Stormwater & Flood Management Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filings grew 48% from 2021 to 2024 (31 to 46 records), the last span the data treats as complete before publication lag thins out 2025-2026.
- The leading assignee holds 50 records, but the top 10 combined account for just 25.6% of all 618 records, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants across the rest of the ranking.
- Software-adjacent classes G06Q and G06F together touch over a quarter of records, showing how much of this field is now data platforms and monitoring logic layered on top of physical treatment and hydraulic hardware.
Filing growth compares 2021 (31 records) with 2024 (46) — 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 618 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 618 published patent records filed against stormwater and flood management concepts combined with water quality and treatment concepts — spanning rain and runoff capture, sewerage infrastructure, membrane and filtration separation, and the digital monitoring and control layers now built around them. The scope deliberately pairs physical hydraulic engineering (flood control, drainage) with treatment-performance language (contaminant concentration, membrane flux, treatment efficiency), so it captures systems that manage water volume and water quality together rather than either in isolation.
Records are drawn from six major receiving offices, led by the United States, China and India, with smaller but active PCT, European and Japanese filing. The mix of civil-engineering classes alongside data-processing and AI classes signals that a meaningful share of recent activity is instrumentation, sensing and decision software rather than new hydraulic hardware.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below use the same 618-record scope: one tracks filing activity by year, the other breaks records down by IPC subclass. Because a single record can carry several classes, the class shares sum to more than 100% of records — that is expected and is not a data error.
Filing activity climbed through the early 2020s
Published filings rose from 15 in 2017 to a peak of 50 in 2025, with 2021-to-2024 growth of 48% (31 to 46 records) marking the last span the dataset treats as complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are undercounts by construction: publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years will keep filling in as more records publish.
Water treatment and hydraulic engineering anchor the field, but software classes are close behind
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) leads at 24.9% of the 618 records, with E02B (hydraulic and waterway engineering) and G06Q (business and commerce data processing) tied at 17.5% each. E03F (sewerage) and B01D (separation processes) round out the physical-infrastructure core, while G06F and G06N show that digital monitoring and AI-based control are now a substantial, not marginal, part of this landscape.
Shares are the percentage of the 618 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Stormwater & Flood Management Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about stormwater & flood management patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Process for Rain Water, HVAC Condensate and Refrigeration Blowdown/Bleed Water Recovery, Water Quality Monitoring, Real Time Water Treatment and Utilization of Recovered Water
The filing describes capturing water from rain, HVAC condensate and refrigeration blowdown, then recycling it through an integrated mechanical process: collection from air conditioning, refrigeration and rainfall sources; real-time or scheduled monitoring of volume, flow rate and contaminants; and automated cleaning through filtration, chemical or biological treatment to meet defined health and safety standards before reuse.Filed by Dennis M. Anderson, published 2011-01-27 — predates most of the software-heavy filings in this scope and anchors the physical capture-and-treat approach.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080167931A1 | Community resource management systems and methods | 265 |
| 2 | US20030014342A1 | Free-market environmental management system having insured certification to a process standard | 255 |
| 3 | US20090138415A1 | Automated research systems and methods for researching systems | 230 |
| 4 | US7379981B2 | Wireless communication enabled meter and network | 194 |
| 5 | US20050138867A1 | Multifunctional tridimensional combined green building | 123 |
| 6 | US6313545B1 | Hydrocratic generator | 119 |
| 7 | US5948326A | Device and process for liquid treatment | 116 |
| 8 | US20020094799A1 | Wireless communication enabled meter and network | 109 |
| 9 | US10311442B1 | Business methods and systems for offering and obtaining research services | 98 |
| 10 | US20250071040A1 | Internet of things system | 92 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside a searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns matter more than any single ranking: where claim density already sits, how recent growth compares to the last complete year, and where citation-heavy prior art actually blocks new work.
Leadership is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 50 records and the top 5 combined account for 18.3% of all 618 records in scope — meaningful but far from a lock on the field. With the top 10 at just 25.6%, the remainder of the ranked 100 companies each hold small, defensible slices rather than facing one dominant blocker.
