Fiber-Reinforced Composites Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. output fell from 608 records in 2021 to 391 in 2024, a 36% decline over that span, though 2025-26 figures are still filling in with the usual publication lag.
- No single company dominates. the ranked leader holds 1,310 records, but the top five combined account for only 12.9% of the 21,920 records in scope — this is a fragmented field, not a walled one.
- Laminate and shaping classes carry the claim density. B32B and B29C together touch over 40% of records, while fibre-specific classes like D01F and D04H sit under 5% each — a sign of where claim space is still thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (608 records) with 2024 (391) — 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 21,920 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A fragmented field built on laminate and shaping chemistry
Fiber-reinforced composite patenting spans 21,920 records filed since 2015, covering everything from fiber surface treatment to finished laminate structures. The search space combines two vocabularies — composite laminate terms and process/property terms like tensile strength and fiber diameter — which is why the technology composition skews toward broad shaping and polymer-processing classes rather than narrow fiber chemistry. B32B (layered products) and B29C (shaping of plastics) are the two largest classes by record count, together touching more than four in ten records.
No company controls the field outright. The leading assignee holds 1,310 records out of 21,920, but concentration falls off quickly after that — the top ten combined reach only 18.6% of records in scope. That leaves a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants working alongside a handful of larger, diversified filers spanning aerospace, industrial materials and consumer goods.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 21,920-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that make up the fiber-reinforced composite space.
Filing peaked in 2018 and has since pulled back
Annual filings rose to a peak of 860 records in 2018, then declined through the early 2020s — 608 records in 2021 down to 391 in 2024, a 36% drop over three years. The most recent two years in the chart are undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months; treat 2025-26 as incomplete rather than as evidence of a further slide.
Laminate and shaping classes dominate; fibre-specific classes stay thin
B32B (23.0% of records) and B29C (19.5%) lead the technology mix, followed by polymer processing and composition classes C08J, C08L, C08G and C08K. Fibre-specific classes — D01F for filament features and D04H for nonwovens — each sit at around 4.6% of records, a much smaller footprint than the laminate and shaping classes that surround them. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add to more than 100% of the 21,920 records in scope.
Shares are the percentage of the 21,920 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fiber-Reinforced Composites Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about fiber-reinforced composites patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US5552214A — Unidirectional prepreg and carbon fiber reinforced composite materials
A pitch-based carbon fiber reinforced composite material is improved with regard to its compressive strength and compression strain at failure by combining polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibers. The pitch-based carbon fibers have a modulus in tension of not less than 400 GPa, a tensile strength of not less than 2000 MPa, a compressive strength as a unidirectionally reinforced composite material of 100 MPa to 800 MPa and a fiber diameter of 4 to 15 micrometres.Filed by Nippon Steel Corporation, granted 1996-09-03 — a hybrid-fiber approach that predates most of the dataset's filing activity.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US3341394A | Sheets of randomly distributed continuous filaments | 3,213 |
| 2 | US5415661A | Implantable spinal assist device | 1,754 |
| 3 | US7682686B2 | Tufted fibrous web | 1,400 |
| 4 | US6147135A | Fabrication of biocompatible polymeric composites | 1,232 |
| 5 | US5825543A | Diffusely reflecting polarizing element including a first birefringent phase and a second phase | 1,105 |
| 6 | US20100318085A1 | Internal fixation devices | 1,097 |
| 7 | US5711960A | Biocompatible implant material comprising a tri-axial or more three-dimensional fabric | 1,032 |
| 8 | US5169706A | Low stress relaxation composite elastic material | 1,000 |
| 9 | US6111696A | Brightness enhancement film | 808 |
| 10 | US5783120A | Method for making an optical film | 690 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older records are structurally favoured — read this as a map of influential prior art, not of current filing activity.
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 filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read against each other: where claim density sits, how fast the field has cooled, and where the citation record points.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The leading assignee holds 1,310 records, well ahead of fifth place at 287, but the top five combined still account for only 12.9% of all records in scope. That gap between a strong leader and a shallow combined share means freedom-to-operate analysis has to look past the obvious names.
Volume has pulled back from its 2018 peak
Annual filings dropped from 608 in 2021 to 391 in 2024. Combined with a 2018 peak of 860, the shape suggests the field's most active claim-staking period has passed, though publication lag means the very latest years understate current activity.
