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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/dental-restorative-materials-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Dental TechnologyDental restorative material patents: mapping the assignees, chemistries and claim gaps
- Filing has flattened, not grown. annual filings peaked at 28 in 2020 and sit at 24 by the 2022 midpoint, with no sustained upward trend across the 2017-2026 window.
- The field is medicinal-preparations-heavy. 628 of 644 records sit in A61K, versus 134 in A61C dentistry proper — most of the claim activity is chemistry, not device or delivery.
- The most-cited art predates the search window entirely. the top-cited record carries 758 citations from a 1992-era water-based cement patent, a sign that foundational chemistry, not recent filings, still anchors freedom-to-operate checks.
644
Published Records
45%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-73%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (15 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 644 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Dental restorative materials sit at the intersection of polymer chemistry and clinical dentistry: composite resins, glass ionomer and other dental cements, and the bonding agents that join them to tooth structure. This landscape pulls 644 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine dental restorative or cement terminology with technical claim language around polymerization shrinkage, wear resistance, bond strength, shade matching or fluoride release, restricted to the core IPC classes for medicinal dental preparations, dentistry apparatus and addition polymers.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts in the trend chart understate real filing activity; the flat-to-declining shape from the 2020 peak is the more reliable read. Family-level counting is used throughout so that multi-jurisdiction filing by the same applicant does not inflate any single assignee's apparent output.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 644 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A decade of flat filing, not growth
Filings ran at 24 in 2017, rose to a peak of 28 in 2020, and were back to 24 by the 2022 midpoint — a pattern of plateau rather than expansion, with the final one or two years still incomplete in the record.
Chemistry dominates over device claims
A61K (medicinal preparations) covers 628 of 644 records, dwarfing A61C dentistry apparatus at 134 and C08F addition polymers at 111. Adhesives (C09J, 37) and glass/enamel compositions (C03C, 42) are present but comparatively thin, marking them as smaller, more specialised claim territories.
Shares are the percentage of the 644 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Dental Restorative Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about dental restorative materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
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The foundational art still shaping freedom-to-operate
Representative Filing
Light curable epoxy nano composite for dental restorative material
NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY
A restorative material substituting light-curable epoxy resin for conventional acrylic, filled with organically surface-modified inorganic oxide nanoparticles to improve dispersion, particle-matrix bonding and reduce polymerization shrinkage relative to acrylic-based composites.Filed by National Taiwan University in 2004, this record predates most of the corpus and illustrates an epoxy-based alternative route to the acrylic chemistry that dominates current filings.
Most-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5154762A | Universal water-based medical and dental cement | 758 |
| 2 | US5130347A | Photocurable ionomer cement systems | 686 |
| 3 | US4544359A | Dental restorative material | 241 |
| 4 | US4547531A | Two component (paste-paste) self-curing dental restorative material | 207 |
| 5 | US5332429A | Method for treating fluoroaluminosilicate glass | 201 |
| 6 | US5925715A | Photocurable ionomer cement systems | 195 |
| 7 | US5965632A | Dental cement compositions | 168 |
| 8 | US5030093A | Method and apparatus for dental restorative material | 141 |
| 9 | EP0323120A2 | Photocurable ionomer cement systems | 118 |
| 10 | US5338773A | Dental composition and method | 112 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them — treat this as a map of foundational influence, not of current-generation activity.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, citation and IPC data that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
Filing Momentum
28 in 2020
peak year filings
The plateau started before the data window closes
Filings rose from 24 in 2017 to a peak of 28 in 2020 then eased back to 24 by 2022. That is not a technology in early growth; it reads as a mature, saturated claim space where incremental formulation patents replace platform-level ones.
Trend basis: 2017-2026 annual counts
Citation Concentration
758 citations
top-cited record
Foundational chemistry patents still anchor FTO review
The most-cited record in the set is a water-based medical and dental cement patent carrying 758 citations, well ahead of the rest of the top-cited group. Recent filers still have to clear this older art before claiming new formulations.
Based on most-cited records table
Claim Distribution
628 vs 134
A61K vs A61C records
Composition claims outnumber device claims nearly 5 to 1
A61K medicinal-preparation claims appear in 628 of 644 records against 134 in A61C dentistry apparatus, showing that most active claim territory is in resin, cement and additive chemistry rather than delivery devices or instrumentation.
