FDM Post-Processing Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filings already peaked. 2020 was the high-water mark at 6 filings; the trend has flattened or declined since, with the midpoint 2022 year at 4.
- One patent dominates citation weight. US5503785A on support removal carries 1,023 citations — roughly nine times the next most-cited record — anchoring how later filings are drafted around it.
- The dataset is small and concentrated. Only 40 published families sit across the whole search, with the United States receiving well over half of all filings.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 40 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent activity at the intersection of fused deposition modeling (FDM) — also filed as fused filament fabrication, or FFF — and the post-processing steps applied after a part comes off the printer: support removal, surface finishing, vapor smoothing, and thermal annealing. The search is scoped by IPC classes covering plastics shaping (B29C64/40, B29C71) and additive manufacturing generally (B33Y40), narrowed to records whose title or claims name one of these post-processing operations explicitly.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always understate real filing activity — treat the tail as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
Forty published families is a small corpus, which makes the shape of the trend and the classification spread more informative than any single count.
A short filing run that already crested
Activity starts at 1 filing in 2017, climbs to a peak of 6 in 2020, sits at 4 by the 2022 midpoint, and tapers toward the present. Read the final year or two as incomplete rather than as a real decline, but the shape before that is a genuine plateau, not a growth curve.
Concentrated in plastics shaping and 3D-printing classes
Every record in this set classifies under B29C (shaping of plastics), and 34 of 40 also carry a B33Y additive-manufacturing code — confirming the search is tightly on-topic. Smaller counts spill into B29K and C08L/C08K/C08F (materials and additive chemistry) and C09D and D01F (coatings and filament structure), marking where post-processing claims start to blend into materials science rather than process mechanics.
Shares are the percentage of the 40 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Fused Deposition Modeling Post-Processing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about fused deposition modeling post-processing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records that anchor this field
US20210339488A1 — Photonic annealing of electrically-conductive thermoplastics
Filed by the U.S. Army, this patent applies photonic annealing to electrically-conductive thermoplastic parts made by fused filament fabrication. The claimed process raises part conductivity from a baseline on the order of 10^3 S/m to 10^4–10^5 S/m or higher, in a fraction of the time required by conventional post-processing.Abstract text drawn directly from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5503785A | Process of support removal for fused deposition modeling | 1,023 |
| 2 | US6869559B2 | Material and method for three-dimensional modeling | 118 |
| 3 | US20040222561A1 | Material and method for three-dimensional modeling | 90 |
| 4 | CN106738874A | 一种快速去除3D打印支撑的方法 | 39 |
| 5 | WO2017108477A1 | Use of semi-crystalline polymer with low t g and post-crystallization for easy 3D printing and temperature st… | 27 |
| 6 | US20200276760A1 | PEKK extrusion additive manufacturing processes and products | 17 |
| 7 | US20200009786A1 | Core-shell filament for printing smooth FDM 3D items | 13 |
| 8 | US20180051113A1 | Melt-processable thermoset polymers, method of synthesis thereof and use in fused filament fabrication printi… | 12 |
| 9 | WO2017074387A1 | Building platform substrate for 3D printing | 9 |
| 10 | US20180370165A1 | Use of semi-crystalline polymer with low tg and post-crystallization for easy 3D printing and temperature sta… | 8 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a measure of influence on later drafting, not of present-day commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the counts are read against each other rather than in isolation.
Growth already flattened
The run from 2017 to the 2022 midpoint (4 filings) shows a technology that filled its main claim space early rather than one still accelerating. New entrants now file into a landscape shaped by a decade-old anchor patent rather than open ground.
One patent sets the reference point
US5503785A is cited roughly nine times more than the next-ranked record. Any freedom-to-operate review of support removal has to work around this filing first, since it is the shared prior art almost every later claim in the category was drafted against.
US-centric, with a thin international tail
China and India each account for 5 filings, Europe 4, PCT 3 and Canada 1. That leaves most non-US markets thinly covered, which matters for anyone assessing where an FDM post-processing claim would actually be enforceable outside the United States.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fused deposition modeling post-processing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims
The named assignees in this corpus include established 3D-printing OEMs, materials suppliers and research institutions, but recent-year filing activity across the tracked assignees has gone quiet.
