Ground De-Icing Fluid Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
Ground de-icing fluid patents: who holds the freezing-point-depressant claim space
23.6% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 983 of the 4,165 records in scope, but the remaining ranked leaders still cover a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Filings rose from 125 in 2017 to a peak of 147 in 2020, then eased to 141 in 2021 and 94 in 2024 — a 33% decline across that three-year window. The 2025-2026 counts are partial by construction and should not be read alongside the complete years.
- 1FIRMENICH INC7.0%
- 2PRESTONE PROD CORP6.7%
- 3TEXACO DEV CORP4.0%
- 4FIRMENICH SA3.4%
- 5SENOMYX INC2.6%
See the full ground de icing fluids and operations analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about ground de-icing fluid patents
Who holds the most patents on aircraft de-icing and anti-icing fluids?
Within this dataset of 4,165 records, filing is moderately concentrated: the leading assignee holds 291 records, and the top five combined account for 983 records, or 23.6% of all records in scope. That leaves more than three-quarters of the field spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so no single company controls the space outright. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate should still check the leader’s core claims first, since its portfolio is more than double the size of the fifth-ranked filer’s.
Is patent filing for de-icing fluids growing or slowing down?
Filings peaked at 147 in 2020, then declined from 141 in 2021 to 94 in 2024, a 33% drop over that three-year span. That is a genuine slowdown based on complete-year data, not an artefact of reporting delay. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still partial because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so they should not be read as evidence of a further decline.
What patent classes cover ground de-icing fluid chemistry?
The dominant class is C09K, materials for miscellaneous applications, appearing in 38.7% of the 4,165 records in scope. Corrosion and metal removal chemistry (C23F) follows at 14.6%, with food chemistry (A23L, 13.7%) and medicinal preparations (A61K, 11.7%) also present at meaningful levels. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages sum to more than 100% of the record total and should be read individually, not added together.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Ground De Icing Fluids and Operations covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.