One assignee leads with 18 records in this 140-record dataset, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 8 and the tenth-ranked at 4. That steep drop-off means the top five assignees together account for 39.3% of all records, while the remaining ranked companies (57 in total) each hold comparatively few filings. Practically, this means a small number of entities have shaped the core claim space, but there is still a broad tail of smaller filers worth checking for niche prior art.

The overwhelming majority, 92.9% of the 140 records, carry an F16K classification, covering valves and taps generally. Secondary classes point to where cryogenic engineering specifically matters: F17C (pressure vessels and gas storage) appears in 11.4% of records, F25B (refrigeration and heat pumps) in 7.9%, and F16L (pipe fittings) in 6.4%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read as overlapping technology touches, not a strict breakdown.

Filings grew 33% from 3 records in 2021 to 4 in 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as a complete count. The field peaked earlier at 10 filings in 2019 before dropping and then recovering through the early 2020s. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower only because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those years are still filling in rather than showing a genuine slowdown.

AU532980B, filed by Posi-Seal International in 1981 and titled simply 'Cryogenic valve seal', is one of the earliest records associated with this search and predates the 2015-2026 filing window covered by the rest of the dataset. It matters as a reference point for foundational seal geometry and thermal-compensation approaches that later filings build on or work around. Anyone evaluating freedom to operate in this space should check how a proposed design's seat and seal mechanism relates to this early claim scope, even though the patent itself is decades old.

The United States receives the most filings in this dataset at 43, followed by the European Patent Office at 23, Australia at 16, WIPO/PCT applications at 15, the United Kingdom at 13, and Canada at 9. This spread lines up with major LNG, industrial gas and aerospace markets rather than concentrating in a single jurisdiction. A moderate PCT count of 15 suggests some applicants pursue broad international protection, but it is not yet the default filing route for most assignees in this field.