Solids and Silo Level Measurement Patents: Leader, Then a Long Tail 2026
- One assignee accounts for 17 of 26 records in scope, with the top five combined reaching 96.2% of all filings — this field is not a contest among many players.
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 6 records and has not repeated that level since; the most recent year is undercounted because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
- B01F and B65D each cover 57.7% of the 26 records, showing that mixing/stirring and container claims dominate over dedicated flow-and-level instrumentation (G01F at 30.8%).
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 26 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Solids and silo level measurement sits at the intersection of bulk material handling and sensing: how a system knows how much granular or bulk solid sits inside a silo, hopper or storage vessel, and how that reading feeds blending, dosing or inventory decisions. The search scope here pairs level-measurement terms with practical failure modes and physical behaviours — angle of repose, dust generation, material bridging, acoustic mapping, filling profile and inventory accuracy — so the corpus captures patents that treat level sensing as part of an operational system, not just a standalone sensor claim.
The 26 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, filed through receiving offices led by the United States and Canada. The technology composition leans toward storage and blending infrastructure — mixing/stirring and container classes each cover more than half the records — with dedicated flow/level measurement claims (G01F) present in under a third. That split matters for anyone drafting new claims: the instrumentation layer is comparatively less crowded than the systems built around it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 26 records: how filings moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 6 in 2017 and have not returned to that level. With fewer than four complete years once the roughly 18-month publication lag is accounted for, no growth rate can be stated reliably from this trend alone; treat the latest years as undercounted rather than declining.
IPC subclass coverage
B01F (mixing & stirring) and B65D (containers & packaging) each appear in 57.7% of the 26 records, with E21B (earth & rock drilling) at 38.5% and B65G (conveying) at 34.6%. Dedicated measurement classes — G01F at 30.8% and G05D at 19.2% — trail the systems classes, meaning most claims describe the storage or handling system with level sensing as one component, rather than a standalone measurement method.
Shares are the percentage of the 26 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Solids and Silo Level Measurement with Eureka
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Try EurekaMost-cited records in this space
A silo level indicator
This earlier record establishes a direct silo level indicator claim, predating the multi-component blending and storage systems that dominate the more recent, more heavily cited filings in this dataset.Filed by an individual assignee rather than a corporate entity — a reminder that concentration at the top of this ranking sits alongside a long tail of single-filing entrants.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170021318A1 | Storage and blending system for multi-component granular compositions | 133 |
| 2 | US20170313499A1 | Delivery, storage and blending system for multi-component granular compositions | 81 |
| 3 | US3981195A | Silo level measuring system | 29 |
| 4 | US20190248578A1 | Blender hopper control system for multi-component granular compositions | 16 |
| 5 | US10406962B2 | Storage management system | 15 |
| 6 | US10300830B2 | Storage and blending system for multi-component granular compositions | 14 |
| 7 | US10625654B2 | Delivery, storage and blending system for multi-component granular compositions | 9 |
| 8 | US20210062632A1 | Blending system for fracturing fluid | 7 |
| 9 | US10836568B2 | Blender hopper control system for multi-component granular compositions | 7 |
| 10 | US20180297503A1 | Storage Management System | 6 |
Citation counts reflect an older, more-cited record's position inside this searched corpus, not its current commercial relevance — recent filings have not had time to accumulate citations.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three figures from this dataset carry direct implications for where to file and where to watch.
One leader, then a steep drop-off
The leading assignee holds 17 of the 26 records in scope, with the top five together reaching 96.2%. That leaves almost no room for a sixth assignee to have filed meaningfully more than a single record — this is a field shaped by one dominant filer rather than a competitive cluster.
Activity has not sustained its 2017 peak
Filings reached 6 in 2017 and have not matched that figure in any subsequent year through the 2026 cut-off. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent years understate true activity, but the absence of a second peak is notable on its own.
Instrumentation claims trail systems claims
Dedicated flow, level and volume measurement claims (G01F) appear in under a third of the 26 records, while mixing/stirring and container claims each cover well over half. That gap suggests the measurement method itself carries less claim density than the storage and blending systems built around it.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solids and silo level measurement, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee ranking returns six companies in total, counted in records — this is the full list the dataset produces, not a filtered top tier.
A single dominant filer
The top-ranked assignee's 17 records account for the majority of the entire dataset, concentrated in storage, blending and multi-component granular handling systems rather than standalone sensors.
A steep drop after the leader
Beyond the leader, the ranking falls quickly to single-digit and single-record filers, including individual inventors and smaller entities. This pattern is typical of a field with one commercially active blending/storage business and a scatter of unrelated or earlier claims.
Filing activity concentrates in North America
The United States and Canada together account for the bulk of receiving-office activity, with Australia, the United Kingdom, India and Japan each contributing a smaller share. Anyone assessing freedom to operate outside North America should check these smaller jurisdictions individually rather than assume coverage.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| SOLARIS OILFIELD SITE SERVICES OPERATING LLC | 0 | — |
| FORNEY INTERNAL | 0 | — |
| WALKER RONALD JAMES | 0 | — |
| FORNEY ENG | 0 | — |
| Steel Authority of India Limited | 0 | — |
| Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated core and a thinner instrumentation layer — the next step is testing specific claim language against that gap.
Check freedom to operate around the leader's core claims
With one assignee holding the majority of records in storage and blending systems, any new filing in that space should be checked against their specific claim scope before drafting.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaDraft into the under-claimed measurement branches
Acoustic mapping, bridging detection and filling-profile-based accuracy sit inside the search scope with lighter claim density than the systems classes — a specific, narrow claim there faces less prior art.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads with 17 of the 26 records in scope, and the top five assignees together account for 96.2% of all records. That means the field is dominated by a single active filer in storage and blending systems, with the remaining assignees each holding a small number of records. Anyone entering this space should study the leader's claim scope closely before drafting, since almost all prior art of consequence traces back to that one filer.
The filing trend peaked in 2017 at 6 records and has not matched that level in any year since, through the 2026 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, the most recent years in any dataset understate real activity, so a firm growth or decline rate cannot be stated from this trend alone. What can be said is that no second wave of filing has appeared since the 2017 peak.
Mixing and stirring (B01F) and containers and packaging (B65D) each appear in 57.7% of the 26 records in scope, making them the two largest IPC subclasses. Earth and rock drilling (E21B) and conveying/material handling (B65G) follow at 38.5% and 34.6% respectively. Dedicated flow, level and volume measurement claims (G01F) appear in only 30.8% of records, indicating that most patents treat level sensing as one function inside a larger storage or handling system rather than as a standalone measurement invention.
The search scope includes several physical phenomena and failure modes — acoustic mapping, material bridging, dust generation, filling profile and angle of repose — that appear as search terms but are not covered by the dominant systems classes (B01F, B65D). Because dedicated measurement claims (G01F, G05D) trail systems claims in share of records, a narrowly drafted claim tied to one of these specific phenomena, such as bridging detection in narrow-angle hoppers, has more open claim space than a general storage-system filing. Checking citation patterns on the most-cited records is a useful next step before drafting.
Very concentrated: the assignee ranking returns only six companies in total, and the top five of those account for 96.2% of all 26 records in scope, with the top six reaching 100%. This is not a fragmented field with many competing filers — it is dominated by one active assignee with a long tail of single-record entrants, including individual inventors. That structure suggests limited near-term competitive threat from new entrants, but also limited freedom to operate around the leader's core claim families.
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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.