Commercial Explosives Formulation Patents: Who Leads and Where Filings Are Heading
Top-heavy field. the top 5 assignees hold 39.6% of all 2,407 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 50.4% — half the field sits with ten organisations. Filings ran from 65 in 2017 to a peak of 154 in 2019, then declined to 3 in the partial 2026 count. The field-wide drop from 38 filings in 2021 to 14 in 2024 (-63%) is the most reliable recent signal; 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as publication catches up.
- 1DYNO NOBEL INC15.6%
- 2ORICA EXPLOSIVES TECHNOLOGY PTY LTD7.8%
- 3DYNO NOBEL ASIA PACIFIC LTD7.6%
- 4ORICA INTERNATIONAL PTE LTD5.5%
- 5EI DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO3.1%
See the full commercial explosives formulation 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 commercial explosives patents
Who holds the most patents in commercial explosives formulation?
One assignee leads the ranked field with 375 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 75 and the tenth-place holder at 40. The top 5 assignees together account for 952 records, or 39.6% of the 2,407 records in scope, and the top 10 account for 1,213 records, or 50.4%. That leaves the remaining half of the field spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so a full freedom-to-operate check needs to look well beyond the largest names.
Is commercial explosives patent filing growing or shrinking?
Filings peaked in 2019 at 154 records and have declined since, with the field-wide count falling from 38 in 2021 to 14 in 2024 — a drop of 63% over that three-year span. The most recent years (2025 and 2026) are not reliable indicators of a continued decline because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent activity is still being reported. 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as a complete data point.
What is the difference between ANFO and bulk emulsion explosives in the patent literature?
ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil) and bulk emulsion explosives are both covered heavily in this dataset, often within the same filings that combine the two into 'heavy ANFO' products, as seen in the representative record US9174887B1. Most of the underlying chemistry claims fall under IPC class C06B (explosives & propellants), which covers 68.6% of the 2,407 records, while the blasting-application claims sit under F42D at 27.5%. Formulation patents in this space typically focus on how the two components are gassed, mixed and density-controlled together rather than treating them as separate technologies.
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 Commercial Explosives Formulation 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.