Cultivated Meat Scaffold Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 81.5% concentration. The five most active filers account for 22 of the 27 records in scope, leaving little room for a crowded middle tier.
- Filing peaked in 2020, then fell. Nine records published that year against a documented -100% swing from 2021 to 2024, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in under publication lag.
- Fibre-forming classes stay thin. Only 18.5% of records touch man-made filament spinning (D01D) or fibre features (D01F), against 92.6% for core microorganism and genetic engineering claims (C12N).
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 27 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the scaffold materials patent record actually covers
Cultivated meat scaffold patents sit at the intersection of tissue engineering and food manufacturing: claims cover the structural matrix that lets muscle and fat cells attach, proliferate, and hold shape and texture once removed from a bioreactor. The search scope here pulls 27 published records where the abstract or claims name a cultivated, edible or plant-protein scaffold together with cell adhesion, proliferation, edibility, food safety, muscle co-culture, scaffold cost or texture as a functional concern — a deliberately narrow cut that excludes general cultured-meat process patents unless the scaffold itself is the inventive subject.
That narrow scope means the dataset is small enough to read record by record, but the concentration pattern it shows is still instructive: a handful of filers account for most of the activity, and several materials routes that would logically sit next to this work — fibre spinning, dairy-protein carriers, horticultural cellulose sources — show only a handful of filings each. Publication lag of roughly eighteen months means the last one to two years understate true filing activity; read the trend as directional, not final.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 27 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A sharp 2020 peak, then contraction
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of nine records in 2020, then declined; the documented move from four records in 2021 to zero in 2024 is a -100% swing over that three-year span. Because publication trails filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 remain incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued decline.
Microorganism and food classes dominate; fibre-forming classes lag
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) appears in 92.6% of the 27 records and A23L (foods and non-alcoholic beverages) in 81.5%, confirming that most filings frame the scaffold as a cell-culture or food-formulation invention rather than a materials-science one. D01D and D01F, the classes covering filament spinning and fibre features, each cover only 18.5% of records, and A23C (dairy products) covers just 7.4% — these adjacent structural and ingredient routes are comparatively thin.
Shares are the percentage of the 27 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cultivated Meat Scaffold Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cultivated meat scaffold materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records shaping this space
EP4549545A1 — Cultivated meat scaffold, method of production and cultivated meat containing it
The present disclosure relates to a cultured meat scaffold, a method of preparing the same, and cultured meat including the same. The cultured meat scaffold according to the present disclosure includes a nanocellulose and a polymer hydrogel.Filed by Anpoly Inc., published 2025-05-07.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2020222239A1 | Cultivation systems and methods for large-scale production of cultured food | 39 |
| 2 | US20220195359A1 | Cultivation systems and methods for large-scale production of cultured food | 18 |
| 3 | WO2022034092A1 | Method of producing a fungus-based food product by providing a three-dimensional scaffold and a fungus-based … | 10 |
| 4 | CN114410578A | 一种基于植物蛋白支架制备的植物基培养肉及其制备方法 | 6 |
| 5 | WO2023223083A1 | Cultured meat production process, materials and equipment | 4 |
| 6 | WO2024015846A1 | Edible scaffolds for cultured meat production | 3 |
| 7 | KR1020250017546A | Edible scaffold for cell culture of cultured meat and Manufacturing method thereof | 1 |
| 8 | US20230301337A1 | Method of producing a fungus-based food product by providing a three-dimensional scaffold and a fungus-based … | 1 |
| 9 | CN114207115A | 用于大规模生产培养食物的培养系统和方法 | 1 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references; treat them as a measure of influence within this corpus, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns from the dataset that should shape where a new filing targets claim space.
Claim space is already tight at the top
Five assignees account for 22 of the 27 records in scope. A new entrant filing broad scaffold-composition claims is filing into occupied ground; differentiation needs to sit in a specific material, cell type or manufacturing step rather than the general scaffold concept.
Activity cooled after the 2020 peak
Nine records published in 2020, the peak year so far, and the count fell to zero by 2024 in the documented three-year span. Publication lag means 2025-2026 will fill in further, so this should be read as a pause visible in the data, not a confirmed retreat from the field.
