Electric Shavers and Trimmers Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Extreme concentration. the top 5 assignees alone account for 84.4% of all 570 records in scope, with the leader holding 158 filings.
- Filing has fallen sharply. from 54 records in 2021 to 2 in 2024, a -96% drop over that complete three-year span.
- One IPC class dominates. B26B hand-held cutting tools appear in 95.4% of records, leaving cosmetics, medicinal and hairdressing-equipment overlaps comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (2) — 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 570 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the electric shaver and trimmer patent record shows
Electric shaver and trimmer innovation, as captured in this dataset, sits almost entirely inside B26B hand-held cutting tools, with much smaller overlaps into cosmetics use, medicinal preparations and hairdressing equipment. The record set spans 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, though publication lag means the most recent one to two years understate actual filing activity. Filing peaked in 2019 at 66 records and has declined since, with 2021 to 2024 showing a 96% drop in a period clean enough to compare year over year.
Ownership of the field is unusually tight for a personal-care appliance category: ten companies account for 90.7% of all 570 records, and the receiving-office spread (Japan and the United States each at 116, EPO at 105) points to a field defended through parallel filing in the three major markets rather than opportunistic single-jurisdiction protection.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 570-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose to a peak of 66 in 2019, then fell steadily; the 2021→2024 span alone shows a 96% decline (54 to 2 records), a trend visible before the last two years' publication lag distorts the count.
IPC subclass composition
B26B accounts for 95.4% of all 570 records, dwarfing every adjacent class; A61Q, A61K and A45D each sit under 3%, and A47J, B06B, D06C and B24D are all below 1%, marking the outer edge of where this technology touches cosmetics, medicine and textile finishing.
Shares are the percentage of the 570 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electric Shavers and Trimmers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electric shavers and trimmers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent representative filing
US12552057B2 — Methods of manufacturing a hair trimmer attachment
The patent covers a method of manufacturing a hair trimmer attachment with a fixed blade comprising a skin-contacting part and an angled part joined at a bend, where hair openings spaced along that bend form guard teeth between the skin-contacting and angled surfaces.Filed by Koninklijke Philips N.V., published 2026-02-17 — a manufacturing-method claim on fixed-blade guard-tooth geometry rather than the blade itself.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6671961B1 | Shaver provided with a shaving head having a sub-frame and a main frame | 70 |
| 2 | US5802932A | Cutter for a cutting device of an electric shaving apparatus or beard trimmer | 68 |
| 3 | WO2001039937A1 | Shaver provided with a shaving head having a sub-frame and a main frame | 58 |
| 4 | US20080086888A1 | Razor blades comprising a layer including releasable bioactive agent | 50 |
| 5 | US20190306259A1 | Personal care device and method of operation thereof | 48 |
| 6 | US6877227B2 | Shaver provided with a shaving head having a sub-frame and a main frame | 47 |
| 7 | US4221050A | Cutting tool | 47 |
| 8 | WO2006067710A1 | Rotary shavers, with improved drive and support structure for the shaving heads | 45 |
| 9 | US20180085945A1 | Beard trimmer | 44 |
| 10 | US20090000124A1 | Grooming tool assembly | 39 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older records such as the two 2001-era shaving-head patents lead the table; recency and citation count are separate signals.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation patterns mean
The dataset points to a field where a small number of incumbents built dense, overlapping claim coverage early, and where new entrants now face a shrinking filing pipeline rather than an open one.
Ownership is extremely top-heavy
Five companies hold 481 of the 570 records in scope, with the single leader at 158 filings. A field this concentrated usually means core mechanical claims — blade geometry, cutting-head sub-frame structures — were staked out early and defended through continuations across jurisdictions.
The filing pipeline has narrowed sharply
From 54 records in 2021 to 2 in 2024, the drop is steep enough that it is not an artefact of publication lag alone. Recent-year momentum data for the leading assignees shows several already at zero filings in the latest tracked year, suggesting the core mechanical design space is being treated as settled rather than actively contested.
Nearly all activity sits in one IPC class
B26B hand-held cutting tools appear in 544 of 570 records. The much smaller shares in cosmetics use, medicinal preparations and hairdressing equipment mark where shaver and trimmer technology brushes against adjacent fields without deep claim coverage.
