Drag Reducing Agent Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 63.1% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 287 of 455 records in scope — the field is tightly held at the top, not fragmented.
- Filings down -64% since the 2021 peak. 2021 hit 11 filings a year; by 2024, the last complete year, that had fallen to 4.
- F17D and C09K each cover 42.0% of records. Pipeline transport and misc.-application materials classes overlap almost completely, pointing to a narrow, well-mapped core claim space.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 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 455 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Drag reducing agents and flow improver additives sit at the intersection of polymer chemistry and pipeline engineering: high molecular weight polymers, typically olefin-based, that reduce turbulent friction in crude oil and refined product pipelines. The dataset in scope spans 455 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off, captured through claims and descriptions referencing shear degradation, pressure drop reduction, downstream injection points, crude oil solubility and molecular weight effects. Because publication trails filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate actual filing activity.
Patent families, rather than raw document counts, are the fairer unit for judging where real R&D investment sits, since families strip out the effect of continuations and parallel filings across jurisdictions. The concentration at the top of this field and its narrow, overlapping IPC footprint both point to a chemistry that has been claimed hard and early, with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants working the margins.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 455 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 11 in 2021, then fell to 4 by 2024 — a -64% drop over that three-year span, the most recent period that can be read as complete given publication lag. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continuing decline.
IPC subclass composition
C09K (materials for misc. applications) and F17D (pipeline transport) each cover 42.0% of the 455 records, with C08F, C08L and C10L polymer- and fuel-related classes each covering roughly a quarter — a record can carry several classes, so these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 455 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Drag Reducing and Flow Improvers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about drag reducing and flow improvers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records that anchor this field
US20230159844A1 — Drag Reducing Agent
The disclosure covers a drag reducing agent built from a polymer of one or more C6-C14 alpha-olefin monomers carrying a residual amount of zirconium, with an absolute weight-average molecular weight above 1,300,000 g/mol and a defined Mw/Mn ratio between 1.3 and 3.0, suspended in a liquid carrier.Filed by Dow Global Technologies LLC, published 2023-05-25.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5539044A | Slurry drag reducer | 135 |
| 2 | US5504132A | Solvent free oil soluble drag reducing polymer suspension | 129 |
| 3 | US4505827A | Triblock polymers of the BAB type having hydrophobic association capabilities for rheological control in aque… | 123 |
| 4 | US7468402B2 | Polymeric nanoemulsion as drag reducer for multiphase flow | 103 |
| 5 | US20080064614A1 | Friction Reduction Fluids | 101 |
| 6 | US5504131A | Solvent free oil soluble drag reducing polymer suspension | 91 |
| 7 | US5449732A | Solvent free oil soluble drag reducing polymer suspension | 89 |
| 8 | US5244937A | Stable nonagglomerating aqueous suspensions of oil soluble polymeric friction reducers | 88 |
| 9 | US20060148928A1 | Modified latex drag reducer and processes therefor and therewith | 84 |
| 10 | US6172151B1 | Nonaqueous drag reducing suspensions | 76 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited — read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three signals from this dataset matter more than the headline counts when deciding where to file or partner.
The core chemistry is tightly held
Five assignees account for 287 of the 455 records in scope. That level of concentration at the top means core alpha-olefin and triblock-polymer drag-reduction claims are largely occupied; new entrants working the same core chemistry face dense prior art rather than open ground.
Filing activity has cooled from its peak
Annual filings peaked at 11 in 2021 and fell to 4 by 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete. That is a real slowdown in new claim activity around the established chemistry, not a sign the field is closed — publication lag means 2025-2026 filings are still arriving.
Two classes cover the same ground
C09K materials claims and F17D pipeline-transport claims each touch 42.0% of the 455 records, indicating most drag-reduction filings are drafted to cover both the material and its pipeline application in a single family rather than splitting the two.
US and EPO dominate the filing venues
The United States receiving office accounts for the largest single share of records at 138, with Europe (EPO) at 68 and Canada at 44 — a filing pattern consistent with a chemistry whose commercial pull is concentrated in North American and European pipeline networks.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to drag reducing and flow improvers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
The ranking covers 77 companies returned by the data endpoint — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, the whole ranked list — with a sharp drop-off after the leading names.
