE should expect to be read against, and potentially design around, these older families before anything filed in the last five years.
The core remediation claim space is dense; heating-circuit integration is not
B09C's 84.8% share confirms that most patent activity frames SVE and air sparging as a soil/land reclamation method. H05B, covering electric heating circuits, sits at only 7.1% — a much thinner overlap that suggests less-crowded claim territory for filers combining SVE with resistive or inductive in-situ heating control.
Collaboration is concentrated within a small corporate family
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pair shares 11 records — activity consistent with related corporate entities filing jointly rather than an open collaborative ecosystem. Most assignees in this field file independently.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to soil vapor extraction and air sparging, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where a newcomer could still stake a claim
With 43.3% of records held by the top 5 of 79 ranked assignees, a newcomer's best odds are not in contesting the core B09C claim space head-on but in the thinner overlaps where filing density is still low.
One assignee holds roughly the field's median share by itself
The leading assignee's 45 records nearly match the combined total of the next four ranked assignees, indicating a long-running, systematic filing programme rather than opportunistic single filings.
A stable mid-tier exists but with no runaway momentum
Fifth place sits at 9 records and tenth at 6, a gentle taper rather than a cliff — this mid-tier is where most active competitive monitoring should focus, since these assignees still file but have not consolidated the leader's position.
US filing dominates, but PCT and EPO coverage is meaningful
United States filings lead at 88, with WIPO/PCT at 39 and European filings at 24, plus Australia (22) and Canada (19). Jurisdiction strategy for this field should assume US-first filing is the norm, with PCT as the standard route to secondary markets.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. | 0 | — |
| Shell Canada Limited | 0 | — |
| The Lubrizol Corporation | 0 | — |
| ENVIROGEN INC(US) | 0 | — |
| Thermatrix Inc. | 0 | — |
| Shell Oil Company | 0 | — |
| CAMP DRESSER & MCKEE | 0 | — |
| THE SOIL RES LAB SPRL | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
The figures above establish where the field stands; the next step is applying them to a specific claim or design decision.
Check freedom-to-operate against the citation heavyweights
Before drafting claims in thermal-enhanced SVE, review the heater-element and in-situ thermal desorption families that dominate citation counts in this dataset — they are the ones most likely to have broad, well-tested claims still in force.
Explore prior art in EurekaMap the under-claimed intersections before assuming white space
Low IPC overlap, such as the 7.1% H05B share, indicates thinner claim density but not necessarily an open field — verify against the specific assignees active in that intersection before committing to a claim strategy.
Run a white space analysis in EurekaWatch the mid-tier assignees, not just the leader
The leader's 45 records set the ceiling, but the fifth-to-tenth-place assignees (9 to 6 records each) are the more useful group to monitor for emerging technical direction, since their smaller portfolios shift faster.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions about soil vapor extraction and air sparging patents
This dataset contains 224 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that match soil vapor extraction and air sparging remediation terms combined with technical qualifiers like well spacing, vapor flow rate and vadose zone. The true global total is larger, since this is a scoped search rather than an exhaustive count of every remediation patent ever filed. Filing activity within this window has stayed low and roughly flat, peaking at 7 records in 2023, which is consistent with a mature rather than fast-growing technology area.
The assignee ranking covers 79 companies, and it is heavily concentrated: the top 5 combined hold 97 of the 224 records in scope (43.3%), with the single leading assignee accounting for 45 of those. Beyond the top 10, which together hold 58.5% of all records, filing activity spreads thinly across a long tail of assignees with only a handful of families each. This pattern is typical of a field with a long operating history rather than one still attracting new entrants at scale.
In patent terms, soil vapor extraction (SVE) claims typically centre on withdrawing contaminated vapor from the vadose zone, often specifying well spacing, vapor flow rate or off-gas carbon treatment as key parameters. Air sparging claims instead focus on injecting air below the water table to volatilise contaminants, which then migrate upward for capture, frequently by an SVE system. Many records in this dataset, including the representative filing analysed here, combine both techniques with additional heat or oxygen injection into a single integrated system rather than claiming either technique alone.
B09C (soil and contaminated land reclamation) is the dominant classification, appearing in 84.8% of the 224 records in scope, confirming that most patents in this space are framed as remediation methods rather than drilling or equipment inventions. E21B (earth and rock drilling, 18.8%) and C02F (water and wastewater treatment, 19.6%) are the next most common secondary classes, reflecting that many SVE systems also address groundwater and require well infrastructure. Thinner classes like H05B (electric heating circuits, 7.1%) mark areas of lower filing density worth a closer look for new claims.
Based on this dataset, filing activity has been essentially flat since 2017, with a peak of only 7 records in 2023 and no clear upward or downward trend. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any such dataset will understate real filing activity and should not be read as a decline. Overall, the pattern points to a mature technology area with steady, low-volume filing rather than one in active expansion or contraction.
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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.