Hair Styling Appliances Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. the leading assignee holds 267 records, yet the ranked leaders' top 5 combined account for only 21.5% of all 3,002 records in scope.
- Filing peaked in 2018 at 199 and has settled since, with the 2021-to-2024 complete-year window down 11% (130 to 116).
- Claim density sits outside the obvious class. A45D covers 47.3% of records, but meaningful volume also sits in A61K, A61Q and H05B, spreading exposure across cosmetics, heating circuits and motor design.
Filing growth compares 2021 (130 records) with 2024 (116) — 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 3,002 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
This landscape draws on 3,002 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, indexed against a search built around hair styling appliances — dryers, straighteners and related devices — crossed with functional claim language covering airflow design, brushless motors, heat damage mitigation, ionic treatment, noise level and temperature control. The scope is intentionally functional rather than purely device-based, which is why classes outside hairdressing equipment, such as medicinal preparations and electric motors, show up with real volume rather than as noise.
Records are drawn from six receiving offices, led by the United States (825) and the EPO (495), with the WIPO/PCT route, the United Kingdom, Japan and China each contributing meaningful volume. That spread indicates the appliance category is filed multi-jurisdictionally rather than concentrated in a single home market.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,002-record dataset: filing activity over time, and the IPC subclasses that carry the claim volume.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 97 in 2017 to a peak of 199 in 2018, then eased. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a decline in current activity. The most recent complete-year comparison, 2021 to 2024, shows a modest 11% pullback, 130 down to 116 — a plateau rather than a collapse.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
A45D (hairdressing and toilet equipment) anchors the field at 47.3% of the 3,002 records in scope. Below that, A61K (medicinal preparations, 9.3%) and A61Q (cosmetics use, 6.8%) reflect the ionic- and treatment-oriented claim language in the search, while H05B (electric heating circuits, 5.5%) and H02K (electric motors, 3.6%) cover the hardware side — heating elements and brushless-motor drivetrains. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total; they are not mutually exclusive buckets.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,002 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hair Styling Appliances with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hair styling appliances and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative recent filing
EP4082383B1 — Hair styling composition (JEMELLA LIMITED)
Filed under the German-language title "HAARSTYLINGZUSAMMENSETZUNG," this JEMELLA LIMITED family granted in late 2025 and sits inside the A45D/A61Q overlap that this dataset shows carrying meaningful claim volume alongside the appliance-hardware classes.Grant date and assignee are rendered from the underlying record; the abstract summary above reflects the filing's subject matter as indexed.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110251807A1 | Automatic detection of appliances | 547 |
| 2 | US5125238A | Patient warming or cooling blanket | 274 |
| 3 | US9152737B1 | Providing notifications to a user | 265 |
| 4 | US20070027411A1 | System and method for face and body treatment | 255 |
| 5 | US5875562A | Hand-held hair dryer with vibration and noise control | 244 |
| 6 | US5804203A | Topical product formulations containing strontium for reducing skin irritation | 231 |
| 7 | US20040260210A1 | System and method for face and body treatment | 226 |
| 8 | US20190372345A1 | Methods and systems for an automated utility marketplace platform | 225 |
| 9 | US20190090056A1 | Power operation of intelligent devices | 211 |
| 10 | US20030040683A1 | Site selection for determining analyte concentration in living tissue | 207 |
Citation counts favour older, more-searched records and should be read as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the trend, class and concentration data above.
The top is thin relative to the field
With the leader at 267 records and fifth place at 76, the gap between first and fifth is steep, but the top 5 combined still account for only 21.5% of all records in scope. Extending to the top 10 (924 records, 30.8%) confirms a long tail: most of the field's claim volume sits with entities outside the ranked leaders.
Activity peaked in 2018, not now
Filings climbed from 97 in 2017 to 199 in 2018 and have since settled to a lower, steadier level. The last complete-year comparison, 2021 to 2024, shows an 11% pullback (130 to 116) — consistent with a maturing filing pattern rather than a technology in decline.
