High-Barrier Film Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2019 and has not returned to that level, with the 2022 midpoint showing no filings — a flat-to-declining trend rather than a growing one.
- B32B layered-product claims dominate the corpus at 46 of 49 records, meaning almost every filer is claiming through lamination structure rather than coating chemistry alone.
- The most-cited prior art in this set dates to 1996 and 2004, so influence in this field is still anchored to two decades-old barrier-coating and laminate patents.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks patents and applications claiming barrier retention, flex-crack resistance, delamination resistance or shelf-life durability in high-barrier films, restricted to filings classified under B32B27 (layered products), C08J7 (polymer surface treatment) or B32B7 (laminate bonding). The corpus totals 49 published records across 49 families, filed between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend line will read lower than the true filing volume once those applications publish. That lag matters more here than in a fast-growing field, because the visible trend is already flat — the true picture for 2024 onward is simply not observable yet.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The year-by-year count and the IPC breakdown together show where claim density has built up and where it has not.
A peak in 2019, no rebound since
Filings rose to 5 in 2019, the high point of the series, then fell back. The 2022 midpoint recorded zero filings, and the series closes at zero in the most recent year — read that final point as understated given publication lag, not as confirmation the field has stopped.
Layered products carry almost the whole corpus
B32B (layered products & laminates) appears in 46 of 49 records, far ahead of C08J polymer processing (25) and B65D containers (19). C08L polymer compositions (18), B29C shaping (13) and C09D coatings (13) form a secondary tier, with B29K and B29L moulding-material indices trailing at 9 each — a sign that most applicants are claiming the laminate architecture itself rather than the coating or resin chemistry in isolation.
Shares are the percentage of the 49 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on High-Barrier Film Reliability and Durability with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about high-barrier film reliability and durability and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe patents other filings cite most
Gas barrier film
A transparent gas barrier film built from a base film with an inorganic compound layer, topped with a (meth)acrylic silane coupling agent layer and a further layer combining a polyvalent-metal salt of an unsaturated carboxylic acid with a vinyl alcohol polymer. The stated aim is oxygen and water-vapor barrier performance that holds up under high humidity, plus delamination resistance after hydrothermal treatment.Filed by Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello, 2014-08-14 — one of the few records in this set to claim delamination resistance explicitly under thermal-humidity stress rather than at ambient conditions.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20040033379A1 | Low permeability materials and coatings | 70 |
| 2 | US5595623A | Method for making a barrier film with improved extensibility for cheese packaging | 34 |
| 3 | WO2014025348A1 | Coatings for barrier films and methods of making and using the same | 19 |
| 4 | US20110076506A1 | Laminate structures | 19 |
| 5 | JP1983102762A | Low-temperature heat-shrinkable multilayer barrier film and its manufacture | 19 |
| 6 | US20150221886A1 | Coatings for barrier films and methods of making and using the same | 15 |
| 7 | JP1982125045A | Shrinkable multilayer barrier film and its manufacture | 12 |
| 8 | JP2021107472A | Gas barrier film and gas barrier laminate | 10 |
| 9 | US20180138433A1 | Coatings for barrier films and methods of making and using the same | 10 |
| 10 | EP0487268A1 | Barrier film with improved extensibility for cheese packaging | 9 |
Citation counts inside a bounded search corpus favour older filings that later applicants had time to cite — treat this as a map of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
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Three patterns stand out once the trend line, the IPC spread and the citation table are read together.
Activity has cooled since 2019
The series climbs to 5 filings in 2019 and then falls away, with zero recorded at the 2022 midpoint and zero in the latest year. Publication lag means the last one to two years understate true activity, but the multi-year decline before that lag window is real.
Lamination structure is the dominant claim type
Almost every record in this set touches B32B layered-product classification, well ahead of polymer processing (C08J, 25) or coatings (C09D, 13). Applicants are protecting how layers are stacked and bonded more often than the specific polymer or coating chemistry used within them.
Influence sits with older, broad barrier-coating claims
The most-cited record in the set is a low-permeability materials and coatings filing, followed by a 1996 barrier-film patent for cheese packaging cited 34 times. New filings in this space are still being read against, and likely designed around, these older broad claims.
