Biaxially Oriented Film Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five leading assignees together hold 33.7% of all 1,429 records in scope, with the leader alone at 155 families.
- Filing has plateaued. Activity peaked at 37 records in 2022 and has not grown since; the field is holding its ground, not expanding.
- Two IPC subclasses carry most of the claim density. C08J and B29C each appear on roughly seven in ten records, meaning most new filings are competing directly against that existing base.
What this landscape covers
Biaxially oriented film processing spans the stretching, orientation and heat-setting steps that turn cast polymer sheet into BOPP, BOPET and related films with controlled shrinkage, haze and line-speed properties. This landscape draws on 1,429 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine tenter-frame stretching or biaxial orientation language with claims touching stretch ratio, orientation, shrinkage, line speed or haze clarity, classified under B29C55, B29C48 and C08J5. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in any trend undercounts real activity.
The dataset is built for a specific decision: knowing which processing routes are already dense with prior art before committing R&D or freedom-to-operate budget to a stretching or orientation improvement.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,429 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density today.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran at 32 in 2017, rose to a peak of 37 in 2022, and have not moved past that midpoint since — a flat-to-declining pattern rather than a growth curve, even accounting for the understated final year.
IPC subclass composition
C08J (72.4% of the 1,429 records) and B29C (70.4%) dominate, reflecting that most filings touch both the polymer-processing and shaping-of-plastics classes at once. B32B, B29K, C08L and B29L each sit in the 35-38% range, while C08K and C08F additive- and copolymer-related classes trail near 10%, marking the thinner end of the claim space.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,429 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Biaxially Oriented Film Processing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about biaxially oriented film processing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
US4536365A — Process for the manufacture of equally biaxially oriented film
Equally biaxially oriented film is produced by extruding liquified polymer in tubular form, orienting the tubular film in the radial direction only and then either equally orienting the radially oriented film in the longitudinal direction and drying the resultant film while preventing shrinkage, or orienting the film in the longitudinal direction to a degree less than the radial orientation but equal to what remains after drying-induced radial shrinkage.Filed by American Cyanamid Company, granted 1985 — a foundational tubular-orientation process still cited across later stretch-ratio and shrinkage-control claims.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4758462A | Opaque film composites and method of preparing same | 271 |
| 2 | WO2002066233A1 | Successively biaxial-oriented porous polypropylene film and process for production thereof | 155 |
| 3 | US5562958A | Packaging and wrapping film | 118 |
| 4 | GB811066A | Biaxially oriented films | 96 |
| 5 | US20020065346A1 | Hydrolysis-resistant, transparent, biaxially oriented film made from a crystallizable thermoplastic, and proc… | 91 |
| 6 | US4898924A | Process for the production of biaxially oriented rigid rod heterocyclic liquid crystalline polymer films | 91 |
| 7 | US6316067B1 | Cheese package, film, bag and process for packaging a CO2 respiring foodstuff | 84 |
| 8 | US6511688B2 | Cheese package, film, bag and process for packaging a CO2 respiring foodstuff | 81 |
| 9 | US5852152A | Packaging and wrapping film | 77 |
| 10 | WO2015091839A1 | BOPP film with improved stiffness/toughness balance | 74 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings that have had more years to accumulate references; treat them as a signal of influence rather than current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Reading concentration, filing trend and citation depth together points to a mature, well-claimed field with a small number of durable reference patents.
The top of the field is settled
Five assignees hold 481 of the 1,429 records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 45.7%. That leaves more than half the field spread across a long tail of single- and low-count filers, which is where most new entrants land.
Growth has stalled, not accelerated
Activity rose from 32 records in 2017 to a peak of 37 in 2022 and has not exceeded that level since. Combined with the recent-year momentum data showing several leading assignees at zero filings in the latest year, this reads as a field in maintenance mode rather than expansion.
Two subclasses carry most of the load
C08J and B29C each cover roughly seven in ten of the 1,429 records, meaning the bulk of filings sit in the same two classification buckets. C08K and C08F, by contrast, sit near 10%, marking additive- and copolymer-side claims as comparatively thin.
