Vacuum Insulation Panels Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees account for 67.7% of all 62 records in scope, and the top 10 reach 95.2% — a field with little room left among the leaders but a real tail beyond them.
- Filing peaked in 2017. Activity has not returned to that level since; the most recent year is partial and understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
- Building structures lead the claims. E04B building-structure classes touch 40.3% of records, ahead of layered products (B32B, 35.5%) and pipe fittings (F16L, 33.9%) — insulation claims are being written around structures and pipework more than around the panel core itself.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 62 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the vacuum insulation panel patent record shows
Vacuum insulation panels compress a fumed silica or open-cell core inside a barrier film envelope, relying on a sustained internal vacuum to suppress conductive and convective heat transfer. The patent record built around this search — 62 published records spanning barrier film permeation, service-life prediction, edge thermal bridging and puncture protection — captures a field where the physics is well established but the engineering of long-term seal integrity is still being claimed. Family-level counting is used throughout so that continuations and multi-jurisdiction refilings of the same invention are not double-counted.
Filings cluster around building envelope integration and layered barrier construction rather than around the vacuum core chemistry itself, and receiving-office data shows the United States ahead of Europe, China and the WIPO PCT route as the most common filing venue.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 62-record dataset: filing activity by year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the subclass shares below sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Filings ran at 11 in 2017, the peak year recorded, and have not matched that level since. The 2026 figure of 0 reflects the data cut-off rather than a stop in filing activity — publication lag of roughly 18 months means recent-year counts are always understated and should not be read as a decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
E04B (building structures & elements) leads at 40.3% of the 62 records, followed by B32B (layered products & laminates) at 35.5% and F16L (pipes & pipe fittings) at 33.9%. Aircraft equipment (B64D, 12.9%) and structural building components (E04C, 11.3%) form a second tier, with shaping-of-plastics (B29C), pressure vessels (F17C) and refrigeration (F25D) each under 10%.
Shares are the percentage of the 62 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vacuum Insulation Panels with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vacuum insulation panels and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this dataset
Vacuum Insulated Panels of Arbitrary Size and Method for Manufacturing the Panels (US20130216854A1)
The present invention is a vacuum insulated panel (VIP) for increasing the thermal insulation surrounding a structure or volume, and a novel method for manufacturing the VIP. The VIP comprises at least two pieces of thin metal foil welded together adjacent the edges of said metal foil, said thin metal foil material defining the exterior of a sealed and gas evacuated vacuum enclosure; and a vacuum insulation panel core located between said at least two pieces of welded thin metal foil material, said vacuum insulation panel core located inside said sealed and gas evacuated vacuum enclosure.Filed by Feinerman, Alan (2013-08-22). Its claim to welded metal-foil edge sealing, rather than adhesive or fold-sealed barrier film, is a distinct route to eliminating edge thermal bridging.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090031659A1 | Evacuated Thermal Insulation Panel | 118 |
| 2 | US20140196305A1 | Production of Thermal Insulation Products | 55 |
| 3 | US20140360044A1 | Thermal insulation products and production of thermal insulation products | 27 |
| 4 | US20140366480A1 | Thermal insulation products for insulating buildings and other enclosed environments | 21 |
| 5 | US20130200084A1 | High-performance vacuum insulation panel and manufacturing method thereof | 19 |
| 6 | US20130216854A1 | Vacuum Insulated Panels of Arbitrary Size and Method for Manufacturing the Panels | 18 |
| 7 | US9849405B2 | Thermal insulation products and production of thermal insulation products | 17 |
| 8 | US20180346122A1 | In-flight service cart and thermally insulated container for an in-flight service cart | 16 |
| 9 | WO2006077599A2 | Evacuated thermal insulation panel | 16 |
| 10 | US20160305598A1 | Method of Manufacturing Vacuum Insulation Panels | 15 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus and favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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The ranking, the citation table and the filing trend together point to a field where a handful of assignees hold most of the claim space, but the most-cited prior art is now over a decade old.
The leaders have largely closed the door at the top
The top 5 assignees hold 67.7% of all 62 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 95.2%. New entrants competing head-on with the leaders' core claims face dense prior art; the more open ground sits in the remaining assignees and in adjacent IPC branches.
The most influential prior art predates the current filing window
The single most-cited record in this dataset, US20090031659A1, sits well ahead of the next most-cited filings. Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older documents simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations, so this should be read as a marker of foundational influence rather than of current state of the art.
Activity has not returned to its 2017 peak
Filing volume peaked in 2017 at 11 records and has trended lower since, though the most recent years are understated by the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication. Growth rate is not computable from this window because too few complete years remain once that lag is accounted for.
