Vacuum Gas Oil & Hydrocracking Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2017 at 130 and have declined since, with 2022 at 55 — the midpoint of the tracked window — suggesting the core reactor and catalyst claim space filled early and later filers are working narrower angles.
- Co-filing is concentrated in a few high-value pairs, with the strongest assignee pairing appearing together on 60 families, pointing to joint-venture style technology transfer rather than broad industry collaboration.
- Momentum has cooled across every tracked assignee, with leading filers showing flat or negative year-on-year change in the latest year, consistent with a maturing claim landscape rather than an active filing race.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 2,059 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine vacuum gas oil processing or hydrocracking with claims around catalyst deactivation, conversion rate, sulfur removal, feedstock quality or reactor severity. The search is anchored in C10G47, C10G65 and C10G49 — the IPC subclasses covering hydrocracking, hydrotreating and residuum conversion — so the corpus is deliberately narrow to process chemistry and reactor operation rather than downstream fuel formulation.
Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. That lag matters more here than in a fast-growing field: with the peak already behind the dataset, a reader should treat the tail-end decline as partly an artefact of reporting delay and partly a genuine slowdown in new filing activity.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,059-family corpus: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2017 peak followed by sustained decline
Filings ran from 130 in 2017 down toward single digits by 2026, with 2022 sitting at 55 roughly halfway through the window. That shape — an early peak rather than steady growth — is typical of a process technology where the core reactor configurations and catalyst formulations were claimed early, leaving later entrants to file around narrower operating-condition or feedstock-specific variants.
C10G dominates; B01J is the largest secondary cluster
Nearly every record in the corpus (2,057 of 2,059) sits in C10G, the hydrocarbon oil refining subclass, which is expected given the search construction. The more informative signal is the secondary distribution: B01J (catalysis and chemical process equipment) appears in 765 records, far ahead of C07C (108), B01D separation processes (104) and C10L fuels (88). That gap shows most of the inventive activity in this field is being claimed as catalyst and reactor-process innovation rather than as downstream fuel-blend or lubricant chemistry.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,059 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vacuum Gas Oil Processing and Hydrocracking with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vacuum gas oil processing and hydrocracking and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and the most-cited prior art
US20150225657A1 — Processing vacuum residuum and vacuum gas oil in ebullated bed reactor systems
A process for upgrading vacuum residuum and vacuum gas oil hydrocarbons is disclosed. The process may include contacting a heavy distillate hydrocarbon fraction and hydrogen with a zeolite selective hydrocracking catalyst in a first ebullated bed hydrocracking reaction zone to convert at least a portion of the vacuum gas oil to lighter hydrocarbons, then contacting a residuum hydrocarbon fraction and hydrogen with a non-zeolite base metal hydroconversion catalyst in a second ebullated bed hydroconversion reaction zone.Filed by Lummus Technology, this record illustrates the two-stage ebullated-bed architecture that recurs across the corpus's most heavily cited prior art.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EP0668342A1 | Lubricating base oil preparation process | 852 |
| 2 | US4401556A | Midbarrel hydrocracking | 432 |
| 3 | US6217746B1 | Two stage hydrocracking process | 208 |
| 4 | US5959167A | Process for conversion of lignin to reformulated hydrocarbon gasoline | 205 |
| 5 | US4746419A | Process for the hydrodemetallation hydrodesulfuration and hydrocracking of a hydrocarbon feedstock | 186 |
| 6 | US6660157B2 | Heavy oil hydrocracking process with multimetallic liquid catalyst in slurry bed | 177 |
| 7 | US4789457A | Production of high octane gasoline by hydrocracking catalytic cracking products | 157 |
| 8 | US20050241993A1 | Hydroprocessing method and system for upgrading heavy oil using a colloidal or molecular catalyst | 151 |
| 9 | US20090283442A1 | Production of Aviation Fuel from Renewable Feedstocks | 149 |
| 10 | US4859312A | Process for making middle distillates using a silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieve | 136 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and are skewed 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.
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Three patterns emerge from the trend, the IPC split and the co-filing structure that matter more than the raw record count.
The claim space filled early
Filings ran from a 2017 peak of 130 down toward single digits by 2026, with the 2022 midpoint at 55. New entrants filing broad reactor or catalyst claims now are filing into a crowded space; the more defensible position is a narrow feedstock, severity or catalyst-composition variant.
Catalysis carries the secondary claim weight
After the core C10G refining classification, B01J catalytic process claims appear in more than a third of the corpus, well ahead of separation (B01D, 104) or fuels chemistry (C10L, 88). Design-around work should assume catalyst formulation and regeneration claims are the densest secondary layer, not process control.
