Ethylene Oxide & Glycol Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2022. the peak year in the trend, with the most recent year showing no filings on record (publication lag means the last year is always undercounted).
- One assignee separates from the pack. the leading company holds 11 records against a fifth-place count of just 2, out of 9 ranked companies total.
- Heterocyclic claims dominate the class mix. C07D appears in 97.2% of the 36 records in scope, while computational-chemistry framing (G16C) already touches 13.9% of them.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of ethylene oxide (EO) and ethylene glycol (EG) production and the process controls that keep silver-catalyst epoxidation running safely and selectively — catalyst aging, EO absorption, hydration ratio and EO handling safety. The scope is deliberately narrow: 36 published records between 2015 and mid-2026, filtered to documents that combine process-route language with these specific technical control points rather than every EO/EG filing in existence.
Because the search combines a title/abstract process description with narrower claim-level control terms, the set skews toward records where catalyst behaviour and plant safety are argued explicitly rather than assumed. That makes it a useful lens on where applicants are staking claims around catalyst life and selectivity, not a full count of every EO/EG patent filed worldwide.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 36-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A flat-to-declining trend after a 2022 peak
Filings were at zero in 2017, climbed to a peak of 18 in 2022, and the most recent year shows no published records — consistent with the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication rather than an actual stop in activity. Read the last one to two years of any trend chart as a floor, not a ceiling.
C07D anchors the field; G16C signals a newer thread
C07D (heterocyclic compounds, which covers the ethylene oxide ring itself) appears in 97.2% of the 36 records, effectively defining the set. B01J (catalysis) at 36.1% and C07B (general organic methods) at 25.0% are the next-heaviest classes, while G16C (computational chemistry) already reaches 13.9% — a sign that catalyst-modelling claims are being paired with the traditional process claims. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the 36 records and should not be read as a partition.
Shares are the percentage of the 36 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaThe documents anchoring this landscape
Process for reducing the aging-related deactivation of high selectivity ethylene oxide catalysts
Filed by Dow Global Technologies, this application addresses a specific failure mode: high-selectivity silver catalysts lose performance over their operating life. The claims tie an organic chloride modifier dose to an overall catalyst chloriding effectiveness value that must never exceed an efficiency-maximizing optimum tied to a reference feed gas composition and reference reaction conditions, with reaction temperature and feed gas oxygen concentration adjusted to hold a target EO production rate as the catalyst ages.Published 2024-08-22 — illustrates how current filings frame catalyst aging as a controllable variable rather than an inevitable decline.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6372925B1 | Process for operating the epoxidation of ethylene | 95 |
| 2 | US20240150307A1 | Moderator and catalyst performance optimization for epoxidation of ethylene | 6 |
| 3 | EP2980082A1 | Ethylene oxide production process | 6 |
| 4 | WO2014157698A1 | Ethylene oxide production process | 2 |
| 5 | JP2014198680A | Method for producing ethylene oxide | 2 |
| 6 | WO2022214539A1 | Moderator and catalyst performance optimization for epoxidation of ethylene | 1 |
| 7 | WO2022144866A1 | Process for the production of ethylene oxide | 1 |
Citation counts favour older, longer-published documents — treat them as a measure of influence within this corpus, not of current commercial relevance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the assignee ranking, the citation table and the class mix that matter for a freedom-to-operate check.
One filer, then a long tail
The leading assignee holds 11 records against a fifth-place count of only 2, across 9 ranked companies in this dataset. That gap suggests the leader has been building a deliberate portfolio around catalyst control rather than filing opportunistically.
One older patent still anchors the field
US6372925B1, on operating the epoxidation of ethylene, carries far more citations than any other record in the table — 95 versus single digits for the next-most-cited filings. New filings on catalyst chloriding and moderator control still have to be read against it.
