Hexagonal Boron Nitride Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2021. The peak year was 2021 at 11 filings; by the 2022 midpoint volume had dropped to 4, and the trend has stayed flat-to-declining since.
- Japan outfiles the US and China combined. 73 Japanese receiving-office filings against 53 in the US and 35 in China put the deepest claim density in Japanese-origin portfolios.
- No single assignee is filing in the latest year. Every major historical assignee in the momentum data shows zero filings in the most recent year, consistent with a field that has moved from build-out to consolidation.
What the hexagonal boron nitride patent record shows
Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) sits at the intersection of ceramics chemistry and semiconductor process engineering: it is claimed both as a bulk refractory material and as a 2D dielectric layer grown or exfoliated for electronics. The 237 families in this dataset span from bulk synthesis and hard-boron-nitride process patents through to nanosheet exfoliation and thin-film deposition for substrates. The IPC spread — concentrated in C01B (non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds) and C23C (coating and surface deposition), with a smaller but active C30B crystal-growth cluster — tracks that split between commodity-material claims and electronics-grade film claims.
Filing activity is not accelerating. Volume rose from single digits in 2017 to a peak of 11 families in 2021, then fell back toward the 2022 midpoint of 4 and has stayed subdued since. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the final one or two years in any trend understate true activity, but the shape of the decline from 2021 predates that lag window and looks like a genuine slowdown in new filing rather than a reporting artefact.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 237-family dataset: filings by year, and where those filings sit across the IPC subclasses that define bulk material, coating, semiconductor and nanotechnology claims.
Filings by year, 2017-2026
Filings climbed from 8 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2021, then declined toward 4 at the 2022 midpoint and have not recovered; 2026 is a partial year.
IPC subclass composition
C01B (193 records) and C23C (115) dominate, confirming that most claims are anchored in inorganic-compound chemistry and coating/deposition process rather than device-level integration; H01L (56) and B82Y (25) mark the smaller semiconductor and nanotech-specific slice.
Shares are the percentage of the 237 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hexagonal Boron Nitride Technology Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hexagonal boron nitride technology landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this corpus
Method for preparing multi-layer hexagonal boron nitride film
The disclosure covers preparing a multi-layer hexagonal boron nitride film by placing a boron-containing solid catalyst on a substrate, annealing it to a melt, then feeding nitrogen-containing and protecting gases so the nitrogen reacts with the melted catalyst to form the h-BN film directly on the substrate surface.Filed by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, published 2021-11-25 as US20210363010A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6958175B2 | Film forming method and film forming device | 243 |
| 2 | US5316804A | Process for the synthesis of hard boron nitride | 97 |
| 3 | US20110045223A1 | Method for Exfoliation of Hexagonal Boron Nitride | 72 |
| 4 | WO2014169382A1 | Boron nitride nanotubes and process for production thereof | 39 |
| 5 | US6194067B1 | Carbonaceous particles and carbonaceous fibers both coated with boron nitride, and lithium secondary cells pr… | 39 |
| 6 | US20020000556A1 | Hexagonal boron nitride film with low dielectric constant, layer dielectric film and method of production the… | 29 |
| 7 | US20190276310A1 | Method for preparing hexagonal boron nitride by templating | 28 |
| 8 | CN103232027A | 一种三维氮化硼泡沫及其制备方法 | 27 |
| 9 | US6383465B1 | Cubic boron nitride and its gas phase synthesis method | 27 |
| 10 | JP2008266101A | Boron nitride nanotube and method for manufacturing the same | 26 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations — read this as a map of influential prior art, not of current commercial importance.
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 signals stand out once the raw counts are put next to each other: where claim density sits, where offices concentrate activity, and how recent momentum has shifted away from the historical leaders.
Bulk-chemistry claims dominate the corpus
Non-metallic-element and inorganic-compound claims (C01B) appear in the large majority of records, with C23C coating claims a close second at 115. A new filing that only restates bulk synthesis or generic coating steps is filing into the densest part of the map.
Japan carries the deepest portfolio depth
Japan's 73 receiving-office filings outweigh the US (53) and China (35) individually, suggesting the most mature prosecution history — and the most crowded prior art — sits in Japanese-origin filings rather than in the US or Chinese corpora.