Claims cluster on structure integration, not core chemistry
Building-structure classes (E04B) touch 40.3% of records and layered-product classes (B32B) touch 35.5%, ahead of pipe-fitting applications (F16L) at 33.9%. Getter materials, fumed silica core formulation and barrier film chemistry are present in the search terms but do not dominate the IPC mix, suggesting the busiest claim activity is at the panel's structural application rather than its internal materials.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vacuum insulation panels, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Tower Cold Chain Solutions | DHL Supply Chain | 4 |
| GUPTA PRATEEK | FEINERMAN ALAN | 3 |
| Thermovac Ltd | KALFON RAMI ABRAHAM | 2 |
Co-assignee pairs are rare in this dataset (3 identified), with the strongest pairing appearing on 4 shared records — most filings here are single-assignee, not joint-venture or cross-licensed work.
Who holds the claim space
Nineteen companies make up the entire ranked list this dataset returns — this is not a top-50 or top-100 cut, it is the full set of ranked assignees for these search terms. The leader holds 13 records; by fifth place that has fallen to 6, and by tenth place to 3, which is the shape of a field with a clear leader and a long, thin tail rather than a tight cluster of equally sized rivals.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 13 of the 62 records in scope, more than double the fifth-placed company's 6. That gap suggests a company that has built out a broad claim portfolio rather than winning on a single foundational filing.
A cluster forms behind the leader
Fifth place holds 6 records, and the top 5 combined reach 67.7% of all 62 records — meaning the next four assignees behind the leader are filing at a meaningfully lower but still active pace, not simply defending single patents.
The tail thins quickly after tenth
By tenth place, holdings drop to 3 records, and the top 10 combined already cover 95.2% of all 62 records. The remaining ranked assignees beyond tenth are filing in single digits, which is where opportunistic or defensive single filings are most likely to sit.
Joint filings are the exception, not the rule
Only 3 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, the strongest sharing 4 records. Most activity here is filed by a single assignee acting alone, which is consistent with a field still organised around individual company R&D rather than cross-licensed consortia.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Thermovac Ltd | 0 | — |
| Tower Cold Chain Solutions | 0 | — |
| Electricite de France | 0 | — |
| Nanopore Inc | 0 | — |
| United States Gypsum Co | 0 | — |
| DHL Supply Chain | 0 | — |
| Kingspan Holdings (Ireland) Ltd | 0 | — |
| Sonoco Development Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated top and a thin but real tail — the next steps depend on whether you are filing, licensing, or scouting for acquisition targets.
Check freedom-to-operate on structural integration claims
With E04B and B32B classes touching over a third of all records, any new panel-to-building or panel-to-pipe integration design should be checked against the leading assignees' portfolios before filing.
Run a freedom-to-operate scanTrack the under-claimed core-material branches
Getter material formulation, internal pressure rise prediction and fumed silica core optimisation carry fewer records than the structural classes — these are candidate areas for a first-mover filing rather than a crowded one.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the long tail for acquisition or licensing targets
Assignees ranked beyond tenth place hold single-digit record counts individually but collectively account for the remaining share outside the top 10's 95.2%, and may hold narrow but useful claims on edge sealing or puncture protection.
Review the full assignee rankingCommon questions on vacuum insulation panel patents
The dataset behind this page ranks 19 assignees, and the leading company holds 13 of the 62 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company's 6. This gap indicates a leader with a broad filing programme rather than the field being split evenly among several equally-sized competitors. Anyone evaluating freedom to operate should look closely at the leader's claim scope first, since it accounts for the largest single share of the ranked total.
Quite concentrated: the top 5 assignees together hold 67.7% of all 62 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 95.2%. That leaves a long tail of assignees each holding only a handful of records, which is typically where narrower, more specific claims — such as edge-sealing geometry or puncture protection layers — tend to sit, since the broader structural claims are already occupied by the leaders.
Building-structure integration (IPC class E04B) is the most common, touching 40.3% of the 62 records, followed by layered-product and laminate construction (B32B) at 35.5% and pipe-fitting applications (F16L) at 33.9%. Because a single patent can carry more than one IPC classification, these shares add up to more than 100% of records rather than representing separate slices of a whole. The pattern suggests filings are concentrated on how the panel is integrated into a structure or pipework, rather than on the internal vacuum core materials themselves.
Filing peaked at 11 records in 2017 and has not returned to that level in the years since, based on the 2015-2026 window covered here. However, because patent publication lags the actual filing date by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look artificially low and should not be read as a real drop in activity. A reliable growth rate cannot be computed from this window because too few complete years remain once that lag is accounted for.
The search terms cover getter materials, fumed silica core formulation, internal pressure rise prediction, edge thermal bridging and puncture protection, but the IPC composition shows these material- and lifespan-focused areas carrying fewer records than the structural integration classes. That gap does not mean the area is unclaimed outright, but it does mean fewer entrenched portfolios stand in the way of a well-drafted first claim in core material lifespan prediction or puncture-resistant layer design compared with filing on structural integration, where the leading assignees already hold dense coverage.
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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.