Polyimide Curing Process Patents: Who's Filing and Where the Claim Space Sits
Filing has cooled since its 2017 peak. 157 filings that year against 19 in the most recent (partial) year, with the 2022 midpoint at 131 — a declining trend, not a growing one. 157 filings in 2017 fell to a 2022 midpoint of 131 and to 19 in the most recent partial year. Read the tail end cautiously — publication lag means the last one to two years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be — but the trajectory from peak to midpoint is already a decline, not noise.
- 1MITSUI CHEMICALS INC6.0%
- 2LG CHEM LTD4.4%
- 3KANEKA CORP3.9%
- 4UBE CORPORATION3.9%
- 5KOLON INDUSTRIES INC2.6%
See the full polyimide curing process analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about polyimide curing process patents
What counts as a polyimide curing process patent?
In this dataset, it means a filing whose title or claims reference thermal imidization, cure schedule, cyclization curing, or cure kinetics, classified under IPC codes covering condensation polymers (C08G73/10), polymer processing (C08J5/24) or polyimide compositions (C08L79/08). Most of these are not pure process patents — they tie the cure step to a specific monomer, additive or substrate system. That means a freedom-to-operate check needs to look at the surrounding chemistry claims, not just the temperature ramp or atmosphere conditions described in the process steps.
Is the polyimide curing process patent space still growing?
No — filings peaked at 157 in 2017 and had fallen to a 2022 midpoint of 131, with only 19 recorded in the most recent partial year. That is a declining trend across the tracked period, not a plateau. Publication lag of roughly 18 months means the last one to two years will always look artificially thin, but the multi-year drop from the 2017 peak predates that lag effect and reflects a real slowdown in new core filings.
Which jurisdictions matter most for polyimide curing process patents?
China and the United States are the two dominant receiving offices, with 704 and 631 records respectively — together more than double the EPO's 384. Japan (95), WIPO/PCT (73) and Canada (34) are meaningfully smaller. Any clearance search or competitive monitoring program in this space should prioritize Chinese and US patent databases first, then extend to EPO filings, since Japan-originated filings are a smaller share than the historical prominence of Japanese polyimide chemistry firms might suggest.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polyimide Curing Process covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.