A handful of old patents still anchor the field
The most-cited documents in this corpus date back decades — US4758462A, WO2002066233A1 and GB811066A among them — and remain reference points for opacity, porosity and hydrolysis-resistance claims. New filings in those sub-areas are effectively building on top of these anchors.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to biaxially oriented film processing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape
The ranking covers 100 companies counted by records, drawn from the full 1,429-record set. Concentration sits at the top, but the majority of the ranked field files at a modest, steady pace.
A clear single leader
The top-ranked assignee holds 155 records, well ahead of the field, with the fifth-place company at 42 and tenth place at 33 — a steep early drop-off before the ranking flattens into the long tail.
Established filers have gone quiet
Several of the historically largest assignees show zero filings in the latest recorded year, including one leader down 100% year-on-year. That pattern, paired with the flat overall trend, suggests consolidation of existing claim positions rather than fresh filing pushes.
Joint filing is rare and geographically clustered
Only ten co-assignee pairings appear in the dataset, with the strongest pairs linking Japanese film producers to trading and licensing partners. Co-filing is the exception here, not the norm — most records carry a single assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Teijin Ltd | 0 | — |
| Toray Industries Inc | 0 | — |
| Borealis AG | 0 | -100% |
| Toyobo Co Ltd | 0 | — |
| DIALFONE CO LTD | 0 | — |
| Teijin DuPont Films Japan | 0 | — |
| Idemitsu Petrochemical Co Ltd | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Polyester Film Ltd | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The landscape points to a settled core and a thinner set of adjacent branches worth checking before committing to a filing strategy.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top ten
With 45.7% of the 1,429 records held by ten assignees, any new stretch-ratio or shrinkage-control claim should be checked against that group's portfolios first.
Run an FTO check in EurekaLook at the thinner IPC classes
C08K and C08F sit near 10% of records each, well below the 70%-plus density in C08J and B29C — a narrower but potentially more open space for additive- or copolymer-linked claims.
Explore IPC white space in EurekaWatch for renewed activity from quiet leaders
Several top assignees show zero filings in the latest year. A resumption of filing from any of them would signal a shift back toward active claim-building in this space.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions
The ranked field covers 100 assignees drawn from 1,429 published records, with a single leader holding 155 records — well ahead of the fifth-place company at 42 and tenth place at 33. The top five assignees combined account for 33.7% of all records in scope, and the top ten reach 45.7%. That leaves more than half the field spread across a long tail of companies filing in smaller numbers, so a full landscape check should not stop at the leaders.
No — filing activity has been flat to declining. Records rose from 32 in 2017 to a peak of 37 in 2022, and have not exceeded that level since. Several of the largest historical assignees show zero filings in the most recent year, which together with the plateaued trend suggests the field is in a maintenance phase rather than active expansion. Note that the most recent year is always undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
C08J (polymer processing and solutions) and B29C (shaping of plastics) are the two dominant classes, each appearing on roughly 70% of the 1,429 records in scope. B32B, B29K, C08L and B29L each cover around 35-38% of records, and C08K and C08F sit near 10%, marking the additive- and copolymer-related claim space as comparatively thin. Since a single record often carries multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
US4536365A, granted to American Cyanamid Company in 1985, covers a tubular-extrusion process for equally biaxially oriented film, including radial orientation followed by controlled longitudinal orientation and drying with specific shrinkage-control sequencing. Anyone filing a process claim that follows the same radial-then-longitudinal orientation order with comparable shrinkage control during drying should review this filing closely, since it predates most of the corpus and is a foundational reference for that processing sequence. It does not, on its own, cover unrelated orientation methods such as simultaneous biaxial stretching or flat-sheet tenter processes that do not rely on tubular extrusion.
The thinnest claim density sits in the C08K and C08F classes, each covering about 10% of the 1,429 records, compared with over 70% for the core C08J and B29C classes. That points to additive-modified stretch control and copolymer-blend orientation as comparatively under-claimed relative to core stretching and orientation process claims. Co-assignee collaboration is also rare — only ten pairings appear across the dataset — suggesting joint development in adjacent sub-areas has not been heavily formalised through joint filings either.
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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.