Industrial Crystallization Patents: Who Leads, Trends & Gaps 2026
- Filings peaked in 2017 at 87 records and fell -88% from 84 in 2021 to 10 in 2024, the last year the data can treat as complete.
- The leader holds 98 records, but the top 5 combined account for only 19.7% of all 1,594 records — concentration is shallow, not dominant.
- B01D separation and C07C compound classes each cover 18.7% of records, showing crystallization claims sit heavily on downstream purification and chemistry, not just control hardware.
Filing growth compares 2021 (84 records) with 2024 (10) — 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 1,594 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent activity at the intersection of crystallizer design and process control — filings that combine language on crystal size distribution, nucleation rate, seeding strategy, population balance modelling, encrustation on crystallizer walls, or residence time with core industrial crystallization and crystallizer-design terms. It spans records published from 2015 through the middle of 2026, giving a decade-long view of how control strategy claims have moved from mechanical crystallizer hardware toward compound-specific and pharmaceutical purification applications.
The 1,594 records in scope span separation and filtration engineering, acyclic and heterocyclic chemistry, catalysis, inorganic compounds, and medical implant and sterilisation applications — a spread that reflects how crystallization control shows up as an enabling step across chemical manufacturing, active pharmaceutical ingredient purification, and even bioabsorbable device processing, rather than as a single self-contained field.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,594-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked at 87 in 2017 and declined through the decade; the 2021-to-2024 span alone shows an -88% drop, from 84 records to 10. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as a continued fall.
IPC subclass composition
B01D (separation processes) and C07C (acyclic and carbocyclic compounds) each appear in 18.7% of the 1,594 records, with A61K (medicinal preparations) close behind at 14.0%. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100% — they show where claim attention concentrates, not a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,594 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Industrial Crystallization Process Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about industrial crystallization process control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US4263010A — Control method and apparatus for crystallizer process control
A control method and apparatus is provided for the on-line control of crystallizer apparatus and the like to maintain predetermined operating parameters including crystal size distribution and growth rate to achieve stable, predetermined optimum continuous crystallizer operation for optimum crystal product output and purity and to avoid process transients, undesirable cycling behavior, system malfunctions and crystallizer downtime.Filed by the Arizona Board of Regents for the University of Arizona, this early filing frames closed-loop, on-line control of crystal size distribution as the core inventive step — a framing that still underlies much of the later claim language in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080249608A1 | Bioabsorbable Polymer, Bioabsorbable Composite Stents | 1,178 |
| 2 | US20080051866A1 | Drug delivery devices and methods | 254 |
| 3 | US6221332B1 | Multiple stream high pressure mixer/reactor | 182 |
| 4 | US6013835A | Method and apparatus for preparing purified terephthalic acid | 134 |
| 5 | US5767311A | Method and apparatus for preparing purified terephtalic acid | 132 |
| 6 | US5840968A | Method and apparatus for preparing purified terephthalic acid | 130 |
| 7 | US4263010A | Control method and apparatus for crystallizer process control | 110 |
| 8 | WO2017223046A1 | Metal-organic frameworks and methods of making and use thereof | 103 |
| 9 | WO1999004774A2 | Nucleotide analog compositions | 98 |
| 10 | US6451340B1 | Nucleotide analog compositions | 93 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence, not of present-day relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say
Three findings that shape how a filing or freedom-to-operate strategy should read this dataset.
Leadership is real but not dominant
The leading assignee holds 98 records against a total of 1,594, and the top 5 combined reach only 19.7% of all records in scope. That leaves roughly four-fifths of the field held outside the leading cluster, across the full 100-company ranking the data endpoint returns.
Volume has pulled back sharply from its peak
After peaking at 87 records in 2017, filing volume dropped -88% between 2021 and 2024, the last year the trend can be treated as complete. Readers should not extend that decline into 2025-2026, since publication lag of roughly 18 months means those years are still filling in.
