Drip Emitter Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One filer dominates the ranked field. the leading assignee holds 68 records against a fifth-place count of just 3, with the rest of the ranking trailing off into single-digit filers.
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. the peak year saw 10 filings; the tracked three-year span from 2021 to 2024 shows a -67% change, though 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag.
- Claim density sits almost entirely in one IPC subclass. A01G (horticulture & forestry) covers 90.2% of the 82 records in scope, while plastics-shaping and spraying classes trail well behind.
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (1) — 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.
What this landscape covers
Drip emitter design and anti-clogging technology sits at the intersection of irrigation hardware and plastics manufacturing: labyrinth channel geometry, pressure compensation, and flushing mechanisms are the recurring claim elements across this dataset of 82 published records filed between 2015 and 2026. The field is small and concentrated, with a single assignee accounting for the large majority of the ranked filings and a long tail of individual inventors holding the remainder.
The most-cited records in the corpus are elastomeric emitter and drip-line patents dating to the early-to-mid 2010s, which signals durable prior art rather than current activity — citation counts in any searched corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate references.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 82-record dataset: filing activity by year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the composition shares add up to more than 100%.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked in 2018 at 10 records and have since declined; the tracked 2021-to-2024 span shows a -67% change. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not be read as a real drop-off yet.
IPC subclass composition
A01G (horticulture & forestry) appears in 90.2% of the 82 records, confirming this is fundamentally an irrigation-hardware field. B29C (shaping of plastics) at 25.6% and B05B (spraying & atomising) at 18.3% reflect the manufacturing and flow-control dimensions layered on top of the core horticultural claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 82 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Drip Emitter Design and Anti-Clogging with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about drip emitter design and anti-clogging and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Pressure compensation members, emitters, drip line and methods relating to same
A pressure compensation member, an irrigation drip emitter, drip lines and methods relating to same, are provided for delivering irrigation water from a supply tube to an emitter outlet at a reduced and relatively constant flow rate. The pressure compensation member is suitable for use in conventional emitters or alternate emitters having either a uniform elastomeric emitter body configuration or a poly-material emitter body utilizing an elastomeric pressure compensation member. Various methods relating to the pressure compensation member, emitters and drip line are also disclosed.Filed by Rain Bird Corporation, published 2018-08-02 as US20180213732A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20130248616A1 | Elastomeric Emitter And Methods Relating To Same | 84 |
| 2 | US20100282873A1 | Drip Emitter and Methods of Assembly and Mounting | 83 |
| 3 | US20130248622A1 | Drip line and emitter and methods relating to same | 51 |
| 4 | US20140027539A1 | Drip Line Emitter And Methods Relating To Same | 50 |
| 5 | US20150041563A1 | Elastomeric emitter and methods relating to same | 49 |
| 6 | US9485923B2 | Elastomeric emitter and methods relating to same | 38 |
| 7 | US20160219802A1 | Elastomeric emitter and methods relating to same | 35 |
| 8 | WO2013148672A1 | Elastomeric emitter and methods relating to same | 32 |
| 9 | US20150041564A1 | Elastomeric Emitter And Methods Relating To Same | 31 |
| 10 | WO2015023624A1 | Elastomeric emitter and methods relating to same | 29 |
Ranked by citation count within this searched corpus; older filings accumulate citations over time, so this table indicates influence on later drafting, not current filing activity.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs on concentration, timing and claim geometry that a filing or freedom-to-operate assessment should account for.
One assignee sets the boundaries of the field
The leading assignee holds 68 of the ranked records, while the fifth-ranked filer holds only 3. That gap means most of the claim space in pressure compensation and elastomeric emitter bodies has already been staked out by a single company, and any new filing in that core area needs a careful freedom-to-operate check against their portfolio specifically.
Activity has cooled from its 2018 peak
Filings peaked at 10 in 2018 and the 2021-to-2024 window shows a -67% change. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts in the raw trend are not yet reliable evidence of a further slowdown.
