Chemically Strengthened Cover Glass Patents: Who Leads 2026
Chemically strengthened cover glass patents: filing trends and who holds the ground
Extreme concentration at the top. the leading assignee alone accounts for 3,360 of 4,156 records in scope, and the top 5 combined reach 92.6% of all records. Annual filings ran from 387 in 2017 to a peak of 420 in 2019, then declined to 198 by 2024 — a 37% fall from the 2021 level of 312. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as incomplete rather than as evidence of a continued slide, since publication lag has not yet caught up.
- 4,156
- Published Records
- 93%
- Top-5 Share of All Records
- -37%
- Filing Growth 2021→2024
- US
- Leading Jurisdiction
Filings rose to a 2019 peak, then eased
Top filers · published records
- CORNING INC3,360
- APPLE INC246
- AGC INC120
- AGC GLASS EUROPE SA63
- SCHOTT GLASS TECH (SUZHOU) CO LTD61
See the full chemically strengthened cover glass 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 on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in chemically strengthened cover glass?
One assignee holds a clearly dominant position, with 3,360 of the 4,156 records in this dataset, and the top 5 assignees combined account for 92.6% of all records in scope. This level of concentration means the field’s core aluminosilicate composition and ion-exchange process claims are largely occupied by a handful of long-established glass manufacturers. A new entrant should map its intended claims against that leader’s portfolio specifically, rather than assuming the field average applies. Device makers and smaller specialty glass firms make up most of the remaining ranked companies, generally at much lower filing counts.
Is patent filing in chemically strengthened glass growing or slowing?
Filings peaked in 2019 at 420 for the year, then declined to 198 by 2024, a drop of 37% from the 2021 level of 312. That 2021-to-2024 comparison uses complete-year data and is the most reliable growth read available. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those recent years should not be read as continued decline until later data fills in. The overall pattern reads as a maturing, well-claimed technology rather than a still-expanding one.
What does US10457594B2 actually cover?
US10457594B2, assigned to AGC Inc. and dated 2019-10-29, claims a chemically strengthened glass defined by a specific relationship between central tension at two measurement depths (CT5/CT1 ratio of 0.85 or less), a thickness-dependent floor on CT1, and a ceiling on internal energy density relative to sheet thickness. In practical terms, it ties together how deep the compressive layer runs, how much tension remains at the glass core, and how much energy the sheet can store before fracturing violently. Anyone formulating a strengthened glass with a similar central-tension profile and thickness range needs to check whether their measured values fall inside these bounds. It does not block glass compositions or exchange processes that fall outside this specific stress-and-energy relationship.