Koji Fermentation Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Koji Fermentation and Soy Sauce Brewing Patents: Who Holds the Claims
68.7% of the field sits with five filers. 202 of 294 records in scope belong to the top five assignees, leaving a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants to work around dense prior art rather than open ground. The trend runs from 1 record in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2022, with 2026 still partial at the data cut-off. With fewer than four complete years available once publication lag is factored in, no reliable growth rate can be stated — this is a field with sustained, low-volume filing rather than an inflection point.
- 1KIKKOMAN CORP93
- 2NESTEC SA46
- 3YAMASA SHOYU CO LTD27
- 4NISSHIN FLOUR MILLING CO LTD18
- 5SOCIETE DES PRODUITS NESTLE SA18
See the full koji fermentation and soy sauce brewing 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 on koji fermentation and soy sauce brewing patents
Who holds the most patents in koji fermentation and soy sauce brewing?
One assignee leads the field with 93 of the 294 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place filer at 18 records. The top five assignees combined hold 68.7% of all records, and that concentration extends to 82.0% by the tenth-ranked filer. This means the field is dominated by a small group of established Japanese and multinational food-science companies, with a long tail of 63 ranked filers holding single or occasional filings.
Is the koji fermentation patent field growing?
Filing volume has stayed low and largely flat, moving from 1 record in 2017 to a peak of 4 records in 2022. There are fewer than four complete years of post-lag data to calculate a reliable growth rate, so no growth trend can be stated with confidence. What the data does show is a mature niche with steady, low-volume activity rather than a surge of new entrants.
What technical areas get the most patent claims in this space?
A23L, covering foods and non-alcoholic beverages, appears in 89.8% of the 294 records, which follows directly from the search scope. Below that, C12N microorganisms and genetic engineering reaches 31.6% of records, ahead of A23J food proteins at 15.6% and C12P fermentation and enzymatic synthesis at 15.0%. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures describe overlapping claim coverage rather than a strict breakdown of the field.
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 Koji Fermentation and Soy Sauce Brewing 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.