Thermal Storage Insulation Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,053 records) with 2024 (928) — 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 29,596 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the thermal storage insulation patent record shows
Thermal storage insulation sits at the intersection of several established engineering disciplines rather than forming a single tight technology cluster. The 29,596 records captured under this search span refrigeration and cooling equipment, pressure vessel and gas-storage design, containers and packaging, heat-exchange apparatus, and battery construction, reflecting how insulation claims get attached to whatever device houses the thermal store. No single assignee controls a defining share of filings, which points to a field where the underlying engineering problem — keeping a thermal mass hot or cold for a useful period — is being solved independently across appliance makers, energy storage specialists, industrial gas companies and semiconductor packaging firms.
Filing activity has been substantial and sustained since 2017, peaking in 2022, with China and the United States as the largest receiving offices by a wide margin. The composition data show cooling and pressure-vessel classes ahead of dedicated battery-storage classes, suggesting that a meaningful share of the claim space originates from appliance and industrial gas engineering rather than from battery chemistry work.
Filing trend and technology composition
The dataset covers 29,596 published records filed or published between 2015 and the mid-2026 cut-off, drawn from six major receiving offices led by China and the United States.
A decade of filing activity, with 2022 as the high-water mark
Annual volume rose from 882 records in 2017 toward a peak of 1,160 in 2022. Comparing the last complete years, 2021's 1,053 records moved to 928 by 2024, a -12% change over that three-year span. The 2025 and 2026 figures shown on the trend chart are undercounts: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent bars will continue to fill in as later-filed applications publish.
Composition spans cooling, pressure vessels and batteries
F25D (refrigerators and cooling) leads at 6.8% of the 29,596 records, followed closely by F17C (pressure vessels and gas storage) at 6.1% and B65D (containers and packaging) at 6.0%. Heat-exchange apparatus (F28D, 5.6%) and batteries and cells (H01M, 4.8%) round out the largest classes, with building structures (E04B, 3.1%) and semiconductor devices (H01L, 2.9%) showing that insulation claims also reach into construction and chip packaging. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total and should not be added together.
Shares are the percentage of the 29,596 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Thermal Energy Storage: Thermal Storage Insulation Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about thermal energy storage: thermal storage insulation patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative thermal storage battery patent
Thermal storage batteries and thermal storage battery systems for drying agricultural and food products
The filing describes a thermal storage battery built around a stainless-steel battery core shell filled with a sand-and-graphite thermal storage material mixture, heated by elements each enclosed in a protective tube, and enclosed by wall, lid and bottom thermal insulation layers, with a heat-extraction pipe drawing heat from the core for downstream use such as agricultural or food drying.Filed by Alterno Pte. Ltd., published 2024-10-29 as US12130086B1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160045841A1 | New and improved system for processing various chemicals and materials | 861 |
| 2 | US3949388A | Physiological sensor and transmitter | 739 |
| 3 | US20130171818A1 | Method of Manufacturing A Semiconductor Device | 478 |
| 4 | US20040127614A1 | Polyolefin adhesive compositions and articles made therefrom | 460 |
| 5 | US20030008528A1 | Surface treatment of c-doped SiO2 film to enhance film stability during 02 ashing | 446 |
| 6 | US5650351A | Method to form a capacitor having multiple pillars for advanced DRAMS | 418 |
| 7 | US6209343B1 | Portable apparatus for storing and/or transporting biological samples, tissues and/or organs | 414 |
| 8 | US5372617A | Hydrogen generation by hydrolysis of hydrides for undersea vehicle fuel cell energy systems | 408 |
| 9 | US5722482A | Phase change thermal control materials, method and apparatus | 358 |
| 10 | US20110266611A1 | Nonvolatile memory device and method for fabricating the same | 357 |
Citation counts favour older publications simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; treat the ranking as a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not as a measure of current technical importance.
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Four patterns in the data matter more than the raw record count when deciding where to file or where to look for freedom to operate.