Manufacturing classes ride alongside the core claim
A01G covers 90.2% of the 82 records, but a quarter also carry B29C (plastics shaping) and nearly a fifth carry B05B (spraying & atomising). That overlap shows emitter claims are routinely drafted alongside manufacturing-process claims, which widens the search needed for a clean FTO opinion.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to drip emitter design and anti-clogging, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where they are not
The ranked field is short: nine companies and individual inventors account for the assignee ranking behind these 82 records, with one clear leader and a long tail of small filers, several of whom co-file with each other.
A single company anchors the field
The leading assignee's 68 records dwarf the rest of the ranking, concentrated in elastomeric emitter bodies and pressure compensation members that also make up the most-cited prior art in this dataset.
Individual inventors hold small, clustered positions
Below the leader, filers drop to single-digit counts quickly. Several of these smaller filers appear together as co-assignees rather than as competitors, suggesting joint inventor teams rather than independent filing strategies.
A tight inventor cluster co-files repeatedly
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with three pairs among the same small group of individual inventors each filing together three times. That pattern points to a compact team working a related set of mechanical claims rather than a broad industry collaboration.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rain Bird Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| DLH Bowles, Inc. | 0 | — |
| KIM JAE YUNG | 0 | — |
| ENSWORTH MARK M | 0 | — |
| EDRIS MARK RICHARD | 0 | — |
| ZAKARIAN BERJ | 0 | — |
| NAZARI JOSEPH | 0 | — |
| MATTLIN JEFFREY L | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a concentrated field with a long tail of thin positions. The next steps depend on whether you are filing, clearing, or monitoring.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leader
With one assignee holding 68 of the ranked records, any new emitter-body or pressure-compensation filing should start with a claim-by-claim comparison against that portfolio before drafting.
Explore assignee claims in Eureka →Test the under-claimed sub-areas for a first-filer position
Particle deposition modelling and self-flushing geometry show thin coverage relative to the core emitter-body claims, which may leave room for a narrowly drafted first claim.
Map white space in Eureka →Track filing momentum past the lag window
Because 2025-2026 filings are still publishing, re-check the trend in six to twelve months before concluding the field has genuinely slowed.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Common questions on drip emitter patents
One assignee holds 68 of the records in the 9-company assignee ranking behind this dataset, far ahead of the fifth-ranked filer's 3 records. That gap means the leader's portfolio, particularly around elastomeric emitter bodies and pressure compensation members, is the first thing to check before filing or launching a competing product. The rest of the ranking is a long tail of individual inventors, several of whom co-file with each other rather than compete independently.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 10 records and the tracked 2021-to-2024 window shows a -67% change, so activity has cooled from its high point. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 counts in any raw trend chart are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation of a continued decline. A fair read is that the field has moved past its most active filing period, with the most recent trajectory still uncertain.
Pressure compensation refers to a mechanism, typically an elastomeric member, that keeps water flow roughly constant across a drip line despite pressure variation along its length. It is an actively claimed feature in this dataset: the representative filing, US20180213732A1 from Rain Bird Corporation, claims pressure compensation members usable in both uniform elastomeric and poly-material emitter bodies. Because this is one of the more heavily claimed mechanical features in the field, new designs should map their compensation mechanism against existing claims carefully.
A01G (horticulture and forestry) is the dominant class, appearing in 90.2% of the 82 records in scope, confirming that most claims are drafted as irrigation-hardware inventions. B29C (shaping of plastics) at 25.6% and B05B (spraying and atomising) at 18.3% show that manufacturing process and flow-control claims are frequently layered onto the same filings. A thorough prior-art search in this space should not stop at A01G alone.
The smaller IPC classes in this dataset, such as B29D (specific plastic articles), A01F, B23P and B29K, each cover only a handful of the 82 records, suggesting thinner claim coverage relative to the core emitter-body and pressure-compensation space. Sub-areas like self-flushing labyrinth geometry and particle-deposition modelling in narrow-bore channels also show limited representation. These are reasonable areas to investigate for a first-filer position, though thin coverage in a search does not guarantee the underlying technology is unclaimed elsewhere.
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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.