Blast Design and Fragmentation Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
Blast Design and Fragmentation Patents: Mapping the Leaders and the Gaps
72.2% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 122 of 169 records in scope — a field where a handful of explosives and mining majors have occupied most of the claim space. Filings rose from a single record in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2021, then dropped -65% to 7 by 2024 — the most recent year that can be read as complete, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months and 2025-2026 counts will still rise as later filings publish.
- 1ORICA EXPLOSIVES TECHNOLOGY PTY LTD37
- 2ORICA INTERNATIONAL PTE LTD33
- 3DYNO NOBEL INC23
- 4OCCIDENTAL OIL SHALE INC20
- 5EI DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO9
See the full blast design and fragmentation 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 blast design and fragmentation patents
Who holds the most patents in blast design and fragmentation?
The ranked list in this dataset covers 36 companies, and it is heavily front-loaded: the leading assignee alone holds 37 of the 169 records in scope, more than four times the count at tenth place. The top 5 assignees together hold 122 records, or 72.2% of the field, so a small number of explosives and mining-technology companies control most of the documented claim space. Any competitive or freedom-to-operate review should start with those few names rather than the full ranked list.
Is patent filing activity in this field growing or slowing down?
Filings rose sharply to a peak of 20 in 2021, then fell to 7 by 2024, a -65% decline over that three-year span. That is a genuine cooling after a filing surge rather than a plateau. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not yet be read as confirming or reversing that trend.
What technology areas dominate blast design and fragmentation patents?
F42D (Blasting) and E21C (Mining and quarrying) are the two largest classes, appearing in 46.7% and 40.8% of the 169 records respectively, followed by E21B (Earth and rock drilling) at 29.0%. Digital and AI-related classes are present but much smaller: G06F appears in 13.0% of records and G06N, covering AI-based computing, in only 4.7%. This confirms the field is still primarily about mechanical and chemical blast-geometry design rather than computational fragmentation prediction, though the latter is a growing minority strand.
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 Blast Design and Fragmentation 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.