Computational chemistry is entering process claims
Nearly one record in seven combines a G16C computational-chemistry class with the core C07D process claim, alongside the 36.1% that touch B01J catalysis codes. That pairing points to catalyst-behaviour modelling being claimed alongside the physical process, not just described in the specification.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol production, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space still opens up
The ranked assignees cluster around a small number of established process licensors; the receiving-office spread shows where they are seeking protection.
A single dominant filer
The top assignee's 11 records are more than five times the fifth-place count of 2, out of 9 companies in the ranking. Two of the two recorded co-assignee pairs in this dataset link this filer to related corporate entities, suggesting internal restructuring or joint filings rather than external collaboration.
Europe leads, but filing is spread thin
The EPO accounts for 7 of the tracked filings, ahead of the United States and WIPO/PCT route at 4 each, with Canada, China and India each at 3. No single office dominates the way the top assignee dominates the company ranking, which points to multi-jurisdiction filing strategies rather than a home-market focus.
Filing is mostly solo
Only two co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, both linking the top-ranked assignee to related corporate affiliates. There is no visible cross-company joint-filing pattern among the other ranked assignees in this set.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Shell International Research Maatschappij B.V. | 0 | — |
| Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| Shell Oil Company | 0 | — |
| SHELL USA INC | 0 | — |
| Dow Technology Investments LLC | 0 | — |
| Lianyungang Petrochemical Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Union Carbide Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to decide.
Check freedom to operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 11 of the ranked records, any new catalyst-chloriding or moderator-control filing should be checked claim-by-claim against that portfolio before drafting.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the G16C overlap for early signals
The 13.9% of records already pairing computational chemistry with process claims is a small but distinct signal worth tracking as filings from the latest, still-underreported year publish.
Set up monitoring in EurekaUse citation weight, not just count, to prioritise review
US6372925B1's 95 citations mark it as the reference point competitors' claims are drafted around; start any prior-art review there rather than with the most recent filings.
Explore citation trees in EurekaCommon questions on EO/EG production patents
In this 36-record dataset, one assignee leads with 11 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 2, across 9 companies in the ranking. That gap indicates a sustained, deliberate filing programme rather than one-off applications. It does not mean that company controls the whole field, since the ranking only reflects the records captured by this specific search scope around catalyst selectivity, absorption and safety claims.
Patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so any trend chart's final one to two years will always look artificially low. The peak year in this dataset is 2022 at 18 records, and the apparent drop-off afterward should be read as an artefact of publication timing, not a real halt in R&D activity. Treat the last two data points on any filing trend as provisional.
The IPC composition shows heavy concentration in C07D (heterocyclic compounds, 97.2% of records) and moderate coverage of B01J catalysis (36.1%), but only 13.9% of records touch G16C computational chemistry and just 5.6% touch B01D separation processes. That leaves catalyst-aging prediction models, EO absorption column design and hydration-ratio control for EG co-production comparatively open relative to the core epoxidation claims. A prior-art search in these narrower branches is likely to turn up fewer blocking documents.
Concentration cannot be stated as a percentage from this evidence, because the assignee ranking (in companies) and the record total (36, in patent families) are different units. What can be said is that the ranking shows a clear leader at 11 records against a fifth-place figure of 2, out of 9 ranked companies, which is a meaningfully top-heavy shape even without a computed ratio. Anyone assessing competitive risk should look at that gap alongside the citation table, since the most-cited patent, US6372925B1, sits outside the newest filings entirely.
This Dow Global Technologies filing addresses catalyst aging in high-selectivity silver EO catalysts by constraining the overall catalyst chloriding effectiveness relative to an efficiency-maximizing reference value tied to a specific feed gas composition and reaction condition set. It also covers adjusting reaction temperature and feed gas oxygen concentration to hold EO production targets as the catalyst ages. Anyone running an EO/EG plant with organic chloride moderation should read the specific chloriding-effectiveness thresholds closely, since that is the operative limitation rather than the general idea of aging catalysts.
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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.