Turbomachinery Components Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 62.8% of all activity sits with five companies. 554 of 882 records in scope belong to the top five assignees — a field where claim space is already staked out at the top.
- Filing held steady into 2024, not up sharply. Filings ran from 49 in 2021 to 53 in 2024, an 8% rise over three years — modest growth, not a slowdown, once the 2025–26 publication lag is accounted for.
- Gas-turbine and turbine subclasses dominate the claim map. F01D and F02C each cover roughly half of all records, while combustion-chamber and jet-propulsion subclasses sit well under 10% — a visible gap for more specific claims.
Filing growth compares 2021 (49 records) with 2024 (53) — 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 882 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the turbomachinery component patent record actually shows
Turbomachinery components sit at the intersection of mechanical design and thermodynamic performance: blades, rotors, shrouds, combustion chambers and the sensors and actuators that keep them within tolerance. The 882 records in this dataset span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off and cluster heavily around gas-turbine and steam-turbine architectures, with a visible secondary cluster in pumps and jet propulsion. Filing is concentrated rather than fragmented: a handful of aerospace and power-generation incumbents account for most of the record count, and the shape of that concentration matters more than the raw total when deciding where a new filing has room to stand.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the activity that eventually gets recorded. Read the recent-year dip in that light rather than as a real contraction.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 882-record dataset: how filing has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Together they show a field that peaked early in the window and has since settled into a steadier, still-active pace.
Filing trend: an early peak, then a plateau
Filings peaked in 2017 at 156 and have run lower since, falling to single digits by the tail of the window as expected under the publication lag. The 2021-to-2024 window is the fairer read of current activity: 49 to 53 filings, an 8% rise, indicating the field is still being actively claimed rather than abandoned.
Technology composition: two subclasses carry the field
F01D (turbines and non-positive engines) and F02C (gas-turbine plants) each appear on roughly half of all 882 records, confirming that most activity is core turbine and gas-turbine architecture. F01K (steam and thermal power plants) and F04D (non-positive-displacement pumps) form a second tier, while combustion chambers, jet propulsion and aircraft equipment each sit near or under 7% — smaller, more specific claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 882 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Turbomachinery Components Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about turbomachinery components patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a representative recent filing
US20240139892A1 — A method of manufacturing a turbomachinery component
Filed by Rolls-Royce and published 2024-05-02, this application claims a manufacturing method that compares an ideal design of an aerofoil-and-platform turbomachinery component against an intermediate design, using the deviation in platform thickness to correct downstream manufacturing steps.The claim is method-of-manufacture, not the component geometry itself, which narrows what it actually forecloses for others.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4043121A | Two-spool variable cycle engine | 207 |
| 2 | US20150260463A1 | Systems and methods for energy storage and retrieval | 169 |
| 3 | US5269058A | Design and processing method for manufacturing hollow airfoils | 155 |
| 4 | US3583824A | Temperature controlled shroud and shroud support | 144 |
| 5 | US20180179917A1 | Variable Pressure Inventory Control of Closed Cycle System with a High Pressure Tank and an Intermediate Pres… | 92 |
| 6 | US9664070B1 | Bowed rotor prevention system | 90 |
| 7 | US3677012A | Composite cycle turbomachinery | 84 |
| 8 | WO2014052927A1 | Systems and methods for energy storage and retrieval | 82 |
| 9 | US20150000291A1 | Gas turbine engine combustor heat exchanger | 80 |
| 10 | US20130209236A1 | Gas turbine engine component with compound cusp cooling configuration | 75 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat this table as a map of influence, not of current relevance.
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Three readings of the same dataset, each pointing at a different practical question: how concentrated is the field, is it still growing, and where does citation weight actually sit.
The top of the field is locked up
Five companies hold 554 of the 882 records in scope. That level of concentration means broad claims on core turbine and gas-turbine architecture are already heavily prior-arted; new entrants gain more ground filing narrower, component-level claims than trying to compete on breadth.
Growth is real but modest
Filings moved from 49 in 2021 to 53 in 2024, an 8% rise over three complete years. That is neither a boom nor a retreat — it reads as a mature field with steady, incremental filing rather than one being abandoned or newly rushed.
