Boom Sprayer Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 31.5% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 274 of 869 records in scope — a market with a defined head, not a flat field of single filers.
- Filing peaked in 2020 at 84 records. The 2021-to-2024 span shows a 43% decline in filings (70 to 40), though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
- B05B spraying claims sit under A01M pest-control claims. 241 records carry B05B (27.7%) against 349 in A01M (40.2%), showing mechanical spraying hardware is claimed less densely than the pest-control umbrella it sits inside.
Filing growth compares 2021 (70 records) with 2024 (40) — 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 869 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the boom sprayer design patent record actually shows
Boom sprayer design sits at the intersection of mechanical spray hardware and agrochemical application control. The 869 records in scope span nozzle spacing, pressure regulation, boom stability, boom height control, drift reduction and tank cleaning — a search built to capture the mechanical boom as much as the chemistry it delivers. Filing activity is not evenly spread: a small group of assignees holds a disproportionate share of the record, while a long tail files once or twice and does not return.
Reading the technology composition tells a second story. Pest and vermin control (A01M) and biocide/agrochemical classes (A01N) dominate by record count, but spraying and atomising hardware (B05B) trails both — meaning the physical boom, nozzle and pressure-regulation mechanisms are claimed less exhaustively than the chemical and pest-control framing around them. That gap is where mechanical design freedom tends to survive longest.
Filing trends and technology composition
Every figure below is drawn directly from the 869 records in scope. Publication lag means the final one to two years of any trend line will always look lighter than filing activity actually was.
Filings rose to a 2020 peak, then eased
Annual filings climbed from 25 in 2017 to a peak of 84 in 2020, then declined; the 2021-to-2024 window alone shows a 43% drop, from 70 to 40 records. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall.
Mechanical spraying hardware trails the pest-control umbrella
A01M (pest & vermin control) appears on 40.2% of records and A01N (biocides/agrochemicals) on 35.2%, while B05B (spraying & atomising) — the class closest to boom mechanics themselves — sits at 27.7%. A01P (pesticide activity) reaches 19.7%, and A01C (planting & sowing) 13.0%, with A01B, A01G and G01N each under 6%. Since records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the 869 records.
Shares are the percentage of the 869 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Boom Sprayer Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about boom sprayer design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records shaping this field
Boom sprayer nozzle spacing adapter (US20260026489A1)
A boom sprayer assembly including a boom, a plurality of fluid connectors fluidly coupled to the boom, and one or more nozzle spacing adapters respectively fluidly coupled to one or more of the plurality of fluid connectors. The connectors sit at a fixed first spacing interval; each adapter defines an outlet at an offset spacing interval different from that first interval, letting a single boom accommodate more than one nozzle spacing pattern.Filed by Pentair Flow Technologies and published 2026-01-29, this record illustrates how spacing flexibility is now being claimed as a discrete adapter component rather than as a fixed boom geometry.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5704546A | Position-responsive control system and method for sprayer | 293 |
| 2 | US5653389A | Independent flow rate and droplet size control system and method for sprayer | 279 |
| 3 | US4580721A | Fluid container | 217 |
| 4 | US5260875A | Networked agricultural monitoring and control system | 185 |
| 5 | US20100032492A1 | Method and System to Control Flow From Individual Nozzles While Controlling Overall System Flow And Pressure | 162 |
| 6 | US5348226A | Spray boom system with automatic boom end height control | 160 |
| 7 | US20060273189A1 | Electrically actuated variable pressure control system | 156 |
| 8 | US7311004B2 | Flow control and operation monitoring system for individual spray nozzles | 156 |
| 9 | US4629164A | Container with memory | 146 |
| 10 | US20060265106A1 | Networked diagnostic and control system for dispensing apparatus | 139 |
Citation counts favour older, foundational records inside this searched corpus — treat them as a measure of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the record is read as a whole: concentration at the top, a technology mix weighted toward chemistry over hardware, and a peak that has since eased without yet showing a confirmed downturn.
A defined head, not a flat field
The five leading assignees together hold 274 of the 869 records in scope (31.5%), and the top ten extend that to 408 records (47.0%). Below that line the ranking thins quickly into single- and double-filing entrants, which is where freedom-to-operate work should concentrate.
A peak behind us, not yet a confirmed decline
Filings rose from 25 in 2017 to a 2020 peak of 84, then eased to 40 by 2024 — a 43% drop over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete and should not be read as continued decline until later data fills in.
