Stellarator Miniaturization Patents: Leaders, Trends & Gaps 2026
- Filings are still accelerating, with the 2022 midpoint at zero filings and 2023 already the peak year at 23 — a compressed, recent build-up rather than a mature field.
- Coil geometry claims dominate the citation table, with three of the five most-cited records all titled around planar coil stellarator designs.
- Filing is concentrated in a handful of receiving offices, led by the United States and PCT filings, with Japan, Europe, Canada and India trailing well behind.
What this landscape covers
Compact stellarator design sits at the intersection of magnet engineering and reactor physics: the search set combines stellarator and helical fusion device terms with compact stellarator, compact fusion device and reduced-size reactor qualifiers, isolating filings that specifically address shrinking or integrating the device rather than stellarator physics generally. The 41 families identified span coil geometry, superconducting tape handling, plasma confinement hardware and the control electronics needed to operate a smaller machine.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts in this dataset understate real filing activity; the true recent trend is very likely higher than shown.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 41-family dataset: when filings happened, and which technical subclasses they landed in.
Filing trend: a late, steep ramp
Annual filings sat at zero as recently as 2017 and stayed flat through the 2022 midpoint before climbing to a peak of 23 in 2023 — the field's patent activity is almost entirely a phenomenon of the last few years, not a steady multi-decade build.
IPC composition: fusion reactor hardware leads by a wide margin
G21B (fusion reactors) covers 35 of 41 records, with H01F (magnets, inductors and transformers) and G21D (nuclear power plants) as the next-largest subclasses — confirming that most claims are about the reactor and its magnet systems rather than downstream power conversion or control software, where G06F and G01R each register only a single record.
Shares are the percentage of the 41 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Stellarator Miniaturization and Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about stellarator miniaturization and integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records shaping this space
Methods and systems for forming stellarator coils and superconducting tapes
The filing addresses superconducting tape shrinkage inside stellarator coils, describing a cable bent into a tapered helical shape to improve volume utilisation, together with a thin-spine-and-strut structure for stabilising high-temperature superconducting tapes and insulation materials suited to those tapes.WO2025221339A2 · Type One Energy Group, Inc. · filed 2025-10-23
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080285700A1 | Supercell Communications and Energy Generator | 17 |
| 2 | US20230317304A1 | System and method for stellarator neutron source | 13 |
| 3 | US20230290525A1 | Planar coil stellarator | 12 |
| 4 | US12009111B2 | Planar coil stellarator | 10 |
| 5 | US12100520B2 | Planar coil stellarator | 7 |
| 6 | US20240153651A1 | Planar coil stellarator | 6 |
| 7 | US20240177874A1 | Planar coil stellarator | 5 |
| 8 | WO2023178004A1 | Planar coil stellarator | 5 |
| 9 | WO2018208953A1 | Generating nuclear fusion reactions with the use of ion beam injection in high pressure magnetic cusp devices | 5 |
| 10 | WO2025171046A1 | Methods and systems for stellarator operation and maintenance | 2 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older records; treat them as a signal of influence rather than of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Reading the trend, the IPC split and the citation table together points to where claim space is dense and where it is still open.
Activity is compressed into the last few years
The jump from zero filings at the 2022 midpoint to a peak of 23 in 2023 signals a field that only recently attracted serious patenting effort, likely tracking renewed private and public investment in compact fusion concepts rather than a gradual technology maturation.
Reactor and magnet hardware absorb most claims
G21B fusion-reactor claims dominate the set, with H01F magnet and inductor claims the next largest group — together they show that the bulk of inventive effort is going into the reactor vessel and its coil systems, not into power conversion or plant-level integration.
Planar coil geometry is the most-referenced sub-theme
Multiple highly cited records converge on planar coil stellarator designs, suggesting that coil geometry claims filed earlier in the dataset's window have become reference points for later filings in the same space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to stellarator miniaturization and integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum sits
Assignee activity is recent and thin on repeat filers, which fits a field still forming its competitive set rather than one with entrenched incumbents.
Momentum is a single-digit contest
The assignee with the strongest latest-year momentum in this dataset recorded just one filing in the most recent year, while several other named assignees show zero filings that year, some down from a prior filing — a sign the leaderboard is still unsettled.
