Dental Milling & Additive Manufacturing Patents: Top Filers 2026
- 92.1% concentration. The top 5 of 6 ranked assignees account for 35 of the 38 records in scope — this field is a tight, near-closed set, not an open race.
- A61C dominates the class mix. 81.6% of records carry the dentistry and oral hygiene subclass, with medicinal preparations (A61K) close behind at 44.7% — most claim activity sits on restoration hardware and materials together.
- Filing has cooled since the 2017 peak. Filings peaked at 8 in 2017 and have tapered since, though the most recent year is understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 38 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent filings at the intersection of dental milling and dental additive manufacturing — chairside restoration systems, zirconia sintering, resin printing, marginal-fit control and post-curing and shrinkage management. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off and draws on 38 published records matched against the search terms defining this niche.
The dataset is small and concentrated: six assignees account for every record in the ranking, and the technology mix leans heavily on dentistry-specific hardware claims layered with medicinal-preparation claims for materials. That combination — a narrow assignee set plus a dominant IPC pairing — is the shape a reader should expect through the rest of this page.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 38-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 8 in 2017. The line has trended down since, but treat the final year or two as incomplete — publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent filings are still arriving.
IPC subclass composition
A61C (dentistry and oral hygiene) appears on 81.6% of the 38 records, and A61K (medicinal preparations) on 44.7% — the two together describe most of the corpus. Imaging (G06T), plastics shaping (B29C), ceramics (C04B) and digital processing (G06F) each sit in the 10–16% band, marking smaller but distinct claim clusters. Records can carry multiple classes, so these shares sum past 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 38 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Dental Milling and Additive Manufacturing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about dental milling and additive manufacturing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Milling Block with Orthodontic Auxiliary (US20140356798A1)
A milling block fitted with, or directly milled into said block, at least one orthodontic auxiliary — fasteners, buttons, cleats, tubes, brackets, springs, TAD fastening clamps, flex-fit modules or flex-fit wafers — placed within the mouth and attached to teeth after custom milling of the block to conform to tooth anatomy or other orthodontic hardware.Filed by an individual assignee rather than a corporate lab, this filing shows how narrowly a single milling-block configuration can be claimed.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20150057675A1 | System and method for automating medical procedures | 356 |
| 2 | WO2016191534A1 | Sol containing NANO zirconia particles for use in additive manufacturing processes for the production of 3-di… | 39 |
| 3 | US9675419B2 | System and method for automating medical procedures | 35 |
| 4 | US20180127317A1 | Sol containing NANO zirconia particles for use in additive manufacturing processes for the production of 3-di… | 30 |
| 5 | WO2018222395A1 | Use of a cleaning composition for 3d-printed articles and related process | 28 |
| 6 | US20140234802A1 | Molding artificial teeth in denture base disc | 27 |
| 7 | US20140356798A1 | Milling Block with Orthodontic Auxiliary | 20 |
| 8 | WO2017155692A1 | Preformed dental composite crown, process of production and use thereof | 16 |
| 9 | US20140272798A1 | Stress-reduced denture base disc | 14 |
| 10 | US20200109357A1 | Use of a clean composition for 3d-printed articles and related process | 12 |
Citation counts reflect influence inside this searched corpus and skew toward older filings — treat them as a signal of prior weight, not current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three findings that shape where to file, where to watch, and where claim space is still genuinely open.
A near-closed field, not an open race
With six assignees accounting for the entire ranking and five of them holding 92.1% of all 38 records, this is not a fragmented landscape with room for many parallel entrants. New filers are working around a small number of established claim positions rather than into open territory.
Hardware claims dominate, materials claims trail closely
A61C (dentistry and oral hygiene) sits on the large majority of records, with A61K (medicinal preparations) close behind at 44.7%. The pairing suggests most granted protection covers restoration devices and the materials used with them together, rather than either in isolation.
Peak activity has passed, but the picture is incomplete
Filing activity peaked at 8 records in 2017 and has declined since, with the most recent years showing very low counts. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years understate real activity — this looks more like a plateau than a genuine drop-off until later data arrives.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to dental milling and additive manufacturing, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
Six assignees make up the entire ranked field for this dataset — a leader well ahead of the pack, and a short tail behind it.
A clear leader by volume
The top-ranked assignee holds 12 of the 38 records in scope, roughly a third of the entire dataset on its own. That single position anchors the field's concentration figures.
A short, steep drop to the tail
Filing volume falls off quickly after the leader — fifth place holds only 4 records. The gap between the top position and the rest of the ranked field is wide relative to the dataset's total size.
No ranked assignee filed in the most recent year
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum shows zero filings in the latest year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is consistent with filings still working through the pipeline rather than a stop in activity.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| 3M Innovative Properties Co. | 0 | — |
| Shofu Inc. | 0 | — |
| Brachium | 0 | — |
| CMP IND LLC | 0 | — |
| PARKER JUSTIN | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated field with a few specific openings. Here is how to act on it.
Map the leader's actual claim boundaries
Before filing near dentistry-hardware or zirconia-materials claims, pull the leader's granted claim language directly rather than relying on subclass-level composition alone.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches
Post-cure shrinkage compensation and marginal-fit imaging show thinner claim density than the dominant hardware pairing — worth a freedom-to-operate check before committing R&D there.
Run a white-space search in EurekaRe-check the trend once lag clears
The last one to two years of filing data are still incomplete. Re-run the trend view in a future cycle to confirm whether the 2017 peak was a one-off or part of a longer decline.
Set a filing alert in EurekaCommon questions on dental milling and additive manufacturing patents
Within this dataset of 38 records, six assignees make up the entire ranked field, and one holds 12 records — roughly a third of the total on its own. The top five together hold 92.1% of all 38 records, meaning the field is concentrated among a small number of established filers rather than spread across many competitors. Anyone assessing freedom to operate here should start with that leader's granted claims rather than assume the field is open.
The IPC composition suggests hardware and device claims (A61C, dentistry and oral hygiene) dominate at 81.6% of records, with materials claims (A61K, medicinal preparations) close behind at 44.7%. This indicates that milling-block, restoration and appliance hardware carries slightly more claim density than the materials and additive-manufacturing chemistry side, though the two are frequently claimed together on the same record. Smaller clusters around imaging, plastics shaping and ceramics show additive manufacturing's supporting technologies are claimed but not saturated.
The data shows filing activity peaked at 8 records in 2017 and has tapered since, but a growth rate cannot be computed from this dataset because fewer than four complete years remain once publication lag is accounted for. Publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any patent trend understate real activity. Treat the apparent decline as provisional until later filing years fully publish.
US20140356798A1 claims a milling block fitted with, or directly milled to include, specific orthodontic auxiliaries such as fasteners, buttons, brackets, springs and flex-fit modules, custom-milled to conform to tooth anatomy. It is a narrowly scoped hardware-integration claim rather than a broad method or materials claim, so it primarily constrains designs that mill orthodontic attachment features directly into the block itself. Designs that attach auxiliaries as separate components after milling, rather than milling them into the block, sit outside this specific claim scope, though a full claim chart should confirm boundaries for any specific product design.
Based on IPC composition, branches like post-cure shrinkage compensation, chairside marginal-fit verification imaging, and cleaning compositions for 3D-printed dental parts sit outside the dominant A61C/A61K pairing and show comparatively thin claim density in this dataset. That does not guarantee true novelty — it means fewer records in this specific search claim that ground, so a dedicated freedom-to-operate search is still needed before filing. These branches are worth checking first because they sit adjacent to, rather than inside, the field's two most crowded claim areas.
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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.