Claim density sits in laminate structure, not fibre chemistry
B32B and B29C together cover a large share of records, while D01F and D04H — the classes closest to raw fibre engineering — sit under 5% each. That imbalance points to laminate architecture and shaping processes as the more crowded territory.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fiber-reinforced composites patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
A leader, a mid-tier, and a long tail
The assignee ranking shows one company well ahead of the field, a cluster of diversified industrial and consumer-goods filers behind it, and a long tail of smaller entrants. Recent-year momentum for several of the largest names has slowed sharply, consistent with the field-wide filing pullback.
One company sets the pace, but doesn't dominate the field
The top-ranked assignee holds more than four times the record count of the tenth-place filer (227), yet the combined top ten still reach only 18.6% of all 21,920 records in scope — evidence of a field with genuine competitive spread rather than a single gatekeeper.
Several large filers have gone quiet in the latest year
Recent-year momentum among some of the more active historical filers shows steep pullbacks — some at zero filings in the latest year, others down sharply year over year. That is consistent with the broader 2021-2024 decline rather than a sign any one company has exited.
Joint filing is rare and concentrated among a few pairs
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest pairing well ahead of the others. Co-filing is the exception here, not the norm — most records carry a single assignee.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc. | 2 | -94% |
| The Boeing Company | 1 | -67% |
| Toray Industries, Inc. | 0 | — |
| The Procter & Gamble Company | 0 | — |
| E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Cytec Industries Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Teijin Limited | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with room to move for filers willing to work outside the dense laminate and shaping classes.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top ten
With the top ten holding only 18.6% of records, a targeted clearance search against the ranked leaders is more tractable than in a field with a dominant gatekeeper.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack momentum shifts among large filers
Several previously active assignees show sharp year-over-year declines. Watching whether that reflects a strategic pause or a genuine exit matters for competitive positioning.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaProbe the under-claimed fibre-specific classes
D01F and D04H remain comparatively thin relative to laminate classes. A closer read of claim scope there may reveal filing opportunities before the space fills in.
Explore white space with EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The assignee ranking is led by one company with 1,310 records, well ahead of the rest of the field. However, concentration is shallow: the top five combined hold only 12.9% of the 21,920 records in scope, and the top ten reach 18.6%. Practically, this means the field has a clear leader but no single company controls enough claim space to block newcomers outright — competitive analysis needs to look at the broader ranked list, not just the top name.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 860 records and has declined since, falling from 608 records in 2021 to 391 in 2024 — a 36% drop over that three-year span. The two most recent years in any chart will look lower still, but that is largely a publication-lag artefact: patent publication typically trails filing by around 18 months, so 2025-26 figures are incomplete rather than a true continuation of the decline. Treat 2024 as the most recent complete data point.
Layered products and laminates (IPC class B32B) lead at 23.0% of the 21,920 records in scope, followed closely by shaping of plastics (B29C) at 19.5%. Polymer processing and composition classes (C08J, C08L, C08G, C08K) make up a large secondary tier. Fibre-specific classes — D01F for filament features and D04H for nonwovens — sit much lower, each around 4.6%, suggesting laminate structure and shaping process claims are more crowded than raw fibre engineering claims.
US5552214A, filed by Nippon Steel Corporation, claims a unidirectional prepreg combining pitch-based and polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibers with specific tensile strength, modulus and fiber diameter ranges to improve compressive strength and compression strain at failure. It sits among the highest-cited records in this dataset, meaning a substantial share of later filings in hybrid carbon-fiber composite work reference it as prior art. Anyone filing on hybrid-fiber prepreg systems with overlapping mechanical property ranges should review its claim boundaries closely before drafting new claims in that space.
The clearest signal comes from comparing class shares: fibre-specific classes like D01F (chemical filament features) and D04H (nonwovens and felts) each account for only around 4.6% of the 21,920 records in scope, far below the laminate and shaping classes that surround them. That gap suggests claims tied closely to fibre surface treatment, web bonding methods, and hybrid fibre blends are comparatively under-claimed relative to the broader laminate architecture space, though a full clearance search is needed before relying on this as a filing strategy.
Research Fiber-Reinforced Composites Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole fiber-reinforced composites patent landscape 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.