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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/digital-textile-printing-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Digital Textile PrintingDigital Textile Printing Patents: Who Holds the Pretreatment and Ink Claims
- Flat filing since 2020. The trend peaked at 3 records in 2020 and sat at 2 by the 2022 midpoint, with no clear reacceleration through the most recent partial year.
- No single assignee dominates the latest year. Every assignee in the momentum data, including the leader, shows 0 filings in the latest year — a field that has gone quiet rather than one being locked up.
- Claims cluster in two IPC subclasses. D06P (dyeing & printing textiles) and C09D (coatings, paints & inks) together cover the large majority of the 14 records in scope, leaving printhead- and process-specific classes thinner.
14
Published Records
0%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
EP
Leading Jurisdiction
16
Active Filers Ranked
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Digital textile printing sits at the intersection of ink chemistry and print-head engineering: getting pigment or dye onto fabric with acceptable ink penetration and colour yield, wash fastness, and print speeds that can compete with screen printing. This landscape scopes records tagged against fabric pretreatment, ink penetration, printhead reliability with pigment ink, production speed, and wash fastness, filtered to IPC classes covering textile dyeing and printing (D06P), inkjet and printer mechanics (B41J), and coatings and inks (C09D).
The scope returns 14 published records between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off, with an assignee ranking of 16 companies. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in the trend understates real filing activity; treat the 2026 figure as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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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The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 14-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those records distribute across IPC subclasses.
A peak in 2020, then a plateau
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 3 in 2020, then eased back to 2 by the 2022 midpoint — a pattern consistent with an early wave of pretreatment and ink-formulation filings followed by consolidation rather than an accelerating race.
Two subclasses carry most of the claim density
D06P (dyeing & printing textiles) appears in 78.6% of the 14 records and C09D (coatings, paints & inks) in 71.4%, confirming that most protected ground is chemistry- and process-side rather than hardware-side. B41J (printers) covers 35.7% of records, and B41M, C08J, G03F, B41F and C08K each cover a smaller slice — these are the classes worth checking individually before assuming they are crowded.
Shares are the percentage of the 14 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 Digital Textile Printing covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited and most recent filings
Representative Filing
EP4670987A1 — Inkjet textile printing apparatus and method (Konica Minolta, 2025-12-31)
KONICA MINOLTA, INC.
The apparatus ejects both a penetrant liquid and a colour ink onto textile through separate heads, with an ejection controller that sets the adhesion amount of penetrant liquid relative to the adhesion amount of colour ink according to a defined expression, varying that ratio between differently coloured ink ejection areas.Abstract trimmed for length; see the full filing for the complete expression and claim set.
Most-cited records in scope
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2011078068A1 | Fabric pretreatment agent for inkjet textile printing, method for pretreating fabric, and textile printing me… | 15 |
| 2 | WO2022044477A1 | Inkjet textile-printing ink composition, method for inkjet textile printing, and inkjet textile-printed mater… | 2 |
| 3 | US20220153047A1 | Digital textile printing inks having zero volatile organic compound solvents therein | 2 |
Citation counts favour older filings within a searched corpus; a low count on a recent filing is not evidence of low importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (3 of 3 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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 data means for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the composition, citation and momentum data that matter more than the raw counts.
Citation concentration
15 citations
on WO2011078068A1
Pretreatment is the most-referenced ground
The most-cited record in scope, WO2011078068A1, covers a fabric pretreatment agent and method — cited 15 times, well ahead of the next records at 2 citations each. Anything building on fabric pretreatment chemistry should map claims against this filing first.
Citation counts favour older filings; treat this as historical influence, not current freedom-to-operate.
Class distribution
35.7% of records
touch B41J (printer mechanics)
Hardware claims are thinner than chemistry claims
With D06P and C09D each covering over 70% of the 14 records against B41J's 35.7%, printhead and mechanism-level claims are less densely occupied than ink and pretreatment chemistry. That gap is where hardware-focused applicants have more room to differentiate.
Class shares sum to more than 100% because records can carry multiple IPC codes.
Filing momentum
0 in the latest year
for every tracked assignee
No assignee is currently active in the trend data
Every assignee with recent-year momentum data, including the leader, shows 0 filings in the latest tracked year, and one shows -100% YoY. Combined with the flat trend since 2020, this reads as a field awaiting a fresh technical push rather than one being actively contested.
