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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/superheated-steam-and-impingement-drying-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Drying TechnologySuperheated Steam and Impingement Drying Patents
- Concentrated at the top. The five most active filers hold 40 of 97 records in scope (41.2%), and the top 10 combined reach 62.9% — a field with a defined leadership group rather than a fully open race.
- Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak. Activity ran at 14 records in 2021 and fell to 1 by 2024, a 93% drop over that span — though publication lag means the newest years are still filling in.
- Drying dominates, but sterilisation and paper-making sit close behind. F26B drying covers 38.1% of the 97 records, with A61L sterilising (12.4%) and D21F paper-making (13.4%) forming the next-largest overlapping clusters.
97
Published Records
41%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-93%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (14 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 97 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent filings that combine superheated steam drying or impingement drying mechanisms with claims around heat transfer coefficient control, inversion temperature behaviour, nozzle array design, vapor recompression, product quality retention, or case hardening. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off and captures 97 published records across receiving offices including the United States, Europe, WIPO, Canada, China, and Japan.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity — treat the tail as incomplete rather than as a genuine decline signal.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015 to present
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Numbers
Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset spans 97 records across eight IPC subclasses, with filing activity rising to a 2021 peak before publication lag takes over the most recent years.
Filing trend: a 2021 peak, then a lagged tail
Filings climbed to 14 records in 2021, the peak year in scope, then fell to 1 by 2024 — a 93% decline over that three-year window. The 2025-2026 figures are not yet comparable because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; they will fill in as later-filed applications publish.
Technology composition: drying leads, but overlaps with sterilising and paper-making are substantial
F26B (drying) appears in 38.1% of the 97 records, the largest single class. D21F (paper-making machines, 13.4%), A61L (sterilising and disinfecting, 12.4%), G01N (material analysis and testing, 11.3%), A23L (foods, 10.3%) and B01L (lab apparatus, 10.3%) each mark a distinct application context for the same core drying mechanisms — a record can and often does carry more than one of these classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 97 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records in this field
Representative Filing
Acoustic drying system with matched exhaust flow (US20140152750A1, Eastman Kodak)
EASTMAN KODAK
An inkjet printing system combining one or more inkjet printheads with an acoustic air impingement drying system: an airflow source supplies a defined flow rate into an acoustic resonant chamber, which directs air through an outlet slot onto the receiver medium; an exhaust air channel and blower remove that air at a controlled exhaust flow rate, with a blower control tying exhaust rate to supply rate.Filed by Eastman Kodak, 2014-06-05.
Highest-citation records in scope
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6463674B1 | Hot air impingement drying system for inkjet images | 145 |
| 2 | US6134808A | Gap drying with insulation layer between substrate and heated platen | 81 |
| 3 | US5210958A | Paper web drying apparatus and process | 61 |
| 4 | US3895449A | Air impingement system | 37 |
| 5 | JP1981026180A | Thermal sterilization of powder and granule | 23 |
| 6 | US20040046850A1 | Moving air jet image conditioner for liquid ink | 22 |
| 7 | US6256904B1 | Controlling float height of moving substrate over curved plate | 22 |
| 8 | US6511708B1 | Controlling float height of moving substrate over curved plate | 20 |
| 9 | US20150150270A1 | Continuous process and apparatus for making a pita chip | 18 |
| 10 | JP1989095281A | Drier with high-speed fluidized bed | 18 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings — they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the evidence actually shows
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend, and the technology split are read together.
Concentration
62.9%
of 97 records held by the top 10
A defined leadership group, not an open field
The leader holds 12 records and the top 10 combined reach 61 records — 62.9% of everything in scope. Filing here is not evenly spread across dozens of small players; a newcomer is filing into space where the core impingement and superheated-steam mechanisms are already well covered by a known set of assignees.
Assignee ranking, 42 companies
Momentum
-93%
2021 to 2024
Activity has pulled back from its 2021 high
Filings rose to 14 records in 2021, the peak year, then dropped to 1 by 2024. That is the clearest complete-year comparison the data supports. Whether this reflects a genuine pause or simply the field consolidating around the incumbents' existing claim positions is not something citation counts alone can answer.
Peak year 2021 at 14 records
Composition
38.1%
of records classed under F26B
Drying is the core, but adjacent classes carry real weight
F26B (drying) is the largest single class at 38.1% of the 97 records, but D21F paper-making, A61L sterilising, G01N testing, A23L foods and B01L lab apparatus each show up in over 10% of records — meaning a meaningful share of filings are framing the same drying mechanism for a non-drying end use.
