Tokamak Radiation Shielding Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- A small, static field. 28 families total, with filing peaking in 2018 and no clear rebound since — this is a narrow, settled claim space rather than a growing one.
- Fusion-reactor art dominates the shielding claims. 26 of 28 records sit in G21B (fusion reactors), with only 9 tagged to G21F (radiation protection proper) — shielding here is claimed as part of the reactor, not as standalone protection technology.
- Filing is split across offices, not concentrated. US, EPO and Japan each hold a handful of filings with China, WIPO and Canada close behind — no single jurisdiction anchors this art.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of tokamak and magnetic confinement fusion and radiation shielding — divertor filters, blanket structures and biological shield claims filed against fusion-reactor architectures. The corpus is small: 28 published families across roughly a decade of filing activity, which reflects how few organisations are far enough along in tokamak development to need shielding claims at all.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has not recovered since; the 2022 midpoint sits at a single filing. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent years understate true activity, but even allowing for that lag this is a flat-to-declining field rather than one accelerating toward commercialisation.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 28-family dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those families distribute across IPC subclasses.
A peak in 2018, then a long flat tail
Filings ran to 7 in 2018, the high point of the series, then fell back toward a single filing by 2022. There is no sustained multi-year climb anywhere in the window — activity looks episodic, tied to specific reactor programmes rather than a broad wave of entrants.
Shielding is claimed inside reactor architecture, not on its own
26 of 28 families carry a G21B fusion-reactor classification, against 9 in G21F (dedicated radiation protection) and 6 in H05H (plasma/particle accelerators). Read together, most applicants are protecting the whole reactor concept with a shielding component attached, rather than filing pure shielding-material or shielding-geometry patents that could stand alone.
Shares are the percentage of the 28 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Tokamak Fusion Reactor Radiation Shielding with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about tokamak fusion reactor radiation shielding and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Magnetic confinement fusion reactor (US20240290505A1)
Filed by the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, this application claims a full reactor architecture: a Dewar and cold shield system, a superconducting magnet system with central solenoid, poloidal and toroidal field magnets, a vacuum chamber, a divertor system and a blanket system, plus remote operation and maintenance systems built around them.The blanket and divertor systems are claimed as integrated subsystems of the reactor, not as freestanding shielding inventions — typical of how this dataset treats shielding overall.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20020172316A1 | Divertor filtering element for a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor; divertor employing the filtering element; an… | 42 |
| 2 | US5353314A | Electric field divertor plasma pump | 34 |
| 3 | US4749540A | Demountable tokamak fusion core | 30 |
| 4 | US20240290505A1 | Magnetic confinement fusion reactor | 29 |
| 5 | JP2001004767A | Fusion reactor blanket structure | 11 |
| 6 | CN115527694A | 一种托卡马克聚变堆水冷偏滤器系统 | 9 |
| 7 | EP1063871A1 | Divertorfiltering element for a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, divertor employing the filtering element and … | 8 |
| 8 | CN110574122A | 组合的中子护罩和螺线管 | 7 |
| 9 | US20200135343A1 | Combined neutron shield and solenoid | 3 |
| 10 | CA2370090A1 | Divertor filtering element for a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor; divertor employing the filtering element; an… | 3 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to be cited by later applicants — treat this as a measure of influence on subsequent drafting, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. 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 read-throughs from the trend, classification and citation data above.
The wave has already passed
Filing rose to 7 in 2018 and fell back to a single family by 2022. Absent a fresh reactor programme entering the field, there is little evidence of accelerating claim activity to design around.
Shielding rides inside reactor claims
Applicants overwhelmingly file shielding as a subsystem of a full reactor architecture rather than as a standalone radiation-protection invention. A pure-shielding claim independent of reactor geometry is comparatively rare here.
No single office anchors the art
Filings split fairly evenly across the US, Europe and Japan, with China, WIPO and Canada close behind. A freedom-to-operate check needs to cover several offices rather than one dominant jurisdiction.
