Fluoroelastomer Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Top 5 assignees hold 49.4% of all 2,448 records, and the top 10 combined reach 61.7% — concentration sits hard at the top with a long tail below it.
- Filing has cooled since a 2019 peak of 89, falling toward single digits by 2026, with the most recent year always understated due to publication lag.
- Curing-agent chemistry from the 1980s and 1990s still anchors the field, with base resistance and phosphonium/sulfonium curing patents drawing the heaviest citation counts in the corpus.
What this dataset covers
This landscape covers 2,448 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that reference fluoroelastomer or perfluoroelastomer (FKM/FFKM) chemistry alongside specific performance claims — fluorine content, fuel resistance, low temperature flexibility, amine cure systems, steam resistance, plasma resistance or processability. The scope is narrow by design: it excludes general elastomer filings that do not tie back to one of these named technical properties.
Records here span polymer composition claims, additive and curing-agent chemistry, processing methods, and downstream layered products and coatings that use fluoroelastomer as a functional layer. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the technology composition below is read against the full record count, not as a partition.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,448-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked at 89 in 2019 and have declined since, reaching 4 by 2026 (a partial year). The 2022 midpoint of 42 sits roughly half the peak, consistent with a field past its filing high rather than one still accelerating. Recent years understate true activity because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
IPC subclass distribution
Polymer composition claims (C08L, 53.5% of records) and additive claims (C08K, 44.1%) dominate, followed by base polymer chemistry (C08F, 26.9%). Layered products (B32B), coatings (C09D) and electrography applications (G03G) each sit in single-digit-to-low-teens shares, marking narrower but still active application branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,448 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fluoroelastomers (FKM and FFKM) with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about fluoroelastomers (fkm and ffkm) and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaFoundational and most-cited records
CA1072239A — Addition of silicone gum rubber to phosphonitrilic fluoroelastomers
A phosphonitrilic fluoroelastomer composition with enhanced processability, low temperature flexibility and slightly increased volume swell in petroleum-based hydraulic fluids, made from a fluoroelastomer with alternating phosphorus and nitrogen atoms bearing fluoroalkoxy substituents, blended with 1 to 20 parts silicone gum rubber per 100 parts fluoroelastomer.Filed by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company; granted 1980-02-19.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4694045A | Base resistant fluoroelastomers | 584 |
| 2 | US4912171A | Fluoroelastomer curing process with phosphonium compound | 385 |
| 3 | US4233421A | Fluoroelastomer composition containing sulfonium curing agents | 319 |
| 4 | US5262490A | Fluoroelastomer composition with organo-onium compounds | 272 |
| 5 | US5356552A | Chlorine-free lubricating oils having modified high molecular weight succinimides | 257 |
| 6 | US5086123A | Fluoroelastomer compositions containing fluoroaliphatic sulfonamides as curing agents | 238 |
| 7 | US4882390A | Fluoroelastomer composition with organo-onium compounds | 219 |
| 8 | US5166031A | Material package for fabrication of fusing components | 200 |
| 9 | US4394489A | Fluoroelastomer curatives | 186 |
| 10 | US6310141B1 | Fluoropolymer-containing compositions | 165 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later claim drafting, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
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 say about the field
Read together, the trend and the class distribution point to a mature composition space with narrower activity at the application edges.
Ownership sits at the top
Just five assignees account for roughly half of all records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 61.7%. That leaves a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants competing for the remaining claim space around the core chemistry.
Filing has cooled since 2019
Volume has declined steadily from the 2019 peak, with the 2022 midpoint at 42 — roughly half the peak level. This pattern is consistent with a composition space that has already been substantially claimed rather than one still opening up.
Composition claims dominate
Polymer composition (C08L) and additive use (C08K) are the two densest classes, together touching most records. Application-layer classes like layered products, coatings and electrography sit well below 15% each, marking where claim density thins out.
Curing chemistry anchors the citation graph
The heaviest-cited records concern base resistance and onium-compound curing systems, several from the 1980s and 1990s. New filings in curing chemistry are effectively building on top of a small set of foundational patents.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fluoroelastomers (fkm and ffkm), with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
The ranked leaders — 100 companies as returned by the data endpoint, not a curated top-50 or top-100 — show concentration among specialty fluoropolymer producers, with momentum slowing across the board in the most recent year.
A specialty-fluoropolymer producer leads by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee holds 307 records, well ahead of fifth place at 159 and tenth place at 48 — a steep drop-off that marks where the field moves from a handful of dominant filers to a long tail.
Even the leader is slowing down
The top-ranked assignee filed only 4 records in the latest year, down 33% year over year, while several other major assignees show zero filings in the latest year. This matches the overall trend decline rather than a leader pulling ahead.
Collaboration is limited and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, with the strongest pairing linked by 11 shared records. Most assignees file independently rather than jointly, consistent with proprietary composition and curing chemistry rather than shared platform development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Daikin Industries, Ltd. | 4 | -33% |
| 3M Innovative Properties Co. | 0 | — |
| Solvay Specialty Polymers Italy S.p.A. | 0 | -100% |
| E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. | 0 | — |
| Xerox Corp. | 0 | — |
| DuPont Dow Elastomers LLC | 0 | — |
| DYNEON LLC | 0 | — |
| 3M Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a composition space that is densely claimed at the core and thinner at the application edges.
Check freedom-to-operate before drafting curing-chemistry claims
With citation counts concentrated on a small set of foundational onium-compound and base-resistance patents, new curing-agent claims should be checked against this cluster first.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Look at application-layer branches for open claim space
Layered products, coatings and electrography classes show materially lower record shares than the core composition classes, suggesting less-crowded ground for new filings.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Common questions about fluoroelastomer patents
Filing is concentrated among a small group of specialty fluoropolymer producers. The top five assignees together hold 49.4% of the 2,448 records in scope, and the top ten reach 61.7%. Beyond that, a long tail of companies each hold only a handful of records, so due diligence should focus first on the leading names before scanning the tail for niche claims.
No. Filing peaked at 89 records in 2019 and has declined since, dropping to 4 by 2026 (a partial year, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months). The 2022 midpoint of 42 records is roughly half the peak, indicating the field has passed its most active filing period rather than one still building momentum.
This dataset does not separate FKM from FFKM in its class breakdown, but the overall corpus is dominated by polymer composition (C08L, 53.5% of records) and additive-use claims (C08K, 44.1%), with base polymer chemistry (C08F) close behind. Application-specific classes such as coatings, layered products and electrography sit well below these, indicating that most patent activity centers on the base chemistry rather than end-use formats.
The application-layer IPC classes show noticeably lower record shares than the core composition classes — layered products, coatings, and electrography-specific formulations each sit under 15% of records. Sub-areas tied to plasma resistance, steam resistance and low-temperature flexibility additive systems also show comparatively thinner claim density relative to the dominant composition and curing-agent clusters, making them worth checking first for open claim space.
CA1072239A, assigned to Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and granted in 1980, claims a phosphonitrilic fluoroelastomer composition blended with silicone gum rubber to improve processability, low-temperature flexibility and volume swell resistance in petroleum-based hydraulic fluids. It predates most of the corpus and represents an early processing-additive approach rather than the onium-compound curing chemistry that dominates the most-cited records today. Its practical relevance now depends on whether a new formulation overlaps with its specific silicone-gum-blend approach, which a freedom-to-operate search would need to confirm directly against the granted claims.
Research Fluoroelastomers (FKM and FFKM) in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole fluoroelastomers (fkm and ffkm) 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.