Recent-year counts are supressed by the ~18-month publication lag; a filing made this year may not be visible yet.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to digital textile printing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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 ground and where the room is
The ranking covers 16 companies across the 14 records in scope — small enough that individual filings, not portfolio scale, decide who is ahead in any one sub-area.
Ranked leader
5 records
top-ranked assignee
A modest lead, not a lock
The leading assignee holds 5 of the records in the ranking, with fifth place at 2 and tenth place at just 1 — a gap at the top but a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants immediately behind it.
14 total families ranked across 16 companies.
Co-filing pattern
10 co-assignee pairs
identified
Filings cluster around a handful of inventor-assignee pairs
The strongest co-assignee pairings recur at 2 shared records each, all tied to the same corporate assignee working with named individual inventors — a pattern typical of a small, stable R&D team rather than a broad multi-lab program.
Pair strength capped at 2 in this dataset; no pair dominates.
Receiving offices
4 records
filed at the EPO
Filing is spread across offices, not concentrated in one jurisdiction
The EPO leads with 4 records, followed by India and the United States at 3 each and WIPO (PCT) at 3 — evidence that protection strategies here are genuinely international rather than home-market-first.
TR accounts for a single record, the smallest office represented.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| International Imaging Materials Inc | 0 | — |
| Konica Minolta, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Fujifilm Corporation | 0 | — |
| PRZYBYLO JOHN RICHARD | 0 | — |
| HARRISON DANIEL JUDE | 0 | — |
| CONG LIANHUI | 0 | — |
| CHEWENS TIMOTHY MICHAEL | 0 | — |
| Konica Minolta IJ Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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 dataset points to a plateaued field with concentrated chemistry claims and open hardware ground — the next steps depend on where a given team sits.
Map your own claims against the pretreatment leader
If your work touches fabric pretreatment or penetrant chemistry, run a direct claim comparison against WO2011078068A1 before drafting — it is the most-cited document in this scope by a wide margin.
Explore in EurekaProbe the hardware-side white space
Printhead reliability with pigment ink and production-speed claims are documented but far less dense than chemistry claims — worth a deeper prior-art pull before assuming the space is crowded.
Run a deeper search in EurekaWatch for renewed filing activity
With every tracked assignee at zero in the latest year and the ~18-month publication lag still working through, a rebound may already be filed but not yet published — set a monitoring alert rather than concluding the field is dormant.
Set up monitoring in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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 about digital textile printing patents
The assignee ranking for this scope covers 16 companies across 14 published records, with the top-ranked assignee holding 5 records and fifth place holding 2. That is a modest lead rather than a dominant position, and a long tail of entrants sit at one or two filings each. Konica Minolta, Fujifilm and International Imaging Materials Inc. are among the named assignees represented in this scope, alongside several individual inventors.
Filing peaked at 3 records in 2020 and had eased to 2 by the 2022 midpoint, with the most recent tracked year showing every major assignee at zero filings. This can reflect a first wave of foundational pretreatment and ink-chemistry patents being filed and then digested, rather than the technology itself stalling. Remember that publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent-year figures are always the least complete part of the trend.
The most heavily cited record in this scope, WO2011078068A1, covers a fabric pretreatment agent, a method for pretreating fabric, and an associated textile printing method, and it has drawn 15 citations — far ahead of any other record in the dataset. Anyone developing a new pretreatment chemistry or process should benchmark claims against this filing specifically. D06P, the dyeing and printing textiles IPC subclass, covers 78.6% of the 14 records in this scope, making it the densest single class here.
Based on IPC composition, hardware- and process-specific classes carry lighter documented claim density than chemistry classes: B41J (printer mechanics) covers 35.7% of the 14 records against D06P and C09D each covering over 70%. Sub-areas such as printhead reliability specifically with pigment ink, production-speed claims benchmarked against screen printing, and zero-VOC ink solvent systems appear in this dataset but are not densely claimed. These are the branches worth a focused prior-art search before assuming the space is occupied.
EP4670987A1, filed by Konica Minolta with a 2025-12-31 date, covers an inkjet textile printing apparatus that ejects both a penetrant liquid and a colour ink through separate heads, with an ejection controller that sets the ratio between the two adhesion amounts according to a defined expression, varying that ratio across differently coloured ink areas. This is a control-logic claim over the interaction between penetrant and ink dosing, not a claim over penetrant chemistry itself. Anyone building a competing apparatus with independently controlled penetrant and ink ejection should review the exact expression and adhesion-amount thresholds in the granted claims.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Digital Textile Printing 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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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.