Waste-to-Energy Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees hold 205 of 847 records in scope (24.2%), with the leader alone at 62 — but the ranked list runs 100 deep, so most of the field is a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
- Filing has cooled from its 2022 peak. Activity peaked at 80 records in 2022 and fell from 73 in 2021 to 23 in 2024, a documented -68% over that span; 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up with filing.
- Solid waste disposal and incineration still dominate the claim map. B09B and F23G together touch over 40% of records, while gasification (C10J) and separation (B01D) sit well behind — a gap worth checking before drafting new claims.
Filing growth compares 2021 (73 records) with 2024 (23) — 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 847 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the waste-to-energy patent record actually shows
Waste-to-energy patenting sits at the intersection of thermal conversion and material recovery: the search set combines core process terms like thermal waste conversion and waste energy recovery with downstream handling concepts such as material separation, recovery yield and recycled feedstock. That pairing matters because a waste-to-energy claim rarely stands alone — it is usually bundled with a sorting, collection or secondary-product step that determines whether the energy recovery is commercially viable at all.
The 847 records in scope span 2015 through the current data cut-off, with the most recent year necessarily undercounted because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months. Filing offices skew toward the United States and Europe, with India and PCT filings both substantial, suggesting the technology is being protected across manufacturing and deployment markets rather than concentrated in a single jurisdiction.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 847-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2022 peak followed by a documented pullback
Filings rose from 55 in 2017 to a peak of 80 in 2022, then declined from 73 in 2021 to 23 in 2024 — a -68% move over three years. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 are undercounts, not evidence of a further slide; the 2024 figure is the most recent one that can be read as complete.
Solid waste disposal and incineration lead; separation and fuel classes trail
B09B (solid waste disposal) and F23G (incinerators & waste burning) are the two most-populated classes at 23.0% and 19.7% of all 847 records respectively. Gasification (C10J, 13.2%), separation processes (B01D, 12.0%), destructive distillation (C10B, 9.0%), wastewater treatment (C02F, 8.0%), catalysis (B01J, 7.9%) and fuels (C10L, 7.7%) each cover a smaller but still material share. Since records can carry multiple classes, these figures sum to more than 100% of the record total and should not be added together.
Shares are the percentage of the 847 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Waste-to-Energy Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about waste-to-energy patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this set
AU2021201990A1 — Waste management and processing system
A system of waste management and compost generation comprising a waste collection system where waste is collected in separated compostable and non-compostable streams in trackable bins, a processing facility that receives and processes both streams, a sorting system for further processing, and a communication and data-entry system for reporting sorting data.Filed by RYW Holdings Pty Ltd, published 2021-04-29.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050080520A1 | Waste recovery and material handling process to replace the traditional trash transfer station and landfil by… | 539 |
| 2 | US8615374B1 | Modular, configurable, intelligent sensor system | 360 |
| 3 | US20150143806A1 | Quintuple-Effect Generation Multi-Cycle Hybrid Renewable Energy System with Integrated Energy Provisioning, S… | 268 |
| 4 | US6630113B1 | Methods and apparatus for treating waste | 168 |
| 5 | US5134944A | Processes and means for waste resources utilization | 166 |
| 6 | US20110099890A1 | Sorbent containing engineered fuel feed stock | 149 |
| 7 | US6692544B1 | Municipal waste briquetting system and method of filling land | 148 |
| 8 | US6215678B1 | Arc plasma-joule heated melter system for waste treatment and resource recovery | 123 |
| 9 | US20180347406A1 | Quintuple-effect generation multi-cycle hybrid renewable energy system with integrated energy provisioning, s… | 102 |
| 10 | US6182584B1 | Integrated control and destructive distillation of carbonaceous waste | 101 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — read them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern implies for a new entrant
Three read-throughs from the trend, the class composition and the citation table.
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The top five assignees hold 205 of 847 records (24.2%), and the leader alone accounts for 62. That leaves the great majority of the 100 ranked assignees holding only a handful of filings each — a genuine long tail rather than a two-player market.
