Microneedle Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Coated and Hollow Microneedle Patents: Leaders, Filing Trends and White Space
Filings peaked in 2021 at 10 records and the 2021-to-2024 span shows a -100% swing, though 2025-2026 numbers are still filling in as publication catches up with filing. Filings rose to a peak of 10 in 2021, then the evidence shows 2024 at 0 – a -100% move over that three-year span. Because 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publications catch up with filings made in those years, this page treats 2024 as the last year the trend can be read with confidence.
- 1GEORGIA TECH RES CORP28
- 2HISAMITSU PHARM CO INC20
- 33M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES CO10
- 4THE TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIV10
- 5TOPPAN HOLDINGS INC10
See the full coated and hollow microneedle systems 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 on coated and hollow microneedle systems?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 28 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 10 and the tenth-place holder at 2. The ranking covers 24 companies in total, so this is a leader-plus-long-tail landscape rather than one split evenly across many firms. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate should start with that leading portfolio before looking at the smaller filers.
Is the microneedle patent field still growing?
Filings peaked in 2021 at 10 records and fell to 0 by 2024, the last year this dataset can treat as a complete year of publications. That is a genuine -100% move over that span, but 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months. A fair reading is that filing activity had cooled by the mid-2020s on complete-year data, without assuming the most recent partial years continue that decline.
Do these patents cover the needle hardware or the drug formulation?
Mostly hardware. A61M, devices for body fluids, appears in 67.8% of the 87 records in scope, ahead of A61K medicinal-preparation claims at 51.7%. MEMS manufacturing claims under B81C also show up in 21.8% of records, reinforcing that fabrication and device geometry carry more claim weight than the payload itself in this dataset.
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 Coated and Hollow Microneedle Systems 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.