No assignee is currently pushing new filings
Every organisation surfaced in the recent-momentum view — spanning lighting, printing, materials and university assignees — shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. That is consistent with the broader plateau in the filing trend rather than a sign that any one player has stopped innovating in post-processing specifically.
Co-filing is rare and shallow
The strongest co-assignee link in the dataset is a single pair sharing two filings. There is no dense collaboration network here — most records list a single assignee, which points to independent development rather than joint ventures or cross-licensing arrangements in this niche.
A long tail behind a handful of named organisations
Named assignees span additive-manufacturing OEMs, a materials supplier, a printing/imaging company and a university, but the corpus is too small to show sustained multi-year dominance by any one of them. Ownership here is dispersed rather than locked up.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Signify Holding B.V. | 0 | — |
| Xerox Corporation | 0 | — |
| Stratasys, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Solvay Specialty Polymers USA, L.L.C. | 0 | — |
| Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. | 0 | — |
| Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics | 0 | — |
| U S ARMY COMBAT CAPABILITIES DEV COMMAND ARMY RES LAB | 0 | — |
| THINKMETAL PTE LTD | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing trend and citation pattern here point to a mature, narrow niche rather than an open field — the next steps are about testing specific claim boundaries, not scanning for new entrants.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on support removal
With one patent carrying the overwhelming share of citation weight, any new support-removal process should be checked against its specific claim language before development proceeds.
Explore in EurekaMap the under-claimed branches to your roadmap
Vapor smoothing chemistry, in-line annealing control and conductive-material post-treatment show thinner coverage than core mechanical support removal — worth a deeper claim-by-claim look if these overlap your work.
Explore in EurekaTrack publication lag before concluding activity has stopped
Zero recent filings across every listed assignee is consistent with the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication as much as with an actual slowdown; a follow-up check closer to the next data refresh will clarify which it is.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions on FDM post-processing patents
The foundational patent in this space is US5503785A, 'Process of support removal for fused deposition modeling', which carries 1,023 citations in this corpus — far more than any other record. Later filings on support removal, including chemical dissolution methods such as CN106738874A, build on or work around the mechanical and process claims this patent established. Anyone developing a new support-removal method should review its claim scope directly rather than relying on general prior-art assumptions, since it is the shared reference point for nearly everything filed after it.
Based on this dataset, vapor smoothing appears as a named technique but with thin dedicated coverage compared to support removal and general surface finishing. That suggests specific formulations, application methods or equipment configurations for vapor smoothing remain relatively open, though any new filing would still need a clearance search against the broader surface-finishing and coatings classes (C09D) that overlap this area. The small size of the overall corpus (40 families) means white space here is plausible but not guaranteed — a targeted search is still required before filing.
The corpus includes established additive-manufacturing and materials organisations alongside a printing/imaging company and at least one university, but no single assignee shows sustained, high-volume filing in recent years — every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year. This is a fragmented ownership picture rather than one dominated by a clear leader, which is typical for a specialised process niche with only 40 total published families. Reviewing individual assignee portfolios directly is more useful here than assuming a market leader exists.
Filings in this dataset rose from 1 in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2020, then settled near 4 by 2022 before tapering toward the present. That pattern is consistent with a technology area where the core claim space — mechanical support removal, basic surface finishing, standard annealing — filled early, leaving later filers to work in narrower sub-branches. It does not necessarily mean interest in FDM post-processing has declined; publication lag means the last one to two years of any trend chart are always undercounted relative to actual filing activity.
US20210339488A1, held by the U.S. Army, claims a photonic annealing process that raises the conductivity of electrically-conductive thermoplastics used in fused filament fabrication from around 10^3 S/m to 10^4–10^5 S/m or higher. It does not block thermal or chemical annealing methods generally — its claims are specific to the photonic (light-based) mechanism and its effect on conductive thermoplastic parts. Anyone developing a competing conductivity-enhancement process should compare their specific energy source and material system against this claim language rather than avoiding annealing altogether.
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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.