Turbofan High-Temperature Sensors Patent Landscape
A small group of established aerospace OEMs—led by RTX Corp and General Electric—controls the dominant share of turbofan high-temperature sensor filings, reflecting a mature, consolidated field. Activity expanded sharply through 2019 and has since plateaued near that peak, with the most recent years subject to publication lag.
RTX and GE lead a tightly held field
RTX Corp holds the top position in the applicant ranking, followed closely by General Electric Co, with Unison Industries LLC ranked third. These three players alone account for the bulk of the leadership tier.
The top five filers together represent 66% of the combined patent records among the hundred largest filers, signaling a highly concentrated competitive structure with a pronounced gap between the leading tier and the remaining applicants.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RTX Corp | 21 | |
| 2 | General Electric Company | 19 | |
| 3 | Unison Industries LLC | 10 | |
| 4 | Rolls-Royce plc | 8 | |
| 5 | PRATT & WHITNEY CANADA CORP | 7 | |
| 6 | United Technologies Corporation | 6 | |
| 7 | ROLLS ROYCE DEUT LTD & CO KG | 5 | |
| 8 | The Boeing Company | 3 | |
| 9 | Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation | 2 | |
| 10 | GPMS International Inc | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Safran Aircraft Engines SAS | 2 | |
| 12 | AECC Commercial Aircraft Engine Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 13 | Nissan Motor Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 14 | Technische Universität Berlin | 2 | |
| 15 | Lovely Professional University | 1 | |
| 16 | AECC Control System Research Institute | 1 | |
| 17 | Sfera-T LLC | 1 | |
| 18 | AECC Shenyang Engine Research Institute | 1 | |
| 19 | Meggitt SA | 1 | |
| 20 | Maxim Evgenyevich Vostrikov | 1 |
The dominance of RTX Corp, General Electric, and Rolls-Royce entities reflects deep integration of high-temperature sensing into core engine-health-monitoring programs at vertically integrated OEMs, raising the barrier for new entrants without equivalent platform access.
Filings from approximately 2024 onward should be treated as under-counted due to standard patent publication lag; apparent recent softness does not necessarily indicate a real decline. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing activity plateaued after a 2019 peak; turbine-engine classes dominate the technology mix
Two charts capture the temporal and technical shape of this corpus: the annual filing trend reveals when activity accelerated and where it now stands, while the IPC branch breakdown shows which engineering domains are most heavily covered.
Annual filing trend
Filings climbed from 3 records in 2017 to a peak of 15 in 2019, then eased to a band of 8–12 records per year through 2022–2023. The most recent two years (2024–2025) appear low due to publication lag and should not be read as a structural decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
F01D (Turbines & non-positive engines) is the overwhelmingly dominant branch, followed by F02C (Gas-turbine plants) and G01M (Testing machine & structure balance). Temperature-specific classification G01K ranks sixth, indicating that high-temperature sensing is often claimed within broader turbine-system or diagnostic contexts rather than as a standalone measurement discipline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Turbine engine exhaust gas temperature sensor
A gas turbine engine can include a compressor section, combustor section, and turbine section in serial flow arrangement, with the combustor section having a combustion chamber defining an exhaust gas flow path through which combustion exhaust gas flows. An exhaust gas temperature sensor is located at least partially within the exhaust gas flow path. A… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gas Turbine Engine Systems and Methods Involving V… | 93 |
| 2 | Method and system for monitoring bearings | 87 |
| 3 | Method and system for monitoring bearings | 58 |
| 4 | Fuel pump health detection | 53 |
| 5 | Method and system for monitoring bearings | 50 |
| 6 | Method and system for piping failure detection | 23 |
| 7 | Gas turbine engine with gearbox health features | 17 |
| 8 | Electronic module integration for harsh environmen… | 15 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural observations—maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography—together define the realistic entry and differentiation landscape for new and incumbent players.
Field is mature, with annual volume plateaued near its 2019 peak
The lifecycle stage is assessed as Maturity: annual filings have plateaued near their peak rather than continuing to climb. On a multi-year basis the corpus still reflects meaningful cumulative growth (22% recent-window growth), but the era of rapid annual expansion has passed. Incremental refinement and system-integration claims are the likely focus of current activity rather than foundational new approaches.
Mature / PlateauedTop five filers hold 66% of activity among the largest filers
The top five applicants—RTX Corp, General Electric Co, Unison Industries LLC, Rolls-Royce plc, and Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp—collectively command 66% of patent records among the hundred largest filers. This degree of concentration means that incumbents with established engine-platform access set the technology agenda. Challengers must identify either a sensor modality or an integration approach that incumbents have not prioritized.
Highly ConcentratedRolls-Royce Germany and TU Berlin form the only recorded co-filing pair
The sole co-applicant relationship identified in evidence is between Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG and Technische Universität Berlin, with 2 jointly filed records. This industry-academic pairing is the only visible collaborative node in the corpus, suggesting that co-development activity is either rare or not captured through co-filing in this space. Organizations seeking ecosystem partnerships have few established pathways visible in the patent data.