Separation and compound chemistry dominate the claim mix
B01D (separation processes) and C07C (acyclic and carbocyclic compounds) each cover 18.7% of records, ahead of A61K medicinal preparations at 14.0%. That places crystallization control claims as much inside downstream purification and chemical synthesis as inside crystallizer hardware itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to industrial crystallization process control, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| DAVE VIPUL | BURGERMEISTER ROBERT | 24 |
| DAVE VIPUL | OVERAKER DAVID W | 19 |
| BURGERMEISTER ROBERT | OVERAKER DAVID W | 19 |
| DAVE VIPUL | NARAYANAN PALLASSANA V | 18 |
| BURGERMEISTER ROBERT | NARAYANAN PALLASSANA V | 18 |
| BURGERMEISTER ROBERT | ZHANG QIANG | 15 |
| BURGERMEISTER ROBERT | CONTILIANO JOSEPH H | 15 |
| ExxonMobil Chemical Patents Inc. | MERTENS MACHTELD M | 12 |
The strongest co-assignee pairing in this dataset, individuals Dave Vipul and Burgermeister Robert, appear together on 24 records — evidence of a tightly held inventive team rather than a broad industry consortium.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span industrial chemical majors, pharmaceutical and device makers, and specialty materials firms — no single sector owns the field.
A single leader well ahead of the pack
The top-ranked assignee holds 98 records, more than double the fifth-place count of 41, indicating a durable filing programme rather than a one-off surge.
Most of the field sits outside the leading cluster
With the top 5 combined holding only 19.7% of all 1,594 records, the remainder is spread across the rest of the 100-company ranking — a fragmented landscape better suited to targeted freedom-to-operate checks than to watching a small set of dominant players.
Leading assignees show little recent-year activity
Several of the most active historical filers show zero filings in the latest year of the dataset, consistent with the broader pullback from the 2017 peak rather than any single company exiting the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Cordis Corporation | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Chemical Patents Inc. | 0 | — |
| ColdSnap Corp. | 0 | -100% |
| Gilead Sciences Inc. | 0 | — |
| FUJIFILM Corporation | 0 | — |
| BASF SE | 0 | — |
| Eastman Chemical Company | 0 | — |
| DAVE VIPUL | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with shallow concentration and a claim mix weighted toward separation and compound chemistry rather than crystallizer hardware alone.
Map freedom-to-operate against the long tail
With 80.3% of records held outside the top 5 assignees, a freedom-to-operate review needs to cover far more than the named leaders — the fragmented tail is where unexpected blocking claims are likeliest to sit.
Run a freedom-to-operate scan in Eureka →Track the under-claimed control branches
Sub-areas like real-time population balance calibration and anti-encrustation coatings show thinner claim density than the core B01D and C07C classes, making them candidates for a defensible first filing.
Explore white space in Eureka →Watch for the 2025-2026 publication catch-up
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent decline after 2021 will partly reverse as 2025 and 2026 filings publish; re-check the trend once those years mature.
Monitor filing trends in Eureka →Common questions
One assignee leads the ranked list with 98 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 41. But that leader's share of the whole field is modest: the top 5 assignees combined account for only 19.7% of the 1,594 records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 29.0%. That means no single company or small group controls the field outright — the remaining assignees, spread across a 100-company ranking, collectively hold the majority of filings.
Filing volume peaked in 2017 at 87 records and has since declined; between 2021 and 2024 alone, volume fell -88%, from 84 records to 10. However, 2024 is the last year the trend can be treated as complete, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Readers should not conclude the field is dying from the 2025-2026 figures, since those years are still filling in as later publications arrive.
The dataset spans eight IPC subclasses, with B01D (separation processes such as filtration) and C07C (acyclic and carbocyclic compounds) each appearing in 18.7% of the 1,594 records. A61K medicinal preparations follows at 14.0%, and B01J catalysis-related processes at 10.2%. Because a record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, and they show that crystallization control claims sit as much in downstream chemical and pharmaceutical processing as in dedicated crystallizer equipment.
US4263010A, filed by the Arizona Board of Regents for the University of Arizona and granted in 1981, claims a control method and apparatus for on-line, closed-loop control of crystallizer operating parameters including crystal size distribution and growth rate. Its stated purpose is to maintain stable, optimum continuous crystallizer operation and avoid process transients, cycling, malfunctions and downtime. As one of the earliest filings in this space, it frames on-line measurement and closed-loop control of crystal size distribution as the inventive core, a framing that recurs in later filings in this dataset even though the original patent itself has long since expired as a live enforcement risk.
Sub-areas with comparatively thin claim density relative to the core separation and compound-chemistry classes include real-time population balance model calibration, anti-encrustation wall coating strategies for continuous crystallizers, seeding strategy tuned for continuous operation, and residence-time distribution sensing. These sit adjacent to the dense B01D and C07C classes but are not yet as heavily claimed, which makes them worth a closer prior-art check before committing to a specific control architecture or seeding method.
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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.