Citation weight sits with older architecture patents
The most-cited record in this dataset, US4043121A on the two-spool variable cycle engine, carries 207 citations — a reminder that citation counts inside a searched corpus reward age, not current commercial relevance. Newer filings simply haven't had time to accumulate the same weight.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to turbomachinery components patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| General Electric Co | GE Poland LLC | 25 |
| General Electric Co | GE Avio S.r.l. | 21 |
| Rolls-Royce Corp | Rolls-Royce North American Technologies Inc | 12 |
| United Technologies Corp | XU JINQUAN | 4 |
| Rolls-Royce North American Technologies Inc | SNYDER PHILIP H | 2 |
| General Electric Co | GE Germany Holdings LLC | 1 |
| General Electric Co | GE AEROSPACE SP ZOO | 1 |
| United Technologies Corp | XU JINQUAN GROTON | 1 |
The ten identified co-assignee pairs are almost entirely intra-group filings — a parent company filing jointly with its subsidiary or regional arm — rather than cross-company collaboration, which suggests little joint development activity between competitors in this space.
The assignee landscape: a steep top and a long tail
The ranking covers 100 companies, counted by record. Activity drops sharply after the leader and again after the top ten, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below that.
One company files far more than any other
The leading assignee holds 170 of the 882 records in scope, more than three times the fifth-place total of 56. That gap is wide enough that competing head-on for the same claim territory is a poor use of filing budget for most other entrants.
The drop-off after the top five is steep
Fifth place holds 56 records; tenth place holds 14. The top ten combined account for 677 of 882 records, or 76.8% — meaning the remaining 90 ranked companies share roughly a quarter of the field between them.
Even the leader has slowed in the latest partial year
The top assignee dropped to a single filing in the latest year, a 97% year-on-year fall, while several other major filers show zero in that same window. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is more likely incomplete data than a genuine stop in filing activity.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| General Electric Co | 1 | -97% |
| United Technologies Corp | 0 | — |
| Malta Inc | 0 | — |
| Rolls-Royce Corp | 0 | — |
| Rolls-Royce North American Technologies Inc | 0 | — |
| X Development LLC | 0 | — |
| GE Avio S.r.l. | 0 | -100% |
| GE Poland LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a field that is concentrated at the top but still has open claim territory in specific subclasses. The next step depends on whether the question is defensive (what blocks us) or offensive (where can we file).
Run a freedom-to-operate check on a specific component
Before drafting claims around a specific turbomachinery component, check the exact subclass and assignee overlap for that geometry or manufacturing method rather than relying on the field-level concentration figures.
Explore with EurekaTrack the leader's recent filing pattern
The steep drop in the leading assignee's latest-year count is more likely a publication-lag artefact than a real pullback — worth revisiting the trend in six to twelve months as later filings publish.
Set up monitoring in EurekaMap the under-claimed subclasses against your own component list
Combustion chamber, jet propulsion and aircraft-equipment subclasses each sit under 10% of records — check whether your own component roadmap falls into one of these lighter-claimed areas.
Run a gap analysis in EurekaCommon questions about turbomachinery component patents
Filing in this dataset is heavily concentrated: the leading assignee holds 170 of the 882 records in scope, and the top five assignees combined hold 554 records, or 62.8% of the field. That gap is wide enough that a single company's filing strategy effectively sets the boundaries of the core claim space. Below the top ten, which together hold 76.8% of records, the remaining 90 ranked companies each hold comparatively few filings, forming a long tail rather than a second tier of equal-sized competitors.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 156 records and has settled to a lower, steadier level since. Looking only at complete years, filings rose from 49 in 2021 to 53 in 2024, an 8% increase — modest but real growth. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is largely an artefact of the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, not evidence that the field is contracting.
Two IPC subclasses carry most of the field: F01D, covering turbines and non-positive engines, appears on 50.6% of the 882 records, and F02C, gas-turbine plants, appears on 46.9%. Steam and thermal power plants (F01K) and non-positive-displacement pumps (F04D) form a smaller second tier. Combustion chambers, jet and reaction propulsion, and aircraft equipment each sit at or below 7%, marking them as narrower, more specific claim territory rather than core ground.
US20240139892A1, filed by Rolls-Royce and published in 2024, claims a specific manufacturing method: comparing an ideal aerofoil-and-platform design against an intermediate design to correct platform thickness deviations during production. It does not claim the aerofoil or platform geometry itself, so it does not block someone designing a differently shaped component or using a different correction method to manage manufacturing tolerance. Anyone working on turbomachinery component manufacturing should read the specific comparison-and-correction steps in the claims rather than assuming the whole manufacturing workflow is covered.
The clearest under-claimed ground sits in subclasses that fall well below the F01D and F02C core: combustion chamber cooling geometry, jet and reaction propulsion nozzle control, and aircraft-integrated sensing for turbomachinery each cover under 10% of the 882 records. That does not mean these areas are unclaimed, but the claim density is lower than in the core turbine and gas-turbine subclasses, making them a more realistic target for a narrowly drafted new filing than trying to compete directly against the top five assignees on core architecture.
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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.