Low Collaboration DensityUnited States is the dominant filing jurisdiction; Europe is the secondary battleground
The United States leads all jurisdictions by a wide margin, followed by Europe via the EPO and the United Kingdom as separate routes. China ranks fourth, with a small but present footprint from AECC-affiliated entities and the Aero Engine Corporation of China control-systems institute. Russia and Japan each have modest representation. This geography maps closely onto the countries housing major turbofan OEM engineering centers.
US-Centric, EPO SecondaryGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG | Technische Universität Berlin | 2 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
RTX and GE anchor the field; Unison Industries emerges as a notable new entrant
The leading two players reflect contrasting technology emphases despite similar overall footprints, while several challengers show new-entrant momentum in the most recent filing window.
RTX Corp
RTX Corp holds 21 patent records, the largest share in the ranking. Their technology focus centers on F01D21 (turbine fault detection and protection), F01D25 (supporting structures and cooling), and G01M15 (gas-turbine testing), consistent with deep integration of sensing into engine-health-management architectures. Momentum data flags RTX as a new entrant in the most recent filing window, suggesting a reorganized or newly consolidated entity rather than an entirely new market participant.
patent records: 21Unison Industries LLC
Unison Industries LLC ranks third with 10 patent records and carries new-entrant momentum (9 records in the recent window), indicating a rapid build-up of this portfolio in the latest filing period. Their technology emphasis is distinctively different from the OEM leaders: G01K13 (temperature measurement in flowing media) and F02C7 (gas-turbine accessories) dominate their focus, positioning them as a specialist sensor supplier rather than a vertically integrated engine manufacturer.
patent records: 10| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Unison Industries LLC | 9 | ▲ new entrant |
| RTX Corp | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
| Rolls-Royce plc | 5 | ▲ new entrant |
| Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp | 3 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches where sensor technology intersects system control and direct temperature measurement
Several IPC branches carry relatively low patent-record counts alongside plausible technical relevance to high-temperature sensing in turbofan environments; two stand out as worth monitoring for potential R&D differentiation.
G01K · Direct temperature measurement
G01K holds only 11 patent records—4% of the branch distribution—despite being the canonical IPC class for temperature sensing. Most high-temperature sensing claims are embedded within F01D turbine-system or G01M diagnostic classifications rather than filed under G01K directly. This relative sparsity is an observation, not a validated gap: an entrant with a novel sensor transduction method (e.g., thin-film thermocouple arrays or optical pyrometry for rotating components) could pursue focused G01K claims to differentiate from the system-integration framing used by OEM incumbents.
Search this in Eureka →G05B · Control and regulating systems
G05B accounts for 16 patent records (6% of the branch distribution), representing the control-loop and feedback-system interface through which sensor data drives engine management decisions. With OEM leaders concentrating on detection and structural integration (F01D), the sensor-to-controller data pipeline appears comparatively under-claimed. Organizations working on real-time adaptive thermal management or sensor-fusion algorithms for engine control could find adjacent filing space here, though the low count also reflects that this may simply be addressed through claims in larger system patents.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology route
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | F01D 21 · Turbines & non-positive engines | G01M 15 · Testing machine & structure balance | F02C 7 · Gas-turbine plants | F01D 25 · Turbines & non-positive engines | G01H 1 · Measuring vibrations & sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Electric Company | Strong · 16 | Moderate · 6 | Strong · 9 | Strong · 12 | Strong · 12 |
| United Technologies Corporation | Strong · 15 | Emerging · 3 | Moderate · 5 | Strong · 8 | Absent |
| RTX Corp | Strong · 9 | Strong · 5 | Absent | Strong · 6 | Moderate · 3 |
| Rolls-Royce plc | Strong · 6 | Strong · 5 | Moderate · 2 | Emerging · 1 | Absent |
| Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp | Strong · 5 | Strong · 5 | Absent | Emerging · 1 | Absent |
| Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG | Strong · 5 | Absent | Strong · 5 | Absent | Absent |
| Unison Industries LLC | Absent | Absent | Strong · 8 | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The landscaped corpus contains 63 patent families in scope. The applicant ranking is measured in patent records, which can exceed the family count because a single family may be counted across multiple applicants or jurisdictions.
RTX Corp leads the applicant ranking with 21 patent records, followed by General Electric Co with 19 and Unison Industries LLC with 10.
The field is assessed as Mature. Annual filings peaked in 2019 at 15 records and have since plateaued rather than continued climbing. The most recent filing years (2024–2025) show low counts due to standard publication lag and should not be interpreted as a real decline. The multi-year recent window still shows 22% growth relative to the prior comparable period.
The United States is the dominant jurisdiction, followed by Europe via the EPO and the United Kingdom as separate filing routes. China ranks fourth, with representation primarily from AECC-affiliated entities.
Evidence identifies one co-filing relationship: Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG and Technische Universität Berlin jointly filed 2 patent records. No other co-applicant pairs are visible in the evidence, suggesting collaboration is rare or not captured through co-filing in this domain.
The highest-cited record in evidence is titled ‘Gas Turbine Engine Systems and Methods Involving V…’ with 93 citations, followed by multiple records under the title ‘Method and system for monitoring bearings’ (87, 58, and 50 citations respectively). ‘Fuel pump health detection’ (53 citations) and ‘Electronic module integration for harsh environments’ (15 citations) also rank among the top-cited works in this corpus.
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