Deodorization Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. The five leading assignees hold 23.0% of all 2,907 records in scope, and the leading ten hold 34.5% — a real concentration, but with most of the field still outside their hands.
- Filing activity has cooled from its 2018 peak. Filings ran from 76 in 2017 to a peak of 197 in 2018, then declined to 41 by 2024 — a 60% drop over 2021-2024 — though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag.
- Enzymatic and microbial routes now rival the classical process. C12P fermentation/enzymatic synthesis (18.7%) and C12N microorganism engineering (17.7%) sit close behind A23D edible oils (28.0%), pointing to a biological front alongside the thermal-vacuum process.
Filing growth compares 2021 (102 records) with 2024 (41) — 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 2,907 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What deodorization and physical refining patents actually cover
Deodorization and physical refining sit at the finishing end of oil and fat processing: removing free fatty acids, off-odours and volatile compounds from crude or degummed oil, typically under vacuum and steam stripping, while trying to hold onto valuable minor components like tocopherols. The dataset behind this page spans 2,907 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, captured through search terms tied to stripping steam, deodorizer temperature, tocopherol retention, free fatty acid chemistry, vacuum systems and distillate value recovery.
Records cluster most heavily under C11B (fatty oils and waxes production) and A23D (edible oils and fats), but a substantial share also sit in fermentation, enzymatic and microorganism classes — a signal that biological alternatives to thermal deodorization are an active, separately-claimed front rather than a footnote.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,907 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight today.
Filing trend: rise, peak, decline
Annual filings rose from 76 in 2017 to a peak of 197 in 2018, then fell through the following years to 41 in 2024 — a 60% decline over the 2021-2024 span. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts (down to 3 for 2026) are still incomplete and should not be read as the field going quiet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C11B (fatty oils and waxes production) appears in 51.9% of the 2,907 records, well ahead of A23D edible oils and fats at 28.0%. Enzymatic and microbial classes — C12P at 18.7% and C12N at 17.7% — sit close to A23L foods and non-alcoholic beverages at 18.2%, with C11C fatty acids at 16.3%, A61K medicinal preparations at 9.7% and B01D separation processes at 8.4% rounding out the picture. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,907 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Deodorization and Physical Refining with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about deodorization and physical refining and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited records
Method and system for integrated biodiesel production (US20140020282A1)
The filing describes an integrated process that pretreats mixed feedstocks with degumming, physical refining and glycerolysis. Physical refining removes free fatty acids by heating the recovered oil or fat and pulling vacuum so that the FFA fraction separates from the oil by boiling point; glycerolysis then converts the recovered FFA into a single methyl ester.Filed by United Biofuels, Inc.; published 2014-01-23.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5969169A | Non-hydrogenated canola oil for food applications | 655 |
| 2 | WO2004071467A2 | Production of very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in oilseed plants | 424 |
| 3 | US20060088574A1 | Nutritional supplements | 415 |
| 4 | US4695411A | Process for manufacturing a composition of fatty acid esters useful as gas oil substitute motor fuel with hyd… | 214 |
| 5 | US20060094088A1 | Acyltransferase regulation to increase the percent of polyunsaturated fatty acids in total lipids and oils of… | 212 |
| 6 | US6172248B1 | Methods for refining vegetable oils and byproducts thereof | 199 |
| 7 | US4698185A | Process for producing degummed vegetable oils and gums of high phosphatidic acid content | 169 |
| 8 | US7256033B2 | Delta-8 desaturase and its use in making polyunsaturated fatty acids | 149 |
| 9 | WO2003089620A2 | Phospholipases, nucleic acids encoding them and methods for making and using them | 138 |
| 10 | US8338152B2 | Delta-8 desaturases and their use in making polyunsaturated fatty acids | 134 |
Citation counts reflect an older, more-cited cohort within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
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Three read-throughs from the filing trend, the technology mix and the assignee concentration.
The 2018 peak has not been matched since
Filings peaked at 197 in 2018 and have not returned to that level; the complete-year comparison shows a 60% decline from 2021 (102) to 2024 (41). Treat 2025-2026 counts as provisional given the roughly 18-month publication lag rather than evidence of a further collapse.