The historical leaders have gone quiet
Every assignee tracked in the recent-momentum data — spanning Japanese, US and Canadian research and industrial filers — shows zero filings in the most recent year. That does not mean the field is dead; it means active filing has either shifted to newer entrants or is sitting in the 18-month publication lag.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hexagonal boron nitride technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the portfolios, and where the gate sits
The assignee ranking is dominated by a mix of Japanese industrial and materials-science filers alongside a scatter of universities and single-filing entrants — a pattern consistent with a technology that had a defined build-out phase rather than one still in active land-grab.
Co-assignee filing is a minority pattern
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across 237 families, and the strongest pairs are inventor-institution combinations rather than joint-venture structures — most of this corpus is filed by a single assignee of record.
One film-forming patent anchors the citation graph
US6958175B2, a film-forming method and device patent, is cited far more than any other record in the set (243 times), well ahead of the next-most-cited synthesis patent at 97. Anything claiming film-forming process steps should be checked against it first.
Filing is genuinely multi-jurisdictional
Beyond Japan, the US and China, meaningful volume also runs through the EPO (26), South Korea (17) and WIPO/PCT (13) routes, so a freedom-to-operate check confined to one or two offices will miss real prior art.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| North Carolina State University | 0 | — |
| National Research Council Canada | 0 | — |
| General Motors LLC | 0 | — |
| Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| SUGINO TAKASHI | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the question is freedom-to-operate, whitespace scouting, or monitoring a specific assignee's activity.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the citation anchors
Start with the highest-cited records, particularly the film-forming and hard-boron-nitride synthesis patents, before drafting new process claims.
Explore prior art in EurekaScope the under-claimed branches before filing
The gate chips above mark areas with thinner claim density than the bulk-chemistry cluster — worth a deeper novelty search before committing claim language.
Run a whitespace search in EurekaTrack assignees whose filing has gone quiet
Zero recent-year filings from the historical leaders could mean a pause, a shift to trade secret, or filings still in the publication pipeline — worth monitoring rather than assuming exit.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about hexagonal boron nitride patents
The assignee ranking for this 237-family dataset is led by a mix of Japanese industrial and materials-research organisations alongside university and government research institutes, with a long tail of single-filing entrants. No assignee in the recent-momentum data shows filings in the most recent year, so 'leading' here reflects historical portfolio depth rather than current filing pace. Anyone doing competitive tracking should pair the ranking with the filing-trend chart rather than reading portfolio size alone as a sign of present activity.
No — filings peaked at 11 in 2021 and fell back to 4 by the 2022 midpoint, with the trend staying flat to declining since. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be, but the decline from the 2021 peak predates that lag window. Treat the current numbers as a real slowdown in new filing rather than a data artefact.
C01B (non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds) covers the largest share of the corpus at 193 of 237 records, followed by C23C (coating and surface deposition) at 115. C04B (ceramics and refractories), H01L (semiconductor devices) and C30B (crystal growth) form a second tier, and B82Y (nanotechnology) and B01J (catalysis) mark smaller, more specialised slices. A claim search that only covers one of these classes will miss adjacent prior art in the others.
Japan leads with 73 receiving-office filings, ahead of the United States at 53 and China at 35, with the EPO, South Korea and WIPO/PCT routes each carrying meaningful additional volume. That spread means a jurisdiction-limited prior art search — for example, US-only — will systematically miss the deepest claim density, which sits in Japanese-origin filings. Any freedom-to-operate exercise should cover at least the top three or four offices.
US20210363010A1, filed by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, claims a specific route to multi-layer h-BN film: placing a boron-containing solid catalyst on a substrate, annealing it to a melt, then feeding nitrogen-containing and protecting gases so the film forms directly on the substrate surface. It sits alongside — but is distinct from — the far more heavily cited US6958175B2 film-forming patent, so any new process claim in this space should be checked against both. The catalyst-melt-and-anneal sequence is the specific mechanical detail to design around if pursuing a different film-forming route.
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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.