Eight IPC subclasses tracked
Citation signal
145 citations
US6463674B1, most-cited record
The oldest core patents still anchor the citation graph
The most-cited record, US6463674B1 on hot air impingement drying for inkjet images, carries 145 citations; the next four most-cited records also date from the 1990s and early 2000s. High citation counts here mark foundational influence within the corpus, not current commercial relevance.
Top 5 most-cited records span 1974-2002 priority
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to superheated steam and impingement drying, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who holds the core claims, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span industrial drying equipment makers, consumer-products companies, and printing-technology firms — each working the same core mechanisms toward different end uses.
Leader
12 records
of 97 in scope
A single leader ahead of a tight second tier
The top-ranked assignee holds 12 records, ahead of a fifth-place holder at 6 and a tenth-place holder at 4. The gap between first and fifth is real but not overwhelming, meaning the leadership position is contestable rather than locked in by scale alone.
Ranked across 42 companies
Application spread
8 IPC classes
tracked across 97 records
Assignees cluster by end use, not just by mechanism
Printing and imaging players sit on the impingement-drying side of the ranking (reflected in the B41J share of 9.3%), while paper-making and food-processing assignees show up against D21F and A23L. The same underlying heat-transfer mechanism is being claimed from several different application angles.
D21F 13.4% · A23L 10.3% · B41J 9.3%
Collaboration
9 pairs
co-assignee pairings identified
Co-invention is concentrated in a small inventor cluster
Nine co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairings repeating across three individuals at a count of 7 each. That points to a tight inventor team behind a meaningful slice of the filings, rather than broad cross-company collaboration.
Strongest pairs at 7 shared filings
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Enicor GmbH | 0 | — |
| TOMBS THOMAS NATHANIEL | 0 | — |
| SHIFLEY JAMES DOUGLAS | 0 | — |
| MARGOLIS GEOFFREY | 0 | — |
| BUCKS RODNEY RAY | 0 | — |
| Beloit Corp | 0 | — |
| Procter & Gamble Co | 0 | — |
| 3M Innovative Properties Co | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with settled leadership at the top and several under-claimed branches worth checking before committing to a filing strategy.
Map the leader's actual claim boundaries
Concentration figures show where filing activity sits, not what any single claim actually blocks. Reading the leader's granted claims against the sub-areas identified as under-claimed clarifies whether those gaps are genuinely open or simply unindexed under this search string.
Explore claims in EurekaTrack the 2024-2026 tail as it fills in
The apparent falloff after 2021 is partly a publication-lag artefact. Rechecking the 2024-2026 window in six to twelve months, once later-filed applications publish, will show whether the pullback is real or an artefact of the data cut-off.
Set up trend monitoring in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
The dataset's ranking shows one assignee leading with 12 of the 97 records in scope, ahead of a fifth-place holder at 6 and a tenth-place holder at 4. The top 10 combined hold 62.9% of all records, so while there is a defined leadership group, the gap between the leader and the rest of the top tier is not so wide that the position looks locked in. A freedom-to-operate review should look at the leader's specific claims rather than assume broad blocking coverage from the ranking alone.
Filings rose to a peak of 14 records in 2021, then fell to 1 by 2024 — a 93% drop over that three-year span, which is the clearest complete-year comparison available. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as continued decline. The honest read is that activity has pulled back from its 2021 high, with the most recent trend still uncertain.
In this dataset the two mechanisms are searched together because they frequently appear in the same claim sets: impingement drying describes directing high-velocity air or steam jets (often through nozzle arrays) at a product surface, while superheated steam drying uses steam above its saturation temperature as the drying medium, often tied to inversion-temperature behaviour. Many records combine both, and the IPC composition shows F26B (general drying) as the largest single class at 38.1% of records, with sterilising, paper-making, and food-processing applications layered on top.
The technology composition points to drying equipment as the core (F26B, 38.1% of the 97 records), with paper-making machinery (D21F, 13.4%), sterilising and disinfecting (A61L, 12.4%), material testing (G01N, 11.3%), food processing (A23L, 10.3%), and printing/imaging (B41J, 9.3%) as the next-largest overlapping application areas. This spread indicates the underlying heat-transfer mechanisms are being claimed from several different end-use angles rather than by a single dominant industry.
Relative to the core drying and impingement classes, claim density looks lighter around vapor recompression integration, inversion-temperature process control, nozzle array geometry optimisation, case-hardening prevention methods, and product quality retention metrics. These are framed as sub-areas worth checking rather than confirmed gaps — a proper clearance search against the leader's granted claims is the next step before relying on any of them as open space.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Superheated Steam and Impingement Drying covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.