Older divertor art still shapes drafting
The most-cited record in the set is a divertor filtering element dating back to the early 2000s, well ahead of the more recent superconducting-reactor filings. Citation weight here favours foundational divertor and core-structure patents over newer blanket designs.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to tokamak fusion reactor radiation shielding, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is open
Assignee activity in this corpus is thin and largely dormant in the most recent year — a signal that current momentum, if any, is concentrated in newer entrants not yet showing up as repeat filers.
Japanese industrial-research pairings lead co-filing
The strongest co-assignee links in the dataset run between Japanese heavy-industry and national-lab pairings, echoing how tokamak programmes there have historically split reactor and materials work across partners.
Named leaders show no recent-year filings
Every assignee tracked for momentum — including Tokamak Energy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute — shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the broader flat trend.
Activity is program-driven, not regionally concentrated
With US, EPO, Japan, China, WIPO and Canada all represented in single digits, filings track individual national fusion programmes rather than a commercially competitive race across one region.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tokamak Energy Ltd | 0 | — |
| Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| European Union, represented by the European Commission | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
| Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute | 0 | — |
| Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Atomic Power Industries, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a narrow, program-driven field with specific gaps rather than a crowded frontier.
Map claims against a specific reactor design
Overlay a target reactor's blanket and divertor geometry against the G21B/G21F claim set to see exactly which elements are already occupied.
Explore in EurekaTrack the dormant leaders
Several named assignees show zero recent filings — worth monitoring for renewed activity as fusion programmes move toward demonstration reactors.
Set up monitoring in EurekaTest white-space claim language
Draft a standalone shielding claim independent of full reactor architecture and check it against the existing G21F art before committing resources.
Draft with EurekaCommon questions on tokamak shielding patents
This dataset identifies 28 published patent families that combine tokamak or magnetic confinement fusion terminology with neutron or biological shielding claims, filed between 2015 and mid-2026. That is a small corpus compared with mainstream nuclear or battery technologies, reflecting how few organisations are operating tokamak programmes advanced enough to need dedicated shielding claims. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true count for the last one to two years is likely higher than currently shown.
The corpus shows filings from a mix of national research institutes, heavy-industry manufacturers and specialist fusion companies, with Japanese industrial-research pairings showing the strongest co-filing relationships in the dataset. None of the tracked assignees — including major industrial names — show any filings in the most recent tracked year, which suggests the current filer base is either dormant or in the process of being replaced by newer entrants not yet visible as repeat filers. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should check the co-assignee pairs table directly rather than assume a single dominant holder.
Not strongly, based on this evidence. Filing peaked at 7 families in 2018 and had fallen back to a single family by the 2022 midpoint of the window, with no sustained recovery since. That flat-to-declining pattern is consistent with a field where the core architectural approaches were staked out in the mid-2010s and have not been substantially reopened, though a new wave of commercial fusion programmes could change this quickly.
G21B covers fusion reactors as a whole, while G21F covers radiation protection and shielding specifically. In this dataset, 26 of 28 families carry a G21B classification against only 9 in G21F, meaning most shielding-related claims are drafted as part of a broader reactor architecture rather than as standalone radiation-protection inventions. That matters for drafting strategy: a claim written purely around shielding material or geometry, independent of reactor design, sits in comparatively open territory.
US20240290505A1, filed by the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, claims a full magnetic confinement fusion reactor architecture including a Dewar and cold shield system, superconducting magnet systems, a vacuum chamber, a divertor system and a blanket system, along with remote operation and maintenance systems. It matters because it bundles the blanket and divertor — the two components most relevant to shielding — into an integrated reactor claim rather than isolating them, which is the pattern seen across most of this dataset. Anyone designing a standalone shielding component should check whether their design reads on the integrated system claims here even if it never appears in a G21F-classified filing.
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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.