No single filer controls the field
The top five assignees combined account for only 3.8% of the 29,596 records in scope, and the top ten reach just 5.9%. That is a long tail of contributors rather than a small set of gatekeepers, which means freedom-to-operate risk is spread thin across many smaller filers instead of concentrated in a handful of blocking portfolios.
Activity peaked in 2022, not the present day
Filing volume climbed from 882 records in 2017 to a peak of 1,160 in 2022. Comparing the last two complete years, 2021's 1,053 records fell to 928 by 2024, a -12% move — read this as a plateau after a strong build-up rather than a collapse, since 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Appliance and gas engineering lead battery-specific claims
F25D refrigeration and cooling (6.8% of records) and F17C pressure vessels and gas storage (6.1%) both outrank H01M batteries and cells (4.8%). Insulation claim activity is therefore weighted toward appliance and industrial-gas engineering rather than being primarily a battery-storage story, which matters when scoping a competitive search.
China and the US dominate receiving offices
China's 5,049 records and the United States' 4,155 records together dwarf the next tier — EPO at 2,400, WIPO/PCT at 1,614, the UK at 1,091 and South Korea at 977. Any competitive monitoring program should treat these two offices as the primary watch points.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to thermal energy storage: thermal storage insulation patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe the field at a point in time. Turning them into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific assignees, claims and branches.
Trace a specific assignee's portfolio
The ranked leaders in this dataset span appliance makers, gas companies and battery specialists. Pull an individual assignee's full family history to see how their claims have shifted across IPC classes over time.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaCheck freedom to operate on a specific design
A fragmented top-10 share does not mean an individual claim is open; it means risk is distributed. Run a targeted claim-by-claim check against the records most similar to your design.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches
Building structures and semiconductor packaging show smaller but non-trivial shares of insulation claims. Track filing velocity in these adjacent classes before they consolidate.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about thermal storage insulation patents
The ranking covers 100 companies, led by a top filer with 413 records, with fifth place at 140 and tenth place at 107. However, the top five assignees combined hold only 3.8% of the 29,596 records in scope and the top ten hold 5.9%, so leadership in raw filing count does not translate into control of the field. The list spans appliance makers such as Samsung, LG and Panasonic-linked entities, industrial gas companies, and aerogel and battery specialists, indicating the technology is being solved from multiple engineering directions rather than owned by one industry segment.
Annual filings rose from 882 in 2017 to a peak of 1,160 in 2022, then eased to 928 by 2024 — a -12% move over that three-year span using the last two years that can be treated as complete data. The 2025 and 2026 figures on any trend chart will look lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing activity. Treat the field as having plateaued after a strong build-up rather than as being in decline.
F25D, covering refrigerators and cooling equipment, leads at 6.8% of the 29,596 records, followed by F17C pressure vessels and gas storage at 6.1% and B65D containers and packaging at 6.0%. Heat-exchange apparatus (F28D) and batteries and cells (H01M) follow at 5.6% and 4.8% respectively, with building structures and semiconductor devices each above 2.9%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages do not sum to 100% and should be read independently, each against the same 29,596-record base.
Building structures and elements (E04B, 3.1% of records) and semiconductor devices (H01L, 2.9%) carry noticeably fewer filings than the leading cooling, pressure-vessel and container classes, suggesting more room to establish novel claims there. This does not mean the underlying engineering is untested, only that fewer patent claims currently occupy that specific intersection with thermal storage insulation. A freedom-to-operate search focused on those narrower classes, cross-checked against the strongest assignees active nearby, is the fastest way to confirm actual openness.
US12130086B1, filed by Alterno Pte. Ltd. and published 2024-10-29, describes a thermal storage battery with a stainless-steel core shell holding a sand-and-graphite thermal storage mixture, heating elements in protective tubes, and a set of wall, lid and bottom thermal insulation layers enclosing the core, with a heat-extraction pipe for downstream use in applications like agricultural drying. It illustrates a common pattern in this dataset: insulation claims are typically bundled with the storage vessel, the heating or cooling mechanism, and a specific end application rather than filed as a standalone insulation material claim.
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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.