Glass Coating & Low-E Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 24 families and has fallen since, with the 2022 midpoint at just 4 — a mature claim space rather than a growing one.
- Citation weight sits almost entirely on pre-2015 solar-control coated glass patents, led by a filing cited 325 times, so influence in this corpus is historical, not current.
- Co-assignee activity clusters around one filer pair five times over, pointing to a small number of durable R&D partnerships rather than a broad competitive field.
What this landscape covers
This review covers patent families addressing low-emissivity glass, glass coating processes and solar control glass, filtered to filings that specify silver layer stacks, magnetron sputtering, coating durability, thermal insulation performance or colour neutrality. The core classification runs through C03C17 (glass and enamel compositions), with supporting claims in C23C14 (coating deposition) and E06B3 (windows and doors). The dataset spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, covering 105 published families.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will always understate real filing activity — treat the tail of the curve as provisional, not as a genuine drop-off.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 105-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A filing peak already behind us
Filings rose to a peak of 24 in 2018, then declined toward a 2022 midpoint of just 4 families. That shape is consistent with a technology area where the core silver-stack architecture was claimed early and later filings are incremental refinements rather than new approaches.
Claim density concentrated in glass composition, not deposition equipment
C03C (glass and enamel compositions) covers 100 of the 105 families, with B32B (layered products) and G02B (optical elements) as the next-heaviest subclasses. C23C (coating and surface deposition) and E06B (windows and shutters) are comparatively thin — 12 and 2 records respectively — which is notable given how central sputtering process claims are to the underlying abstracts.
Shares are the percentage of the 105 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 filings anchoring this landscape
Solar control glass and method for producing same
The filing describes a multi-layer stack on a glass substrate built around two silver layers separated by dielectric and absorber layers, including an aluminium oxynitride layer and a spatially varying absorber composition. The structure is built to hold solar control performance while managing colour neutrality and coating durability across the stack.Abstract condensed from the published filing; see the full record for complete claim language.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6596398B1 | Solar control coated glass | 325 |
| 2 | US6218018B1 | Solar control coated glass | 170 |
| 3 | US6048621A | Coated glass | 99 |
| 4 | EP0983972A2 | Solar control coated glass | 47 |
| 5 | EP1201616A2 | Solar control coated glass | 38 |
| 6 | GB2324098A | Solar control coated glass | 35 |
| 7 | WO1998011031A1 | Coated glass | 29 |
| 8 | US4816054A | Process for the manufacture of a toughened and/or bent sheet of glass, in particular solar control glass sheet | 27 |
| 9 | JP1989005930A | Solar control glass having high transmissivity | 23 |
| 10 | US6656523B2 | Solar control coated glass | 19 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate references within a searched corpus — read them as a signal of historical influence on the field, not of which claims matter most today.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three figures worth sitting with before deciding where to file next.
A technology past its filing peak
Filing volume has declined from its 2018 peak rather than climbed toward it. Combined with heavy IPC concentration in C03C glass composition claims, this points to an area where the dominant architectures are already staked out and remaining filings are refinements at the margins.
Influence sits with pre-2015 solar control patents
The most-cited records in this corpus predate the 2015 filing window and describe solar control coated glass generally, not the more specific silver-stack durability claims that dominate recent filings. New entrants are building on foundations set outside the years this dataset tracks in depth.
Europe leads filing venue, followed by the US and PCT route
Europe (EPO) accounts for the largest share of receiving-office filings at 18, ahead of the United States at 14 and WIPO/PCT filings at 11. Malaysia, India and China each register single-digit-to-low-double-digit counts, suggesting Europe and the US remain the primary contest zones for coating claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to glass coating and low-e technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field has gone quiet
Recent-year momentum across the leading assignees is uniformly flat — a signal that this technology's active filers have largely paused, at least in what has published so far.
The top filer shows zero activity in the most recent tracked year
The assignee with the strongest historical filing presence in this corpus recorded zero families in the latest year, a full reversal from prior activity. Several other named assignees show the same flat pattern, though the 18-month publication lag means some of this may still surface.
Filing partnerships are narrow but durable
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest pair shares five filings together. That is a small, concentrated set of working relationships rather than a broad web of joint development — consistent with a field where core IP is closely held.
A geographically concentrated but multi-jurisdiction field
Filings cluster in Europe, the United States, the PCT route, Malaysia, India and China. That spread suggests assignees are pursuing protection across major glass-manufacturing and construction markets rather than defending a single home jurisdiction.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Saint-Gobain Glass France | 0 | -100% |
| Arkema | 0 | — |
| Pilkington plc | 0 | — |
| LG Hausys | 0 | — |
| Flat Glass Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| MISRA SOUMYADEEP | 0 | — |
| JUN YOUN KI | 0 | — |
| BAE IL JOON | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The landscape above establishes where claim density sits and who holds it. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going deeper on the specific claims that matter to your product.
Map your own stack against the cited claims
Run your specific layer architecture — silver count, absorber composition, dielectric sequencing — against the most-cited records to see where overlap actually exists.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the assignees showing renewed activity
Momentum has gone flat across the named leaders in the latest tracked year; watch for the first filer to resume, since that signals where competitive pressure will return first.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions about glass coating and Low-E patents
Filing volume in this dataset peaked at 24 families in 2018 and dropped to a midpoint of 4 by 2022. This pattern usually means the core architecture — in this case, multi-silver-layer stacks with dielectric and absorber layers — was claimed early by a small number of filers, leaving later entrants to file narrower refinements rather than foundational architecture claims. It does not mean interest in the technology itself has declined; commercial low-E glass demand has continued to grow even as patent filing has flattened.
The most-cited records in this corpus, including one cited 325 times, predate the 2015–2026 filing window this landscape tracks and describe general solar control coated glass architectures. That citation weight reflects historical influence within the searched corpus rather than current filing activity, since citation counts naturally favour older documents that have had more time to accumulate references. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should check these foundational filings even though they sit outside the recent filing trend.
AU2019210967A1, assigned to Arcon Flachglas-Veredlung, describes a solar control glass layer system built on a glass substrate with a base dielectric layer, a first silver layer, an absorber layer, an aluminium oxynitride layer, an intermediate dielectric layer, a second silver layer and a covering dielectric layer. The absorber layer's composition varies spatially in at least one direction, which is the specific technical detail that distinguishes it from more generic dual-silver stack designs. Anyone designing a similar dual-silver architecture with a graded absorber layer should review this filing's full claim set closely.
Based on IPC composition, claim density concentrates heavily in C03C (glass and enamel compositions, 100 of 105 records) while adjacent areas like C23C (coating deposition, 12 records) and E06B (window and shutter integration, 2 records) are comparatively thin. That gap suggests process-level sputtering parameter claims and full window-system integration claims are less defended than the underlying glass composition itself. OLED-integrated glazing under H10K also appears in only 3 records, making it another area with room to file distinct claims.
The dataset shows a concentrated set of assignees with the strongest filer showing a full year-over-year reversal to zero filings in the most recent tracked year, alongside several other named assignees showing the same flat pattern. Co-assignee analysis identifies only 10 filing pairs total, with the strongest pair sharing five filings, pointing to a small number of durable filing partnerships rather than a broad competitive field. Given the 18-month publication lag, some of this apparent slowdown may reverse as more recent filings publish.
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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.