Foundational shaving-head patents anchor the citation graph
The two most-cited records both describe sub-frame and main-frame shaving-head structures, one from 1998 and one a related 2001 filing. Their citation counts reflect decades of accumulated influence rather than current relevance, and any freedom-to-operate review should treat them as foundational architecture rather than the latest state of the art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electric shavers and trimmers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where the gate stands
The ranked leaders collectively hold nearly all the record volume, but their recent-year momentum has gone flat across the board — this is a field to watch for expiring coverage rather than fresh filing.
A single assignee dominates raw volume
The top-ranked company alone accounts for more than a quarter of every record in scope, spanning blade, motor and battery-runtime claims across multiple product generations.
The mid-tier holds meaningful but smaller portfolios
By fifth place, volume drops to 42 records, and by tenth place to just 6 — the field falls off quickly outside the top five, which is where 84.4% of all records sit.
A wide but thin long tail files opportunistically
Beyond the leaders, dozens of companies hold small numbers of records each, likely representing product-specific filings, licensing plays or single-market defensive patents rather than sustained R&D programmes.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Braun GmbH | 0 | -100% |
| The Gillette Company | 0 | -100% |
| Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hybrid Razor | 0 | — |
| Seiko Epson Corporation | 0 | — |
| Eveready Battery Company, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions depending on whether you are clearing a new design, evaluating an acquisition target, or scouting under-claimed space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top 5
With 84.4% of all records held by five assignees, any new blade, cutting-head or motor-torque design should be checked against their active families before development proceeds.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaInvestigate the under-claimed branches
Wet/dry sealing, cutting-gap self-adjustment and skin-comfort sensing sit outside the dominant B26B claim mass and may offer clearer filing space.
Map white space in EurekaWatch for expiring core claims
Several leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent tracked year; foundational shaving-head patents from the late 1990s and early 2000s may be approaching the end of enforceable life.
Track expiry timelines in EurekaCommon questions about electric shaver and trimmer patents
The dataset ranks 82 assignees, and ownership is highly concentrated: the leading company alone holds 158 of the 570 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 84.4% of all records. This level of concentration is unusual and suggests a small number of long-established manufacturers built and defended broad claim portfolios over decades rather than a fragmented, actively competitive field. Anyone entering this space should expect to negotiate around, or design around, a small number of dominant portfolios rather than many scattered small holders.
Filing has shrunk sharply in the most recent complete years: from 54 records in 2021 to just 2 in 2024, a 96% decline. The overall trend peaked earlier, in 2019, at 66 records. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the very last one or two years in any dataset will always look artificially low, but the 2021-2024 decline is based on years clean enough to compare directly, and it points to a genuinely narrowing filing pipeline rather than a data artefact.
The overwhelming majority, 95.4% of the 570 records in scope, fall under IPC class B26B, hand-held cutting tools, covering blade and cutting-head mechanics. Smaller shares extend into cosmetics use (2.6%), medicinal preparations (2.5%) and hairdressing and toilet equipment (1.8%), with even thinner overlaps into kitchen utensils, mechanical vibration generation, textile finishing and grinding tools, each under 1%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and they are all measured against the same 570-record base.
The adjacent branches with the thinnest filing density relative to the dominant B26B claim mass include wet/dry seal architecture, cutting-gap self-adjustment mechanisms, motor-torque feedback control, and skin-contact comfort sensing. These areas touch the core cutting-tool claims but are not saturated by them, which typically means narrower prior art and more room for a defensible first claim. A practical next step is to check whether the incumbent leaders hold any filings specifically in these sub-areas before drafting.
US12552057B2, assigned to Koninklijke Philips N.V. and published in 2026, claims a method of manufacturing a hair trimmer attachment with a fixed blade whose skin-contacting part and angled part meet at a bend lined with spaced hair openings forming guard teeth. It is a manufacturing-method claim tied to that specific guard-tooth geometry, not a blanket claim over fixed-blade trimmer attachments generally. Designs using a different guard-tooth arrangement, a different manufacturing sequence, or a non-bent blade transition would likely fall outside its claim scope, though a full claim-by-claim comparison is needed before relying on that distinction.
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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.