Hardware and formulation claims overlap
Nearly half of records sit in hairdressing equipment (A45D), but meaningful shares also fall in medicinal preparations (9.3%), cosmetics use (6.8%) and electric heating circuits (5.5%). A device claim drafted without checking the formulation and circuit classes risks missing adjacent prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hair styling appliances, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| University of Utah Research Foundation | BioFar Diagnostics LLC | 8 |
| L'Oréal SA | ZHOU XIANZHI | 8 |
| L'Oréal SA | SINGER JIM MITCHELL | 8 |
| L'Oréal SA | SHAW CHARLES MICHAEL SANFORD | 8 |
| L'Oréal SA | GOGINENI ADITI | 8 |
| L'Oréal SA | TAN SILIU | 6 |
| L'Oréal SA | ELSEN WAHRER ANDREA MICHELLE | 6 |
| L'Oréal SA | VAN NGUYEN NGHI | 5 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, with the strongest pairs tied to academic-industry and formulation-brand collaborations — co-filing is the exception here, not the norm.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The assignee ranking spans 100 companies counted in records — not a top-100 or top-50 cut, but the full set the data endpoint returns. Momentum in the most recent year is mixed: most leading assignees show flat or declining year-over-year filing, which is consistent with the plateau seen in the aggregate trend.
One filer well ahead, then a steep drop
The leading assignee's 267 records sit well above fifth place at 76 and tenth place at 37, indicating a genuine leader rather than a tie at the top. That gap narrows the field to watch for licensing or freedom-to-operate purposes.
Recent-year activity has cooled for established filers
Several assignees that filed steadily in prior years show zero filings in the latest year, a pattern that likely reflects publication lag as much as any real pullback. One assignee shows +100% YoY growth off a small base, a reminder that percentage swings on low volumes need context.
Filing is multi-jurisdictional
The United States leads receiving offices, followed by the EPO, WIPO/PCT, the United Kingdom, Japan and China. A freedom-to-operate review confined to one jurisdiction will miss a meaningful share of the family activity in this space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Jiemeilai Co., Ltd. | 3 | -79% |
| Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Sweden) | 2 | +100% |
| Dyson Technology Limited | 0 | -100% |
| Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| University of Utah Research Foundation | 0 | -100% |
| L'Oréal SA | 0 | -100% |
| Kohler Co. | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
Using this landscape for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
The dataset points to where claim space is dense and where it is thinner — the next step is checking a specific claim against both.
Check freedom to operate against the leader's portfolio
With 267 records concentrated in one assignee, any hardware claim close to airflow design or brushless-motor control should be checked against that filer's family first, before the broader ranked leaders.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTest a claim against the under-claimed branches
The gate chips above point to sub-areas with lower filing density inside a dense field — acoustic damping, closed-loop ionic control and adaptive heat-damage sensing among them. A narrow, technically specific claim there faces less prior art than a broad device claim.
Draft and search a claim in EurekaCommon questions about hair styling appliance patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 267 records, well ahead of fifth place at 76 and tenth place at 37. However, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 21.5% of the 3,002 records in scope, and the top 10 for 30.8%, so the field is led by one clear filer but not dominated by a small group. The remaining 100 ranked assignees and the unranked long tail hold the majority of filing volume, which matters for anyone assuming a single company controls the category.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 199 records and has since settled to a lower, steadier level. The most recent complete-year comparison, 2021 to 2024, shows an 11% decrease (130 to 116 records), which reads as a plateau rather than a sharp decline. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those years should not be used to call a trend either way.
Nearly half of records, 47.3% of the 3,002 in scope, sit in IPC class A45D, covering hairdressing and toilet equipment generally. Beyond that, meaningful volume sits in A61K (medicinal preparations, 9.3%), A61Q (cosmetics use, 6.8%), H05B (electric heating circuits, 5.5%) and H02K (electric motors, 3.6%), showing the field spans formulation, heating hardware and motor design rather than being purely mechanical. Since a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%.
Based on the IPC composition, lower-density sub-areas sit at the intersection of the hardware classes (H05B, H02K) and the control/regulation class G05B, which covers only 3.4% of records — areas like brushless-motor acoustic damping, closed-loop ionic treatment control and adaptive heat-damage sensing. These are technically specific niches inside a dense field rather than entirely unclaimed territory, so a workable strategy is a narrow claim tied to a specific control mechanism rather than a broad device claim in A45D.
The United States receives the most filings in this dataset at 825 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 495 and the WIPO/PCT route at 317. The United Kingdom (219), Japan (204) and China (164) each carry meaningful volume as well. This spread across six receiving offices indicates that appliance makers file multi-jurisdictionally, so a freedom-to-operate review limited to one country is likely to miss relevant family members.
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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.