Momentum is recent and treatment-plus-data driven
The three-year run from 2021 to 2024 is the clearest complete signal of growth in this dataset. Because 2025 and 2026 counts are still filling in due to publication lag, this 2021-2024 span — not the raw year-over-year numbers after it — is the figure to cite when describing momentum.
Treatment classes lead, but digital layers are close behind
Water and wastewater treatment (C02F) is the largest single class, but G06Q and G06F together indicate that a large share of new filings are wrapping monitoring, billing or control logic around treatment and drainage infrastructure rather than inventing new hydraulic mechanisms.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to stormwater & flood management patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape: a modest leader over a long tail
The ranking covers 100 companies counted by records within this scope — not a curated top-50 or top-100 list, but the full ranking the dataset returns. The leader holds 50 records; by tenth place the count has fallen to 7, and the top 10 combined represent 25.6% of all 618 records, leaving most of the field to single- or few-filing entrants.
One clear leader, no runaway monopoly
The top assignee's 50 records are more than four times the fifth-place count of 12, showing a genuine lead — but that lead sits inside a field where the top 5 combined still total only 18.3% of all 618 records.
A tight mid-tier cluster
Between fifth place (12 records) and tenth place (7 records), filing counts fall off gradually rather than dropping to near-zero, suggesting an active mid-tier of specialised filers rather than a sharp leader/also-ran split.
Co-filing is limited and geography-specific
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this scope, with the strongest recurring pairing involving a government environmental agency and a stormwater analytics filer — pointing to public-private co-development rather than broad industry consortia.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sylvan Source, Inc. | 0 | — |
| WADER | 0 | — |
| CHUA BOON PEN | 0 | — |
| China Three Gorges Corporation | 0 | — |
| TRABUS TECHNOLOGIES CO LTD | 0 | — |
| THIERS EUGENE | 0 | — |
| URBANALTA CORP | 0 | — |
| Kankyo Kiki Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe the field as it stands in the data; the next step is usually mapping a specific claim set or a specific competitor against it.
Map a candidate claim against prior art
Run a proposed treatment, monitoring or control claim against the C02F, E02B and B01D classes to see how crowded the specific sub-area actually is before drafting.
Explore claim mapping in Patsnap EurekaTrack the mid-tier filers, not just the leader
With the top 10 holding just 25.6% of records, the more useful watch list is often the fifth-to-twentieth-place assignees whose filing pace is changing year on year.
Build a watch list in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 50 of the 618 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 12. However, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 18.3% of all records and the top 10 for 25.6%, so no single company or small group controls the field. Most of the ranked 100 companies hold small numbers of records, meaning freedom-to-operate analysis needs to look beyond the leader alone.
Yes, based on the last span the data treats as complete: filings rose 48%, from 31 records in 2021 to 46 in 2024. The dataset shows a peak of 50 records in 2025, but because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown. The 2021-2024 window is the safest basis for describing momentum.
Water and wastewater treatment (IPC class C02F) is the largest single category at 24.9% of the 618 records, followed closely by hydraulic and waterway engineering (E02B) and business/data-processing (G06Q), each at 17.5%. Sewerage (E03F) and separation processes such as filtration (B01D) also carry substantial shares. Because records often carry multiple classes, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%.
A notable portion: G06Q (business/data processing) and G06F (electric digital data processing) together touch a large share of the 618 records, and G06N (AI-based computing) appears in 5.2% of them. This suggests that a growing share of new filings pair physical treatment or drainage hardware with monitoring, prediction or control software rather than introducing new hydraulic mechanisms alone.
The clearest gaps sit in sub-areas adjacent to the dense core classes rather than inside them — for example real-time sludge dewatering sensing, combined sewer overflow prediction, and distributed flood-control actuator networks, none of which show the density of the core C02F and E02B classes. These areas benefit from established treatment and hydraulic prior art without being as heavily claimed themselves, making them worth checking before drafting a new application.
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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.