Ethylene Management Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Top 5 assignees hold 48.4% of all 91 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and low-filing entrants behind them.
- Filings peaked in 2022 at 11 and have since tapered — read the most recent years as understated given an 18-month publication lag.
- Packaging and cooling classes outnumber active chemistry B65D and F25D combined touch more records than the biocide class A01N, suggesting containment engineering is drawing as much claim activity as the absorber chemistry itself.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 91 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Ethylene management in produce storage sits at the intersection of postharvest chemistry and packaging engineering. The search scope combines ethylene absorber and ethylene management language with specific intervention routes — cyclopropene treatment, potassium permanganate oxidation, photocatalytic removal, and formulation questions around ripening delay, cultivar response and dose timing. That combination captures both the active chemistry that scavenges or blocks ethylene and the packaging or refrigeration systems built to deliver it.
91 published records fall within scope across 2015 through the 2026 cut-off. The assignee ranking covers 46 companies, and receiving-office data shows filing activity spread across the United States, WIPO's PCT route, India, Europe, Australia and Japan rather than concentrated in a single jurisdiction.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 91-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim volume.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran at 4 in 2017 and reached a peak of 11 in 2022 before tapering to 1 in the still-incomplete 2026 count. Treat the last one to two years as undercounted rather than as a genuine decline, since publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months.
IPC subclass distribution
A23B (food preservation) touches 47.3% of the 91 records, ahead of B65D (containers and packaging) at 34.1% and B01J (chemical and physical processes, catalysis) at 20.9%. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100% — each percentage should be read against the full 91-record base, not against each other as slices of a pie.
Shares are the percentage of the 91 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Ethylene Management in Produce Storage with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about ethylene management in produce storage and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the field
US20140272039A1 — Reactive ethylene absorber
The filing covers an ethylene absorber built from at least one hypochlorite salt (calcium, sodium, potassium or magnesium) combined with acid and a hygroscopic material, together with a method of preserving produce by placing it in a sealed package alongside a sealed container that permits gaseous contact between the absorber and the produce.Filed by Multisorb Technologies; the abstract language above is quoted directly from the published record.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170064912A1 | Growing Vegetables Within a Closed Agricultural Environment | 78 |
| 2 | US20040034149A1 | Essential oils in plastic film | 60 |
| 3 | WO2008149232A2 | Active materials incorporating micro-porous solids and essential oils | 58 |
| 4 | GB2449876A | Active packaging materials incorporating micro-porous solids and essential oils | 15 |
| 5 | WO2001030658A1 | Container for odor remover and ethylene absorbent | 12 |
| 6 | JP1985176538A | Sheet for preserving freshness of vegetables | 12 |
| 7 | EP2902732A1 | Domestic/professional refrigerator | 10 |
| 8 | WO1995033822A1 | Growth medium for conifer embryogenic tissue | 10 |
| 9 | US20200165026A1 | Container made of injection molded plastic | 9 |
| 10 | US20180002085A1 | Food packaging films from lignin and methods of making the same | 9 |
Citation counts reward older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — read this table as a map of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the IPC composition are read together.
Leadership sits with a handful of filers, not one dominant player
The leader holds 13 records and fifth place holds 6 — a real gap, but not a single-company lock. Combined with a 46-company ranking, the field reads as consolidated at the top with a long tail of one- and two-filing entrants below.
Packaging engineering rivals the absorber chemistry itself
Food preservation methods lead the IPC composition, but containers and packaging (B65D) and refrigeration (F25D) together account for a large share of records, meaning much of the competitive activity is about delivery format and containment, not only the active ethylene-scavenging chemistry.
Activity has cooled from its 2022 peak, with the caveat of publication lag
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2022, then declined toward the 2026 cut-off. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years understate true activity and should not be read as a genuine slowdown yet.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ethylene management in produce storage, with the prior art for and against each one.
The assignee landscape
46 companies make up the ranked field, spanning absorber material specialists, packaging engineers and appliance makers. Momentum in the most recent year is flat across the leading names, consistent with the broader publication-lag pattern rather than a genuine pullback.
A single materials specialist leads the ranked field
The top-ranked assignee holds 13 of the 91 records in scope, built around ethylene-absorbing sachet and material chemistry rather than packaging systems.
A cluster of mid-tier filers works packaging and delivery formats
Fifth place holds 6 records, and the drop-off from the leader to fifth place is gradual rather than sharp, indicating several credible competitors rather than a single blocking incumbent.
Co-assignments are sparse and center on individual inventors
Only 5 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest links pair the leading materials company with named individual inventors rather than with other corporate assignees, suggesting limited joint-venture activity in this niche.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Multisorb Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| POST HARVEST SOLUTIONS | 0 | — |
| Boveda Inc. | 0 | — |
| New Zealand Forest Research Institute Limited | 0 | — |
| Electrolux Appliances | 0 | — |
| Johnson Matthey PLC | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation | 0 | — |
| DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (DOST ITDI) | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, sourcing a partner, or spotting an open filing angle.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's family
With 13 records concentrated in one assignee, a claim-by-claim comparison against that portfolio is the fastest way to see whether a planned absorber chemistry or packaging format sits inside or outside existing coverage.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches before they fill in
Photocatalytic removal, membrane-based separation, and polymer-carrier co-formulations show thinner representation than food-preservation and packaging classes — each is a candidate for an early first-mover filing.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch for the 2024–2026 filings still publishing
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true 2024–2026 filing count will only become visible over the next reporting cycles; revisit the trend once those records surface.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The ranked field covers 46 companies, with the leader holding 13 of the 91 records in scope and fifth place holding 6. That gap shows real concentration at the top, but the top 5 combined account for 48.4% of all records, meaning more than half the field is held by companies outside that leading group. It is a consolidated field, not a single-company monopoly, and a long tail of low-filing entrants sits below the ranked leaders.
Food preservation methods under IPC class A23B appear in 47.3% of the 91 records, the largest single share, followed by containers and packaging (B65D) at 34.1% and chemical or physical processes including catalysis (B01J) at 20.9%. Because records often carry multiple IPC codes, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%. The pattern shows that packaging and delivery-system claims are nearly as active as the underlying absorber or scavenging chemistry.
Filing counts rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2022, then declined toward the 2026 data cut-off. That apparent slowdown should be read cautiously: publication typically lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2024-2026 counts are undercounted and will likely revise upward as more records publish. There is not enough complete recent-year data to state a reliable growth rate.
US20140272039A1, assigned to Multisorb Technologies, claims an ethylene absorber built from at least one hypochlorite salt (calcium, sodium, potassium or magnesium) combined with an acid and a hygroscopic material, plus a method of preserving produce using that absorber inside a sealed container that allows gaseous contact with the produce. It sits among the field's most-cited records. Anyone designing a hypochlorite-and-acid absorber chemistry for sealed produce packaging should review this filing's claim scope directly rather than relying on the abstract alone.
The IPC composition shows thinner representation in classes tied to photocatalytic removal, membrane-based separation (B01D at 13.2%) and polymer-carrier formulations (C08L at 8.8%) compared with the dominant food-preservation and packaging classes. These narrower branches, along with cultivar-specific dose-timing protocols named in the search scope, show comparatively less claim density. That does not guarantee an easy filing, but it does mean fewer existing claims to design around in those specific sub-areas.
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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.