Co-filing clusters around a handful of pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest single pairing covers 60 shared families. That concentration points to joint-venture or licensing-driven co-filing between a small number of technology providers and operators, not broad cross-industry collaboration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vacuum gas oil processing and hydrocracking, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is quiet
Recent-year momentum has softened across every tracked assignee, which changes how a competitive read of this space should be framed.
Lummus Technology still files, but slower
Lummus Technology recorded 1 family in the latest tracked year, down 67% year-on-year — still active, but at a fraction of earlier volume. It also appears in two of the strongest co-assignee pairings in the dataset, suggesting its recent filings run through joint ventures rather than solo applications.
Several historically active filers have gone quiet
UOP, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, and Chevron U.S.A. each show zero filings in the latest tracked year. That does not mean disengagement from the technology — publication lag means recent filings may not yet be visible — but it does mean current public activity from these names is thin.
Saudi Aramco's public filing rate has dropped to zero
Saudi Arabian Oil Company shows 0 families in the latest year, a 100% year-on-year decline. Combined with a strong co-assignee link to Lummus Technology elsewhere in the dataset, this suggests recent joint activity may be filed under a partner or subsidiary name rather than absent altogether.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Lummus Technology Inc. | 1 | -67% |
| UOP LLC | 0 | — |
| SABIC Global Technologies B.V. | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company | 0 | — |
| Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) | 0 | -100% |
| Chevron U.S.A. Inc. | 0 | — |
| Mobil Oil Corporation | 0 | — |
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature core and a thinning filing rate — the open questions are about where residual white space sits and how defensible any new filing would be.
Map catalyst regeneration claims in detail
B01J's dominance as the secondary IPC cluster means catalyst-side claims deserve a dedicated freedom-to-operate pass before committing engineering resources to a new formulation.
Explore catalyst claims in EurekaTrack the quiet majors for renewed activity
Zero recent-year filings from several historically strong assignees may reflect publication lag rather than exit. Monitoring for a rebound is worth setting up now.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaTest white-space claim language
Under-claimed branches like ebullated-bed regeneration cycles or feedstock-adaptive severity control warrant a draft claim run against the corpus to confirm they're genuinely open.
Draft and check claims in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset shows filings rising to a peak of 130 in 2017 before falling steadily toward single digits by 2026. This pattern is typical of a process technology where core reactor architectures and catalyst formulations were claimed early in the 2015-2018 period, leaving less unclaimed ground for broad new filings afterward. It's also partly a reporting artefact: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend will understate true filing activity until later data catches up.
The corpus tracks 2,059 patent families across a set of assignees including Lummus Technology, UOP, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), Chevron U.S.A., and several Sinopec research institutes, among others. Rather than one dominant filer, the field shows concentration among a handful of technology licensors and national oil companies, with co-filing pairs — such as Lummus Technology with Saudi Aramco Technologies — indicating joint-venture-style filing relationships. Exact rankings are best read from the assignee table rather than summarized as a fixed list, since positions shift as more records publish.
In this corpus, hydrocracking claims (C10G65/C10G47) typically cover reactor configuration, catalyst composition and conversion conditions for breaking heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter products. Vacuum gas oil processing claims often describe the feedstock preparation, quality specification, or how VGO is fed into a hydrocracking or hydroconversion reactor stage. The two overlap heavily in practice — the representative filing in this dataset, US20150225657A1, claims both a VGO hydrocracking stage and a separate residuum hydroconversion stage in the same ebullated-bed process.
Based on IPC composition, the densest claim territory is C10G refining process claims layered with B01J catalytic process claims, which together account for the bulk of the corpus. Thinner areas include catalyst regeneration cycle management specific to ebullated-bed systems, feedstock-quality-adaptive reactor severity control, and integrated routes from hydrocracking directly to lubricant base oil production — areas with comparatively few dedicated filings relative to the core reactor and catalyst claims. Any of these should still be checked against a live freedom-to-operate search before filing, since a thin count in this specific search string doesn't guarantee an empty claim space elsewhere.
EP0668342A1 and US4401556A are the two most-cited records in this corpus, with 852 and 432 citations respectively, but high citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favor older filings simply because they've had more time to accumulate citations. That makes them useful as evidence of foundational influence on later hydrocracking and lubricant base oil claims, not as evidence that the underlying technology is still commercially central today. Anyone relying on these for a design-around analysis should check current legal status and expiry separately from citation count.
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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.