Corn Wet Milling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 68.1% of all 304 records sit with the top five assignees combined — this field is concentrated, not fragmented.
- Filings fell -77% from 2021 (13) to 2024 (3), the last year the data can treat as complete.
- C08B polysaccharide claims cover 59.5% of records while animal feed and protein-derivative branches sit under 10% each.
Filing growth compares 2021 (13 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 304 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the corn wet milling patent record shows
Corn wet milling separates a corn kernel into starch, gluten, germ, fibre and steepwater-derived fractions through a sequence of steeping, grinding, separation and washing steps. The patent record in scope — 304 published records spanning 2015 through mid-2026 — covers process controls across steeping condition, germ separation, fibre washing, gluten dewatering, starch purity and water circuit management. It is a mature industrial process area: the bulk of activity clusters around polysaccharide and derivative claims (C08B) and fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P), with genetic engineering, food and feed applications forming smaller but still active branches.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 28 records and has declined since, though publication lag of roughly 18 months means the most recent years understate actual filing activity. Ownership of the field is concentrated at the top, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants behind the leaders.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 304-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses (a record can carry more than one class, so shares sum past 100%).
Filing trend, 2015-2026
Filings peaked in 2017 at 28 and fell to 3 by 2024 — a -77% drop over the 2021-2024 span, the most recent period the data can treat as complete. Readings for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C08B (polysaccharides and derivatives) appears in 59.5% of the 304 records, and C12P (fermentation and enzymatic synthesis) in 35.2%. Genetic engineering (C12N, 24.3%) and food applications (A23L, 22.0%) are secondary but substantial branches; animal feed, proteins and macromolecule derivatives each sit under 10%.
Shares are the percentage of the 304 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Corn Wet Milling Process with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about corn wet milling process and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
US5198035A — Corn wet milling process for manufacturing starch
High-rate washing centrifuges are employed in a corn wet milling process to accomplish displacement washing of the starch and a sharp classification into starch and gluten.Filed by Alfa Laval Separation Inc., this filing anchors a lineage of centrifuge-based washing and starch-gluten classification claims that later filings in the corpus build against or design around.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6453609B1 | Method for uptake of a substance into a seed | 82 |
| 2 | US20060173169A1 | Method and system for corn fractionation | 72 |
| 3 | US20050118692A1 | Alcohol production using sonication | 68 |
| 4 | US6703227B2 | Method for producing fermentation-based products from high oil corn | 65 |
| 5 | WO2002000911A1 | Starch gluten separation process | 62 |
| 6 | WO2002000731A1 | An improved process for providing a starch product, treating milled or grinded crop kernels with an aqueous s… | 59 |
| 7 | US8813973B2 | Apparatus and method for filtering a material from a liquid medium | 55 |
| 8 | WO2002002644A1 | A process for washing a starch slurry, using an aqueous solution with an acidic protease activity | 55 |
| 9 | US20020193617A1 | Products comprising corn oil and corn meal obtained from high oil corn | 42 |
| 10 | US20070172914A1 | Protein concentrate and an aqueous stream containing water-soluble carbohydrates | 41 |
Citation counts reward older records that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field's terminology and claim structure, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the dataset that matter more for strategy than for description.
Ownership sits with a small group
Five assignees combined account for 68.1% of all 304 records in scope, and the top ten reach 85.5%. That leaves a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants working around the edges of an already-claimed core process.
Activity has cooled from its 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 28 in 2017 and fell to 3 by 2024, a -77% change across the last window the data can treat as complete. Recent-year totals near zero for the leading assignees reflect this cooling rather than an active pullback from the field.
Core separation chemistry is heavily claimed
Polysaccharide and derivative claims (C08B) appear in nearly six of every ten records, with fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P) close behind at 35.2%. Filing into the core starch-separation chemistry now means filing into dense prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to corn wet milling process, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Lee Tech LLC | ICM Inc | 8 |
| Lee Tech LLC | Suzhou United Machine | 7 |
| Suzhou United Machine | ICM Inc | 7 |
| Cargill Inc | Renessen LLC | 6 |
| Novozymes A/S | OLSEN HANS SEJR | 5 |
| Novozymes A/S | NIELSEN BJARNE ROENFELDT | 5 |
| Novozymes A/S | HAN WANG | 3 |
| Novozymes A/S | CAO YI | 3 |
The dataset records 10 co-assignee pairs, with the strongest pairings clustered around a small group of process-equipment specialists rather than spread across the field — a sign that key equipment and process know-how tends to be jointly held rather than licensed broadly.