Read the recent years with the publication lag in mind
Volume fell from 73 records in 2021 to 23 in 2024. That is a real decline over a comparable window, but 2025 and 2026 figures will keep revising upward as filings from those years publish — treat this as a maturing filing wave, not a dead field.
Disposal and incineration routes are the most occupied
Solid waste disposal (B09B) and incineration (F23G) together touch the largest share of records. High density here means claim space is occupied, not that the underlying process is settled — new filings in these classes need to differentiate tightly against prior art.
Old filings still anchor the citation graph
The most-cited record in this set dates from the mid-2000s and covers general waste recovery and material handling — a reminder that citation weight in this field skews toward foundational filings rather than recent ones.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to waste-to-energy patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape: a clear leader over a long tail
The ranking covers 100 assignees by record count. The leader holds 62 records; by fifth place that has dropped to 26, and by tenth place to 13 — a steep early drop-off followed by a long, flat tail.
One filer well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 62 of 847 records, more than double the fifth-place figure of 26. That gap suggests a sustained, deliberate filing programme rather than opportunistic protection.
Concentration thins quickly after the leader
By the fifth-ranked assignee, volume has already fallen to 26 records; by tenth place it is 13. Combined, the top ten hold 293 records — 34.6% of the 847 in scope — leaving nearly two-thirds spread across the remaining ranked entrants and unranked filers.
Co-filing is rare, not structural
Only four co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them links a single company with a named inventor across two records. This is a field of largely independent filers rather than joint-venture patenting.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Brisa International LLC | 1 | — |
| Inheriting Earth Ltd | 0 | — |
| CRDC GLOBAL LTD | 0 | — |
| Scanship AS | 0 | — |
| ReniScience AS | 0 | — |
| Accordant Energy LLC | 0 | — |
| SORAIN CECCHINI AMBIENTE | 0 | — |
| AMSTERDAM WASTE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANCY & TECH BV | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate, tracking a competitor, or looking for a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the disposal and incineration classes
B09B and F23G carry the densest claim coverage in this set. Any new filing touching general solid-waste disposal or incineration process steps should be checked against this cluster first.
Explore with Eureka →Watch the long tail for consolidation signals
With 100 ranked assignees and a steep drop-off after the leader, new entrants or acquisitions among mid-ranked filers are worth monitoring as the 2021-2022 filing wave works through examination.
Track assignees in Eureka →Test claims in the under-claimed branches
Recovery-yield optimisation and secondary-product valorisation show lower density than core disposal claims, which may leave room for tightly drafted new filings.
Run a white-space search in Eureka →Common questions about waste-to-energy patents
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 100 companies, with the leader holding 62 of the 847 records in scope. The top five combined hold 205 records, or 24.2% of all records, while the top ten hold 293, or 34.6%. Beyond the top ranks, the field spreads into a long tail of assignees with only a handful of filings each, so no single company controls the space outright.
Filing volume peaked at 80 records in 2022, then fell from 73 in 2021 to 23 in 2024 — a documented -68% decline over that three-year span. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset will keep revising upward as more filings publish. It is more accurate to describe the wave as maturing than to call the technology area declining.
Solid waste disposal (IPC class B09B) and incinerators/waste burning (F23G) are the two most heavily claimed areas, covering 23.0% and 19.7% of the 847 records respectively. Gasification (C10J), separation processes (B01D), destructive distillation (C10B), wastewater treatment (C02F), catalysis (B01J) and fuels (C10L) each cover smaller but still meaningful shares. Because a single patent can be classified under several of these codes, the shares add up to more than 100% of the record total and should be read individually, not summed.
In this dataset, the United States receives the most filings at 202, followed by the European Patent Office at 117, India at 91, WIPO/PCT at 88, Australia at 50 and Canada at 44. That spread indicates protection is sought across both large manufacturing markets and jurisdictions with significant waste-management infrastructure investment, rather than being concentrated in one region.
The most-cited record in this dataset covers general waste recovery and material handling and carries 539 citations, well ahead of the next entries. Citation counts inside a searched patent corpus tend to favour older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited, so a high count signals historical influence on later filings rather than current commercial importance. When evaluating freedom-to-operate, recent filings with lower citation counts can still be more relevant to a live product design.
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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.