The United States is the primary filing venue
US filings lead the receiving-office count, followed by PCT applications and European filings, with Japan, Canada and India each accounting for a small share — a pattern consistent with early-stage, internationally-hedged filing rather than a single dominant jurisdiction.
Type One Energy Group appears among the recent filers
The representative record in this dataset, filed in October 2025, comes from Type One Energy Group and addresses a specific manufacturing problem — superconducting tape shrinkage during coil forming — rather than reactor-level architecture, illustrating how recent filings are narrowing toward manufacturing detail.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| University of Science and Technology of China | 1 | — |
| The Trustees of Princeton University | 0 | — |
| Type One Energy Group, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| THEA ENERGY INC | 0 | -100% |
| DAVIS CAROLYN | 0 | — |
| Energy Matter Conversion Corporation | 0 | — |
| Thea Energy Inc. | 0 | — |
| THE TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY (100 00) | 0 | — |
Where to take this research
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking or identifying open claim space.
Map coil geometry claims in detail
With three of the five most-cited records converging on planar coil designs, a claim-by-claim comparison of those families would clarify how much room remains for alternative coil geometries.
Explore coil geometry claims in EurekaTrack manufacturing-detail filings
Recent filings such as the October 2025 Type One Energy record suggest the field is shifting from reactor architecture toward manufacturing and materials detail — worth monitoring as a leading indicator of commercialisation.
Set up monitoring in EurekaAssess the under-claimed branches
Control software, neutron source integration and plant-level power conversion each show thin filing density relative to core reactor claims, making them candidates for a first-mover filing strategy.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions about stellarator miniaturization patents
In this dataset, a compact or miniaturized stellarator filing is one that explicitly claims a reduced-size reactor, compact fusion device or compact stellarator configuration, rather than stellarator physics in general. Most of these filings sit in IPC subclass G21B, covering the fusion reactor itself, with a substantial secondary cluster in H01F covering the magnet and inductor systems that let the device shrink without losing confinement performance. Practically, this means the claims tend to focus on coil geometry, magnet winding techniques and superconducting tape handling rather than plasma physics theory.
The assignee landscape in this dataset is thin and recent: no single organisation shows sustained multi-year dominance, and the strongest latest-year momentum belongs to an assignee with just one filing in the most recent year. Several other named assignees show zero filings in the latest year, including some with a full drop from a prior filing. This pattern indicates a field still forming its competitive set rather than one with an established leader, so tracking momentum year over year is more informative than looking at cumulative totals alone.
The filing trend in this dataset goes from zero at the 2022 midpoint to a peak of 23 in 2023, which is a steep and recent acceleration rather than a gradual build-up. This kind of jump typically follows a wave of new investment or a specific technical breakthrough that made compact designs look commercially credible, prompting multiple organisations to file protective claims around similar concepts in a short window. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the true 2024-2026 filing rate is likely higher than the raw counts currently show.
Relative to the dense claiming around reactor hardware and magnet systems, several adjacent branches show noticeably thinner filing density, including HTS tape strain management, coil support strut geometry, stellarator-specific control software, neutron source integration and plant-level power conversion interfaces. Only one record each falls under G01R (measurement) and G06F (data processing) in this dataset, which is a strong signal that instrumentation and control software claims are largely unclaimed relative to the physical reactor and magnet space. A first claim in these areas would likely need to tie the software or measurement function directly to a specific stellarator subsystem to avoid overlapping with the broader reactor claims already on file.
WO2025221339A2, filed by Type One Energy Group in October 2025, claims specific methods for forming stellarator coils from tapered helical cable and for stabilising high-temperature superconducting tape using a spine-and-strut structure, along with related insulation materials. Anyone designing a coil-forming process or an HTS tape stabilisation structure for a compact stellarator should check this filing closely, since its claims are narrow enough to be workable-around with a different structural approach but specific enough to block a direct copy of the tapered helical or spine-and-strut methods. Because it is still a published application rather than a granted patent as of the data cut-off, its final claim scope may still narrow or shift during examination.
Research Stellarator Miniaturization and Integration in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole stellarator miniaturization and integration corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.