Different imperfections are observed with jet pulsed filters. They manifest themselves most obviously in the curve of the pressure drop versus time. A convex pressure drop curve indicates cake compaction. But jet pulsed filters frequently show a concave rise of the pressure drop curve. This phenomenon is due to a strongly nonuniform cake area load on the filter and it is generally attributed to incomplete cake removal. Incomplete cake removal takes place when only a fraction of the total filter area is cleaned at the end of a filter cycle or when patchy cleaning prevails. Patchy cleaning means that a jet pulse removes the entire filter cake of only a fraction of the exposed filter area except for a thin adhesive dust layer. In this paper a filter model is proposed in which the different classes of cake thickness are understood to result from different cake generations. A cake becomes one generation older when it survives the jet pulse cleaning at the end of a filtration cycle, although the area that is occupied by the cake on the filter medium is diminished by the jet pulse. This generations filter model can be used to find the distributions of age, thickness and gas velocities in the cake from steady-state operational data. The steady-state, periodic model provides a complete basis for the simulation of heterogeneous gas/solid reactions in the cake of jet pulsed filters. In the model intermediate cake build up during the cleaning procedure is considered. There redeposition of removed filter cake also takes place, and its extent is estimated. The model can also serve to determine from macroscopic process data, if the cleaning system of a filter installation operates in the undesirable mode of patchy cleaning. Experiments from a pilot plant for dry flue gas cleaning are presented and the generations filter model is validated with the experimental data.