Structural fibre engineering is underrepresented
Most claims frame the invention through cell biology (C12N, 92.6%) or food formulation (A23L, 81.5%) rather than through the physical fibre or filament structure of the scaffold itself. That leaves the spinning and fibre-feature classes comparatively open for filings that claim the scaffold's mechanical architecture directly.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cultivated meat scaffold materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the next filing could sit
Ten assignees make up the entire ranked list the data endpoint returns for this scope; the leader holds 11 records against a fifth-place and tenth-place figure of 1 each, underlining how top-heavy the field is despite its small total size.
One filer sets the pace
The top assignee holds 11 of the 27 records in scope, well ahead of the rest of the ranked list. That filer's claim scope is the first reference point for freedom-to-operate work in this space.
A steep drop after the top few
Fifth place and tenth place both sit at a single record each, meaning most of the ranked assignees have filed only once in scope. This is a field with one clear leader and a wide field of single-filing entrants rather than several mid-sized competitors.
Momentum has mostly paused across the ranked assignees
Of the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum, only one shows a filing in the latest year; the rest show none. That is consistent with the broader -100% contraction from 2021 to 2024 rather than a sign that any one competitor has pulled ahead recently.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Zhejiang University | 1 | — |
| Aleph Farms | 0 | — |
| NEXTURE BIO INC | 0 | — |
| Plant-Based Foods Inc. | 0 | — |
| ANPOLY INC | 0 | — |
| Hanwha Solutions Corporation | 0 | — |
| Nanofiber Solutions, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Nanjing Zhouzi Future Food Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to three directions worth running down before committing to a filing strategy.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leading assignee
With one filer holding 11 of 27 records, any new scaffold-composition claim should be checked against that portfolio's specific claim language before drafting begins.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the fibre-spinning classes for new entrants
D01D and D01F sit at 18.5% coverage each, well below the food and cell-culture classes. A competitor moving into structural fibre claims would be a meaningful signal worth tracking.
Set up class-level monitoring in EurekaRe-run the trend once 2025-2026 data settles
Publication lag means the post-2021 contraction is not yet the final word. Revisiting the filing trend in a year will show whether the pause held or reversed.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions on cultivated meat scaffold patents
The dataset used for this landscape contains 27 published records matching cultivated meat, edible or plant-protein scaffold terms combined with functional concerns like cell adhesion, proliferation, edibility, food safety, muscle co-culture, scaffold cost or texture. This is a narrow search scope by design, so it excludes broader cultured-meat process patents unless the scaffold itself is the inventive subject. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the true count of recent filings is likely somewhat higher than what has published so far.
Ten assignees make up the entire ranked list for this scope, and the field is top-heavy: the leading filer holds 11 of the 27 records, while the fifth and tenth-ranked assignees each hold just one. That means most companies in the ranking have filed a single patent family, with one clear leader well ahead of a long tail of single-filing entrants. Anpoly Inc., which filed the representative EP4549545A1 scaffold patent, is one of the active names in this space.
Filing peaked in 2020 at nine records, then contracted; the data shows a documented -100% change from four records in 2021 to zero in 2024. That is a real pause visible in the published record, but 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication trails actual filing by roughly 18 months. Treat the recent years as understated rather than concluding the field has gone quiet.
Most filings in this scope frame the invention through cell biology or food formulation: C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) appears in 92.6% of the 27 records and A23L (foods and non-alcoholic beverages) in 81.5%. By contrast, fibre-spinning classes D01D and D01F each appear in only 18.5% of records, and dairy-related A23C in just 7.4%. That gap suggests structural fibre engineering and dairy-protein carrier routes are comparatively open for new claims.
EP4549545A1 is a cultivated meat scaffold patent filed by Anpoly Inc., published 2025-05-07, covering a scaffold built from nanocellulose combined with a polymer hydrogel, along with the method of preparing it and the resulting cultured meat product. It is a useful reference point for understanding one specific materials combination already under claim in this space. Anyone drafting a nanocellulose-hydrogel scaffold claim should review this filing's exact scope before proceeding, since it sits directly in that materials combination.
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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.