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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/antibody-engineering-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Antibody EngineeringAntibody engineering patents: who holds the ground and where filing is still open
- 18.9% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 17,378 of the 91,813 records in scope — a real lead, but far from a lock on the field.
- Filing cooled from a 2021 peak. Volume ran from 1,324 records in 2021 to 899 in 2024, a 32% pull-back over that span, before the most recent, still-incomplete years.
- Fc-engineering prior art runs deep. Four of the five most-cited records in this dataset are Fc-variant patents, with citation counts above 1,500 each — a dense thicket for any new Fc claim.
91.8K
Published Records
19%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-32%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,324 records) with 2024 (899) — 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 91,813 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What the antibody engineering patent record actually shows
Antibody engineering sits at the intersection of protein science and drug delivery: claims cover everything from Fc variant design and cysteine-conjugation sites to binding-assay methods and dosage composition. This landscape covers 91,813 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from a search string that pairs antibody-engineering terms with downstream therapeutic and delivery concepts. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend understate real activity.
The record set spans jurisdictions from the USPTO and EPO through WIPO's PCT route to Australia, Canada and Singapore, reflecting a field that files early and internationally. Reading the assignee ranking, the IPC composition and the citation leaders together gives a working map of where claim space is dense, where it is thinning, and where a new filing still has room to stand.
Filing volume and technology composition, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 91,813 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing volume, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 1,324 records in 2021, then eased to 899 by 2024 — a 32% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, so they should not be read as a continued fall.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C07K (peptides and proteins) leads at 18.1% of the 91,813 records, with A61K (medicinal preparations) close behind at 14.4%. A61P (therapeutic activity) and C12N (genetic engineering) follow at 8.2% and 4.6% respectively; because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 91,813 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaKey Patents
The most-cited antibody engineering patents
Representative Recent Filing
US20260042847A1 — Cysteine engineered antibody constructs, conjugates and methods of use
ZYMEWORKS INC.
Antibody constructs engineered to introduce at least one cysteine insertion mutation ("cysteine engineered antibody constructs") are described. The inserted cysteine residue(s) may be used as a site for conjugation of one or more active agents to the antibody construct to provide conjugates, such as antibody-drug conjugates.Filed by Zymeworks Inc., published 2026-02-12 — illustrates the continuing push from Fc-variant claims toward site-specific conjugation chemistry.
Citation leaders in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2013079174A1 | Anti-PD-l1 antibodies and uses thereof | 2,120 |
| 2 | WO2004029207A2 | Optimized FC variants and methods for their generation | 1,817 |
| 3 | WO2004099249A2 | Optimized FC variants and methods for their generation | 1,613 |
| 4 | WO2004063351A2 | IDENTIFICATION AND ENGINEERING OF ANTIBODIES WITH VARIANT Fc REGIONS AND METHODS OF USING SAME | 1,572 |
| 5 | US7317091B2 | Optimized Fc variants | 1,548 |
| 6 | US20070010702A1 | Medical device with low magnetic susceptibility | 1,511 |
| 7 | WO2004003019A2 | Immunoglobin single variant antigen-binding domains and dual-specific constructs | 1,497 |
| 8 | WO2006019447A1 | Optimized fc variants | 1,231 |
| 9 | WO2003002609A2 | Dual-specific ligand and its use | 1,144 |
| 10 | US8735553B1 | Anti-PD1 antibodies and their use as therapeutics and diagnostics | 1,127 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus. Older filings accumulate more citations simply by being available longer, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than of current filing activity.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data means for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the ranking, the citation table and the IPC composition, translated into what they mean for where to file next.
Concentration
18.9%
of 91,813 records held by top 5
Leadership is real but not exclusive
The top five assignees combine for 17,378 of the 91,813 records in scope — 18.9% of the field. That is enough to dominate the core Fc-engineering and antibody-optimization claims, but it leaves the large majority of the record set to a long tail of other filers, including many single-filing entrants.
Read the assignee ranking as a guide to who to watch, not a closed field.
Citation depth
1,500+
citations on four of the top five records
Fc-variant claims sit on old, dense prior art
Four of the five most-cited records in this corpus are Fc-variant patents dating from the mid-2000s, each cited well over 1,500 times. A new Fc-region claim has to clear this prior art specifically, not just the antibody-engineering field generally.
Fc engineering is occupied ground; site-specific conjugation and delivery claims are comparatively newer.
