Filamentous Fungi Genome Integration Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 43.3% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 969 of the 2,238 records in scope — a tight cluster around a small set of industrial enzyme and biotech firms.
- Filing peaked in 2017. 61 records that year, the high point of the trend; the 2021-2024 span shows a 46% decline, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in due to publication lag.
- C12P and C07K run wide, not deep. Fermentation and peptide-related claims touch 43.9% and 30.3% of records respectively, but co-assignee collaboration is thin — only 10 recorded pairs across the whole field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (39 records) with 2024 (21) — 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 2,238 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Genome integration in filamentous fungi sits at the intersection of industrial microbiology and genetic engineering: methods for inserting a polynucleotide at a chosen genomic site, controlling copy number, improving recombination efficiency, and removing selection markers afterward. The scope here is defined by IPC classes C12N15/80 (fungal genetic engineering), C12N1/14 (fungal microorganisms), and C12Q1/68 (nucleic acid-based measuring methods), searched against text describing homology arms, integration sites, marker excision and genomic stability.
The 2,238 records in scope span 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity and should be read as provisional rather than a genuine slowdown.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,238-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2017 peak followed by a multi-year pullback
Filing rose to a peak of 61 records in 2017, then eased. The 2021-2024 window — the last span with figures reliable enough to compare — moved from 39 to 21 records, a 46% decline. Readers should treat 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as continued contraction.
Concentrated in C12N, spread thinly elsewhere
96.0% of records carry a C12N classification, confirming the field is fundamentally about genetic engineering of microorganisms rather than a downstream application. C12P (fermentation, 43.9%) and C07K (peptides, 30.3%) are the next-heaviest overlaps, while G01N (material analysis, 6.4%) marks the thinnest edge of the search scope.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,238 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Filamentous Fungi Genome Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about filamentous fungi genome integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe documents anchoring this field
EP2172557B1 — Filamentous fungal mutants with improved homologous recombination efficiency
The present invention relates to a method for increasing the efficiency of targeted integration of a polynucleotide to a pre-determined site into the genome of a filamentous fungal cell with a preference for NHR, wherein said polynucleotide has a region of homology with said pre-determined site, comprising steering an integration pathway towards HR. The invention also relates to a mutant filamentous fungus originating from a parent cell, with an HR pathway of elevated efficiency and/or an NHR pathway of lowered efficiency relative to the parent.Filed by DSM IP Assets B.V.; granted 2018-03-14.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2000056900A2 | Promoters for expressing genes in a fungal cell | 1,802 |
| 2 | WO2000024883A1 | Constructing and screening a DNA library of interest in filamentous fungal cells | 1,794 |
| 3 | WO2006078256A2 | Polypeptides having xylanase activity and polynucleotides encoding same | 606 |
| 4 | WO2008057637A2 | Methods of increasing secretion of polypeptides having biological activity | 532 |
| 5 | US4486533A | Filamentous fungi functional replicating extrachromosomal element | 517 |
| 6 | WO1998046772A2 | Gene conversion as a tool for the construction of recombinant industrial filamentous fungi | 501 |
| 7 | EP0215594A2 | Heterologous polypeptide expressed in filamentous fungi, processes for their preparation, and vectors for the… | 466 |
| 8 | US20150082478A1 | Plant genome modification using guide RNA/CAS endonuclease systems and methods of use | 433 |
| 9 | US5783431A | Methods for generating and screening novel metabolic pathways | 429 |
| 10 | US5824485A | Methods for generating and screening novel metabolic pathways | 346 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older foundational documents will always outrank recent filings on this measure alone — read them as markers of influence on subsequent work, not as evidence of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three findings that shape where a new filing has room, and where it competes with dense prior art.
A small group holds the core
The five leading assignees account for 969 of the 2,238 records in scope. That is enough concentration that a new entrant should assume the core integration-efficiency and marker-excision claims are already occupied, and look instead at adjacent process steps.
Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak
Volume dropped from 39 records in 2021 to 21 in 2024. Combined with a leader showing a 75% year-on-year decline in its most recent reported year, this points to a maturing core technology rather than an actively expanding one — though 2025-2026 data is too thin yet to confirm the trend continues.
Filers mostly go it alone
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest of them link entities that share ownership history rather than independent partners. Joint filing is not how this field moves; most positions are built and held by a single organisation.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to filamentous fungi genome integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
The ranked leaders make up a small set of industrial biotechnology firms with long-running enzyme and fermentation businesses; several of them show flat or declining recent activity, which is a different signal from being new to the field.
One firm sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 312 records, well clear of fifth place at 92. That gap suggests the leader's position was built early and has been defended through continuation filings rather than contested by fast followers.
Even the leader is filing less
The top assignee's own latest-year count fell 75% year on year, and most other named assignees in the recent-momentum data show zero filings in the latest year. That pattern is consistent with a field where the foundational claim space is largely settled.
A gap after the top ten
The top 10 assignees combined hold 1,245 of 2,238 records, 55.6% of the field, but the drop from tenth place (41 records) down through the rest of the ranked 100 is steep. Beyond the leaders, most entrants hold only a handful of filings each.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novozymes A/S | 1 | -75% |
| Novozymes Inc. | 0 | — |
| DSM IP Assets B.V. | 0 | — |
| Novo Nordisk Biotech Inc. | 0 | — |
| Genencor International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Danisco US Inc. | 0 | — |
| Zymergen Inc. | 0 | — |
| International N&H Denmark ApS | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with settled core claims and some visibly thinner edges. Two directions make sense from here.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 312 records and a defended position built over a decade, any new integration-efficiency or marker-excision method should be checked against that portfolio specifically before drafting claims.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTarget the thinner IPC overlaps
G01N (6.4%) and A61K (10.1%) overlaps with the core C12N scope are far less crowded than C12P or C07K. A claim drafted at that intersection has more room to stand on novel ground.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads clearly with 312 of the 2,238 records in scope, compared with 92 at fifth place and 41 at tenth. The leading names are longstanding industrial enzyme and fermentation companies rather than recent entrants. That gap between first place and the rest suggests an early, well-defended position rather than an open contest among several comparably sized filers.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 61 records and has trended down since; the 2021-to-2024 span, the most recent period with reliable complete-year data, fell 46% from 39 to 21 records. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so they should not yet be read as continued decline. The honest summary is that the field has cooled from a mid-2010s peak, with the very latest trend still unresolved.
EP2172557B1, held by DSM IP Assets B.V. and granted in 2018, covers methods for increasing the efficiency of targeted polynucleotide integration in filamentous fungal cells by steering the cell's repair pathway toward homologous recombination (HR) and away from non-homologous recombination (NHR). It also covers mutant fungal strains engineered to have this altered HR/NHR balance relative to a parent strain. Anyone working on directed integration efficiency in filamentous fungi should check their approach against this claim scope specifically, since it targets the pathway-steering mechanism rather than a single gene target.
The clearest gaps sit at the edges of the core C12N scope: material-analysis-linked verification methods (G01N overlaps only 6.4% of records), copy-number control cassettes, and marker-free excision systems all show thinner claim density than the core integration-efficiency space. Co-assignee collaboration is also rare, with only 10 recorded pairs across the whole dataset, which means most joint or licensed development paths remain untested rather than blocked. A first claim in these areas would need to tie a specific mechanism to a measurable stability or copy-number outcome to stand apart from the dense core art.
Fairly concentrated at the top: the five leading assignees hold 969 of the 2,238 records in scope, 43.3% of the field, and the top ten hold 1,245, or 55.6%. Beyond that point the ranking falls away quickly into a long tail of smaller filers. This pattern is typical of an industrial biotechnology niche built by a handful of enzyme and fermentation companies over a decade or more, rather than a fragmented emerging field.
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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.