Who files, and where the claim space is still open
The ranked assignee list covers 78 companies, counted in patent families — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the whole ranking the dataset returns. A handful of names dominate; most of the rest appear once or twice.
One assignee dominates the leaderboard
The leading assignee's 144 records dwarf the fifth-place total of 13 and the tenth-place total of 9, a gap that marks this as a field with one dominant filer rather than several evenly matched competitors.
Most filers appear only a handful of times
Beyond the leaders, the ranking drops off quickly — most of the 78 ranked assignees hold a small number of records each, consistent with equipment suppliers and processors filing narrowly around specific plant configurations rather than building broad portfolios.
Joint filings cluster around equipment specialists
The strongest co-assignee pairings recur between the same small group of names, suggesting process-equipment and plant-engineering partnerships are formalised through joint filings rather than one-off collaborations.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novozymes A/S | 0 | — |
| Lee Tech LLC | 0 | — |
| Cargill Inc | 0 | — |
| Sabritas | 0 | — |
| Biogemma SAS | 0 | — |
| Renessen LLC | 0 | — |
| Nalco Co | 0 | — |
| Fluid Quip Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The patterns above point to specific next questions rather than a single conclusion.
Map the white space claims
Draft a candidate first claim for one of the under-claimed sub-areas and check it against the nearest cited prior art in the corpus before committing search time.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the dominant filer's recent activity
Recent-year momentum near zero across the leading assignees is consistent with the broader -77% cooling trend, but publication lag means 2025-2026 filings are still arriving.
Track assignee activity in EurekaStress-test the blocking claims
Before filing into the core starch-gluten separation space, run the most-cited records against a planned claim set to see where a workable design-around actually exists.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaCommon questions about corn wet milling patents
One assignee clearly leads the field with 144 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 13 and the tenth-place holder at 9. The gap between first place and the rest of the ranked field is wide enough that this reads as a one-company-dominant landscape rather than a competitive cluster. The remaining 78 ranked assignees mostly hold small numbers of records each, consistent with narrower, plant-specific filings rather than broad portfolio building.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 28 records and fell to 3 by 2024, a -77% drop across the 2021-2024 window, the most recent period the data can treat as complete. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as evidence of a continued decline. Taken together, the trend through 2024 points to a cooling field rather than an expanding one.
Polysaccharide and derivative chemistry (IPC class C08B) appears in 59.5% of the 304 records in scope, making it the single densest claim area. Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P) follows at 35.2%, with microorganism and genetic engineering claims (C12N) at 24.3%. Food, feed and protein-derivative applications each sit under a quarter of records, meaning the core separation and starch-purification chemistry is far more heavily claimed than downstream applications.
US5198035A, assigned to Alfa Laval Separation Inc. and describing a corn wet milling process using high-rate washing centrifuges for displacement washing and starch-gluten classification, sits at the root of a citation lineage that many later filings in this corpus reference directly. Any new process relying on centrifuge-based displacement washing to achieve a sharp starch-gluten split should be checked against its claim scope before finalising an equipment specification. It does not, on its own, cover unrelated separation mechanisms such as membrane-based or enzymatic fractionation routes.
The densest claim activity sits in core starch-gluten separation chemistry (C08B) and fermentation-based processing (C12P), while branches like animal feed application, protein-derivative recovery and macromolecule derivative processing each account for under 10% of the 304 records. Sub-areas such as steepwater nutrient recovery, fibre-wash water recirculation control and continuous starch purity sensing show comparatively thin coverage relative to the core separation claims. That pattern suggests process-control and resource-recovery angles are less occupied than the underlying separation chemistry itself, though thin coverage should be confirmed against a full prior-art search before relying on it.
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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.