IPC subclass counts, this dataset
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to dental restorative materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who holds the claims, and where they are not filing
Filing in this space clusters around a small number of multinational dental chemistry groups, several of them related entities filing jointly across jurisdictions, alongside academic and single-filing entrants that appear once and do not return.
Assignee Clustering
10 pairs
co-assignee pairs
Corporate families file jointly, not competitively
The strongest co-assignee links sit between related entities of the same corporate group, filing at 12, 11 and 10 shared records respectively — a pattern of internal group co-filing across jurisdictions rather than joint ventures between competitors.
Co-assignee pair counts, this dataset
Recent Momentum
0 in latest year
for every tracked leading assignee
No leading assignee shows fresh-year output
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the largest dental materials groups, shows zero filings in the latest year in this record set. Given the 18-month publication lag, this understates true recent activity rather than confirming a pullback.
Recent-year momentum by assignee
Filing Geography
167 US filings
leading receiving office
US and Europe lead, Canada and Australia close behind
The United States receives the most filings at 167, with Europe (EPO) close behind at 146; Canada, Australia and Japan each sit in the 50-record range, and WIPO PCT filings at 48 point to applicants still routing a meaningful share of filings through single-jurisdiction strategy rather than global PCT entry.
Receiving office counts, this dataset
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Kuraray Noritake Dental Inc. | 0 | — |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| 3M Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Dentsply IH AB | 0 | — |
| Dentsply Sirona Inc. | 0 | — |
| GC Corporation | 0 | — |
| The University of Melbourne | 0 | — |
| BTG International Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The trend and assignee data point to specific next checks before committing to a filing or design-around strategy in this space.
Confirm the plateau isn't a lag artefact
Because the last one to two years of filings are undercounted by publication lag, re-check the 2024-2026 trend once fresh data is available before treating the plateau as confirmed decline.
Explore filing trends in EurekaMap claim scope on the top-cited cement patents
The 758- and 686-citation records anchor much of the foundational chemistry; a claim-by-claim read of those two is a faster FTO starting point than screening the full 644-record set.
Pull granted claims in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches for a first-filer position
Adhesive interface durability and shade-match glass compositions show thinner filing density than core resin chemistry — worth a freedom-to-operate check before assuming the space is occupied.
Run a white space search in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on dental restorative material patents
Filing in this dataset clusters around a small group of established dental materials multinationals, several of which file jointly through related corporate entities in different jurisdictions rather than as separate competitors. The strongest co-assignee links in the data run between such related entities, at 12, 11 and 10 shared records. No single assignee shows fresh filings in the most recent tracked year, though that is consistent with normal publication lag rather than an actual pullback.
No, filing volume has been essentially flat since 2017. Annual filings ran at 24 in 2017, rose to a peak of 28 in 2020, and were back down to 24 by the 2022 midpoint, which is a plateau pattern rather than sustained growth. The final one to two years in the dataset are undercounted because of the typical 18-month gap between filing and publication, so the most recent apparent dip should not be read as a real slowdown yet.
The bulk of the activity sits in A61K, medicinal preparations, which covers 628 of the 644 records in this dataset — far ahead of A61C dentistry apparatus at 134 and C08F addition polymers at 111. Smaller but active classes include C04B ceramics and cement, C08K polymer additives, C03C glass and enamel compositions, A61L sterilising and disinfecting, and C09J adhesives. This distribution shows that most current claim activity is in material composition rather than delivery devices or instruments.
The most-cited record in this corpus is a universal water-based medical and dental cement patent carrying 758 citations, followed by a photocurable ionomer cement systems patent at 686. Both predate most of the current filing activity by decades but remain the most-referenced prior art in the space, meaning new formulation claims are commonly checked against them during clearance work. Citation volume in an older record reflects accumulated influence over time rather than current relevance, so it should be read alongside, not instead of, a claims-level review.
Relative to the dense core chemistry in A61K and C08F, sub-areas such as adhesive interface durability, glass or enamel shade-matching compositions, polymer wear-modifying additives and sterilisable restorative composites show comparatively thinner filing density in this dataset. That does not guarantee an easy filing path, since some of that thinness reflects narrower commercial demand rather than open claim space, but it is a reasonable starting point for a first-filer freedom-to-operate check ahead of a full clearance search.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Dental Restorative Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Research Dental Restorative Materials in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole dental restorative materials corpus yourself, in your own scope.
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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.