Filing is concentrated across three offices
The United States, European Patent Office and Japan account for the bulk of receiving-office activity, with PCT, Canada and Singapore trailing well behind. A freedom-to-operate check that skips any one of the top three offices is checking an incomplete picture.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to high-barrier film reliability and durability, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| ASAHI DOW LTD | Asahi Kasei Corporation | 2 |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials LLC | 2 |
| TAKANO MASAKO | SHINDO KIYOTAKA | 2 |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | SPAGNOLA JOSEPH C | 1 |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | ROEHRIG MARK A | 1 |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | NACHTIGAL ALAN K | 1 |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | KLUN THOMAS P | 1 |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | IYER SURESH | 1 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest pairs recur just twice each — this is a field of largely independent filers rather than joint-development consortia.
Who holds the claims — and where none of them are moving
Recent-year momentum across the named assignees is uniformly flat: every tracked entity, from established materials companies to individual Japanese inventors, shows zero filings in the latest year. That is consistent with the overall 2022-onward decline and should be read with the same publication-lag caveat, not as evidence any of these players has exited the space.
3M Innovative Properties Company (USA)
Named among the tracked assignees with historical filings in barrier-film laminate structures; no new filings register in the most recent year, though the lag window makes that inconclusive on its own.
Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello, Inc. (Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello)
Holder of the representative gas-barrier-film filing in this set, with claims specifically addressing delamination resistance under hydrothermal stress — a narrower technical target than most competing filings.
Dow Global Technologies LLC (Dow Global Technologies)
Appears alongside an affiliated Rohm and Haas electronic-materials entity in one of the corpus's strongest co-assignee pairs, pointing to internal cross-filing between related Dow entities on barrier-coating chemistry.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello, Inc. | 0 | — |
| W.R. Grace & Co. | 0 | — |
| ASAHI DOW LTD | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials LLC | 0 | — |
| Elopak Systems AG | 0 | — |
| Asahi Kasei Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up work depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or new filing strategy.
Run a claim-level FTO check against the top-cited patents
The two most-cited records in this corpus, one from 2004 and one from 1996, still anchor much of the field's prior art. Any new filing on barrier coatings or laminate extensibility should be checked against both before drafting claims.
Explore prior art in EurekaMap the under-claimed sub-areas against your own chemistry
Hydrothermal delamination testing and cold-chain flex-crack resistance show comparatively thin direct claim coverage in this set. That is a starting point for a novelty search, not a guarantee of open space.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about high-barrier film patents
Within this dataset, filings are spread across a small set of materials and packaging companies rather than concentrated in one dominant holder. Assignees such as 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA), Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello, Inc. and Dow Global Technologies LLC all appear with historical filings, but none shows new activity in the most recent tracked year. A practitioner should treat the ranking table on this page, rather than any single name, as the authoritative view since it reflects the full 49-family corpus.
The trend data shows a peak of 5 filings in 2019 followed by a drop to zero at the 2022 midpoint and zero in the latest tracked year. Part of that apparent decline is a publication-lag artefact — filings from the last 18 months typically have not published yet — but the multi-year decline predating that lag window appears genuine. It suggests the field may have reached a plateau in claimable novelty around laminate-structure barrier films specifically, without ruling out renewed activity once lagged data publishes.
US20140227515A1, filed by Mitsui Chemicals Tohcello, claims a transparent gas barrier film built from a base film with an inorganic compound layer, a (meth)acrylic silane coupling agent layer, and a further layer combining a polyvalent-metal salt of an unsaturated carboxylic acid with a vinyl alcohol polymer. Its distinguishing feature is delamination resistance specifically after hydrothermal treatment, not just at ambient storage conditions. Anyone designing a multi-layer barrier film with a similar inorganic-layer-plus-silane-coupling architecture aimed at humid-condition durability should review this filing's claim scope closely.
B32B27 (layered products and laminates) is the dominant code in this corpus, appearing in 46 of 49 records, making it the primary code to search first. C08J7 (polymer surface treatment) and B65D (containers and packaging) form a secondary tier worth checking for coating-chemistry or end-use packaging angles. Searches limited to coating-specific codes like C09D alone would miss most of the corpus, since the majority of applicants claim through laminate structure rather than coating chemistry in isolation.
The technology composition data shows heavy concentration in B32B layered-product claims but comparatively thin direct coverage of hydrothermal delamination testing protocols, cold-chain flex-crack cycling, and shelf-life durability claims tied to specific measurable barrier metrics. These are candidate areas for new filings, though a thin count in this bounded search does not equal confirmed novelty — a full freedom-to-operate search against the most-cited prior art, including the 2004 and 1996 top-cited records, is still necessary before filing.
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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.