Classical fatty-oils processing still dominates the class split
C11B leads by a wide margin over A23D (28.0%), but the tight clustering of C12P, C12N and A23L in the high-teens shows enzymatic and microbial routes are claimed as their own technical space, not folded into the classical process classes.
Leadership is real but the tail is long
The five leading assignees account for 23.0% of all 2,907 records and the leading ten for 34.5% — concentration worth watching, but it leaves nearly two-thirds of the field held outside the ranked leaders.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to deodorization and physical refining, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum is shifting
The ranking behind this page covers 100 companies measured by patent family count; a handful sit well ahead of the rest, but recent-year filings from even the leaders have thinned out.
The top filer holds a clear lead, not a monopoly
The leading assignee's 198 records put it well ahead of fifth place at 90 and tenth place at 54, but the gap to the rest of the ranked 100 narrows quickly after the top few positions.
Even active filers have slowed sharply in the latest year
Recent-year momentum data shows multiple established filers dropping to a single filing or zero in the latest year, including one leader down 89% year-on-year and another down 100%. This tracks the broader complete-year decline rather than signalling exits.
Co-filing is limited and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pairings linking an enzyme or ingredients specialist to a processing-technology partner — a pattern consistent with joint development rather than broad ecosystem collaboration.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novozymes A/S | 1 | -89% |
| Nuseed Nutritional US Inc | 1 | -80% |
| E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co | 0 | — |
| Cargill, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Alfa Laval Corporate AB | 0 | -100% |
| Evonik Operations GmbH | 0 | — |
| Nuseed Pty Ltd | 0 | — |
| DSM IP Assets B.V. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The published record only tells part of the story — filing gaps, claim scope and freedom-to-operate questions need a closer read of specific families.
Map claim scope against your own process route
Cross-check whether your deodorization or physical refining configuration — steam stripping profile, vacuum staging, or enzymatic pretreatment — sits inside or outside the claims held by the leading assignees identified here.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Track momentum before it shows up in aggregate counts
Given the publication lag, recent-year filings from active players are still arriving; monitoring specific assignees rather than annual totals gives an earlier read on where activity is really heading.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap Eureka →Common questions on deodorization and physical refining patents
Chemical refining neutralises free fatty acids with alkali and separates soapstock, while physical refining removes free fatty acids by heat and vacuum stripping without added chemicals. Patent filings in this dataset that reference physical refining tend to focus on vacuum system design, stripping steam control and deodorizer temperature profiles rather than neutralisation chemistry. The distinction matters for freedom-to-operate because claims are often written around the specific FFA-removal mechanism, not the oil itself.
The ranked assignee list covers 100 companies, with the leading filer holding 198 records against 90 for the fifth-placed company and 54 for the tenth. That leaves the majority of the 2,907 records in scope held by companies outside the top ten, so the field is concentrated at the very top but has a long tail of active filers beneath it. Reviewing the full ranking, not just the leaders, matters for spotting recent entrants.
Filings rose from 76 in 2017 to a peak of 197 in 2018, then declined to 41 by 2024, a 60% drop across that complete-year window. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are lower still, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a confirmed further decline. The safest reading is that activity has cooled from its 2018 high, with the most recent one to two years understated in any chart you see.
Relative to the dense claim space around core thermal deodorization (C11B) and edible oils (A23D), areas like tocopherol retention during stripping, distillate value recovery, and enzymatic free fatty acid removal at reduced deodorizer temperature carry comparatively thinner filing density. These sit at the intersection of the process classes and the fermentation/enzymatic classes (C12P, C12N), which together sit in the high teens as a share of the 2,907 records. That combination of adjacency to a dense core and lower direct claim density is what marks them as white space worth checking case by case.
Not necessarily. The most-cited records in this dataset, including a 1990s canola oil patent cited 655 times, are older filings that have simply had more years to accumulate citations within the searched corpus. High citation counts are a reasonable signal of historical influence on later filings, but they should not be read as a measure of current commercial relevance or remaining patent life, which require checking the record's status and claims directly.
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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.