Technology mix
18.1%
of records classed under C07K
Peptide and protein claims dominate the classification mix
C07K (peptides and proteins) and A61K (medicinal preparations) between them touch a large share of the 91,813 records — 18.1% and 14.4% respectively. Downstream classes like C12Q (enzyme/DNA measurement) and C07H (sugars and nucleic acids) sit under 1.5% each, suggesting assay and nucleic-acid-adjacent claims are comparatively thin.
Thin IPC shares mark branches worth checking for open claim space, not necessarily low value.
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Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who's Filing
The assignee landscape
The ranking covers 100 companies counted in records, led by a filer at 7,491 records, with fifth place at 1,511 and tenth at 1,257 — a steep drop-off after the leader, then a more gradual tail.
Leader
7,491
records
A single filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's record count is roughly five times the fifth-place total of 1,511, a gap wide enough to suggest a long-running, deliberately built portfolio rather than a recent surge.
Leader identity is shown in the ranking table.
Mid-field
1,257
records at 10th place
A gradual tail below the top five
Filing counts fall off quickly after the leader but level out from fifth to tenth place, with the tenth-ranked filer at 1,257 records against 1,511 for fifth. That plateau points to a group of well-resourced but not dominant filers competing for the same claim space.
Together the top ten hold 24,008 records — 26.1% of the 91,813 in scope.
Collaboration
10
co-assignee pairs identified
Co-filing is limited and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairing at 123 shared records. This points to antibody engineering being filed largely by single corporate assignees rather than through joint-venture or cross-licensing arrangements.
Co-filing intensity is a weak signal here compared with fields built on research consortia.
Recent-year filing momentum
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Genentech, Inc. | 2 | -90% |
| Xencor, Inc. | 2 | -82% |
| F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co AG | 2 | +100% |
| Genmab A/S | 1 | -83% |
| Novartis AG | 0 | -100% |
| Biogen MA Inc. | 0 | — |
| Vaccinex, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Amgen Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next Steps
Where to take this analysis
The ranking and citation tables above answer who and how much. The next questions — what specific claims block a given approach, and what a defensible first-filing looks like in the white space — need claim-level reading.
Map a specific claim against the Fc-variant cluster
Run the specific antibody format or Fc modification you are evaluating against the citation leaders identified here to see how close prior art sits.
Open Eureka to trace claim overlapTrack momentum among the assignees you compete with
Recent-year filing counts by assignee show sharp swings — some leaders pulling back, others holding steady — that a static ranking snapshot will not reveal.
Open Eureka to monitor assignee activitySource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on the antibody engineering patent landscape
The ranking in this dataset covers 100 assignees, led by a single filer with 7,491 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 1,511. The top five assignees combined account for 17,378 records, or 18.9% of the 91,813 records in scope, which means leadership is concentrated but the majority of filings still come from outside that group. Checking the current ranking table is the reliable way to see exact standings, since positions can shift as new publications land.
Filing volume peaked at 1,324 records in 2021 and had eased to 899 by 2024, a 32% decline over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence the field is shrinking further. The honest read is that filing activity cooled from its 2021 high but 2024 remains the last year with a reasonably complete picture.
The IPC composition points to comparatively thin claim density in classes like C12Q (enzyme and DNA-based measurement, 1.0% of records) and C07H (sugars and nucleic acids, 0.6%), against C07K's dominant 18.1% share. Site-specific conjugation approaches, such as the cysteine-engineering method in the representative filing on this page, also sit outside the heavily cited Fc-variant cluster. These are starting points for a freedom-to-operate search, not a guarantee of a clean filing.
The most-cited record in this corpus is an anti-PD-L1 antibody patent cited 2,120 times, followed closely by a cluster of Fc-variant patents each cited over 1,500 times. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older patents simply because they have had more time to be cited, so this is best read as a map of foundational prior art rather than a ranking of current importance. Anyone filing a new Fc-region or Fc-variant claim should expect to be examined against this specific cluster.
Moderately concentrated at the very top and long-tailed below it: the top five assignees hold 18.9% of the 91,813 records, and the top ten hold 26.1%. Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest at 123 shared records, indicating that most filing happens under single corporate ownership rather than through joint filings. That combination — a strong leader, a moderate second tier, and a large unconcentrated remainder — is typical of a mature but still competitively open field.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Antibody Engineering Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.