One assignee well clear of the field
The leading assignee holds 104 records, more than three times the fifth-place holder's 30. That gap suggests one company built an early, broad claim position that later entrants have had to file around rather than through.
Filing drops off quickly past the top ten
By tenth place, holdings are down to 8 records, and the top 10 combined account for 78.7% of all 455 records. Beyond that sits a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, working narrow or defensive positions.
Several established filers have gone quiet
A number of the historically largest assignees, including holders of some of the most-cited records in this field, show zero filings in the latest year on record. Read cautiously given publication lag, but it is consistent with a mature core chemistry rather than active new claim-staking by incumbents.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Baker Hughes Holdings LLC | 0 | — |
| Conoco Inc. | 0 | — |
| ConocoPhillips Co. | 0 | — |
| LiquidPower Specialty Products Inc. | 0 | — |
| California Institute of Technology | 0 | -100% |
| Energy & Environmental International L.C. | 0 | — |
| Phillips 66 Co. | 0 | — |
| Lubrizol Specialty Products Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a concentrated, slowing field with a few specific branches still open. The next step is turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate position.
Map claims against the core alpha-olefin chemistry
Before drafting in the C09K/F17D overlap, check exactly which molecular-weight ranges and carrier-fluid combinations the leading assignees already hold, since 63.1% of records sit with just five companies.
Explore assignee claim scope in EurekaPressure-test the under-claimed branches
Injection-point metering and low-temperature solubility tuning show thinner coverage than the core chemistry — worth a focused freedom-to-operate check before committing R&D time.
Run a white-space search in EurekaTrack the quiet incumbents
Several top-10 assignees show zero filings in the latest year. That can mean a licensing opportunity, a pending large filing not yet published, or simply a mature position — worth monitoring rather than assuming.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on drag reducing agent patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 104 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 30 and the tenth-place holder at 8. The top 5 assignees combined hold 287 of the 455 records in scope, or 63.1% of the field, so ownership is heavily concentrated rather than spread across many small filers. Anyone evaluating freedom to operate in this space should start with that leading handful before looking at the long tail of single-filing entrants.
Filing activity peaked at 11 filings in 2021 and had fallen to 4 by 2024, a -64% drop over that span and the most recent period that can be read as complete. Later years in the dataset (2025-2026) are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so it is not yet possible to say whether the decline continues. The safest reading is that new claim activity around the established chemistry has cooled from its 2021 high.
C09K (materials for miscellaneous applications) and F17D (pipeline transport) each appear in 42.0% of the 455 records in scope, the two largest classes and nearly identical in size, suggesting most filings pair a material claim with a pipeline-application claim in the same family. C08F addition polymers and C08L polymer compositions each cover close to a quarter of records, reflecting the polymer-chemistry backbone of the field. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares naturally add up to more than 100%.
Branches such as downstream injection point metering, shear-stable polymer suspension formulation, and low-temperature crude oil solubility tuning show thinner claim coverage than the dominant alpha-olefin and triblock-polymer chemistry. These are narrower, more specific sub-areas rather than wholly unclaimed territory, so any filing there still needs a targeted prior-art check. High density in the core classes does not mean the whole field is closed — it means the well-trodden chemistry is occupied.
US20230159844A1, assigned to Dow Global Technologies LLC and published in 2023, claims a drag reducing agent made from C6-C14 alpha-olefin monomer polymers carrying a residual amount of zirconium, with an absolute weight-average molecular weight above 1,300,000 g/mol and a specific Mw/Mn ratio window. It blocks formulations that fall inside that specific molecular weight and polydispersity window using zirconium-catalyzed alpha-olefin polymers, but does not by itself cover different catalyst chemistries, different monomer ranges, or different carrier systems. A design-around would most plausibly sit outside that molecular weight threshold or use a non-zirconium catalyst residue.
Research Drag Reducing and Flow Improvers in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole drag reducing and flow improvers corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.