Hardware claims trail the chemistry framing
Spraying and atomising hardware (B05B) appears on 27.7% of the 869 records, well below pest-control framing (A01M, 40.2%) and biocide/agrochemical claims (A01N, 35.2%). Mechanical boom, nozzle and pressure-regulation design is claimed comparatively thinly relative to the surrounding chemical and pest-control art.
Collaboration is limited and concentrated
Only nine co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest links cluster around a small set of corporate affiliates rather than cross-company joint filings. Most assignees in this field file independently.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to boom sprayer design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the door is still open
The ranked leaders span agrochemical majors, farm equipment manufacturers and specialist sprayer makers. Momentum among the named leaders has cooled in the latest year across the board, which reads as a data-lag artefact more than a genuine pullback.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 65 records, well clear of the fifth-place holder at 33 and the tenth-place holder at 25. That gap suggests a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a single burst of activity.
A competitive second tier
Between fifth and tenth place, record counts narrow from 33 to 25 — close enough that a handful of new filings could reshuffle mid-table rankings within a single publication cycle.
Filing strategy is US- and Europe-first
The United States (220 records) and the European Patent Office (148) lead receiving offices, ahead of Australia (100), WIPO/PCT (94), Canada (68) and the United Kingdom (40). A filer entering this space without US or EPO coverage is missing the two largest gates.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Dow AgroSciences LLC | 0 | — |
| Bayer AG | 0 | — |
| CAPSTAN INC | 0 | — |
| Deere & Co | 0 | — |
| AGCO International GmbH | 0 | — |
| Exel Industries | 0 | -100% |
| Monsanto Technology LLC | 0 | — |
| AGROVISTA UK | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing, or tracking a named competitor.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 65 records against a fifth-place figure of 33, any new boom hardware filing should be checked against that leader's claim scope before drafting.
Search assignee portfolios in EurekaMap the B05B-versus-A01M claim gap in detail
The 12.5-point gap between A01M (40.2%) and B05B (27.7%) coverage suggests mechanical spraying hardware has room that chemical and pest-control framing has not fully occupied.
Explore IPC-level claim maps in EurekaWatch 2025-2026 publications as they land
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true trajectory after the 2024 figure of 40 will only become clear as later filings publish.
Set a filing alert in EurekaCommon questions on boom sprayer design patents
This landscape covers 869 published patent families filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search combining boom sprayer and spray boom hardware terms with control features such as boom height, pressure regulation, nozzle spacing and drift reduction. That figure covers a defined search scope, not every patent that mentions a boom sprayer in passing. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years of that count are still incomplete.
The dataset ranks 100 assignees, with a single leader holding 65 records well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 33 and tenth place at 25. The five leading assignees combined account for 31.5% of all 869 records in scope, and the top ten reach 47.0%. Below that group the ranking thins into a long tail of assignees filing only one or two records, which is typical of a field with a defined commercial core and many smaller or one-off entrants.
Filings rose steadily from 25 in 2017 to a peak of 84 in 2020, then declined to 40 by 2024 — a 43% drop over that three-year window. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still low, but that reflects publication lag rather than a confirmed slowdown, since patents typically publish around 18 months after filing. A fair reading is that the field passed a filing peak around 2020 and has since settled at a lower but not yet fully visible level.
The largest IPC categories are A01M, pest and vermin control (40.2% of the 869 records), and A01N, biocides and agrochemicals (35.2%), reflecting how closely boom sprayer hardware is tied to chemical application. B05B, spraying and atomising — the class closest to the physical boom and nozzle mechanism — covers 27.7% of records, notably lower than the chemistry-adjacent classes. Smaller shares appear in pesticide activity (A01P, 19.7%), planting and sowing (A01C, 13.0%), and soil working, horticulture and material testing classes, each under 6%.
The clearest gap sits in mechanical boom hardware itself: B05B spraying and atomising claims cover 27.7% of records against a 40.2% share for the broader pest-control framing in A01M, suggesting nozzle spacing, pressure regulation and boom-height mechanisms are claimed less exhaustively than the chemistry and pest-control layer around them. Areas like tank cleaning cycles and drift-reduction shrouding show up in the search scope but not among the heavily cited or most-repeated filings. A first claim in these areas should focus on a specific mechanical sub-assembly rather than a broad boom-and-nozzle system, since the broad system-level claims are more likely to run into dense prior art from the leading assignees.
Research Boom Sprayer Design in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole boom sprayer design corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.