Hair Conditioning Agents Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
Hair Conditioning Agents Patents: Mapping Filing Concentration and Open Claim Space
70.0% concentration. The top five assignees account for 4,830 of 6,898 records in scope, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below tenth place. Filings ran at 307 in 2017, the peak year on record, and the documented three-year change from 2021 (179) to 2024 (64) is a -64% move. 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as the current run rate.
- 1PROCTER & GAMBLE CO3,905
- 2UNILEVER NV304
- 3UNILEVER PLC301
- 4COLGATE PALMOLIVE CO201
- 5UNILEVER GLOBAL IP LTD119
See the full hair conditioning agents 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 hair conditioning agent patents
Who holds the most patents on hair conditioning agents?
One assignee leads the ranking with 3,905 of the 6,898 records in scope, far ahead of the fifth-place holder at 119 and tenth place at 92. The top five assignees combined account for 70.0% of all records, and the top ten reach 77.7%. This means most of the documented claim space in cationic-polymer and surfactant-based conditioning formulations sits with a small group of large consumer-products companies, with a long tail of smaller filers below them.
Is patent filing activity in hair conditioning agents growing or shrinking?
Filing peaked in 2017 at 307 records and has trended down since. The clearest documented change is a -64% shift from 179 filings in 2021 to 64 in 2024, which is the most recent year with a reasonably complete count. Years closer to the 2026-07-31 cut-off are understated because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the apparent drop in 2025-2026 should not yet be read as the current filing rate.
What patent classes cover hair conditioning agent technology?
The bulk of records fall under three IPC subclasses: A61K (medicinal preparations, 59.9% of the 6,898 records), A61Q (cosmetics use, 50.6%), and C11D (detergents and cleaning compositions, 43.7%). Smaller but active classes include D06M (textile chemical treatment), C08L, C08F and C08G (polymer compositions), and D01F (fibre features), each under 10% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages add to more than 100%.
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 Hair Conditioning Agents 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.