Microtomy and Sectioning Patents: Who Leads and Where the Claim Space Is Still Open
39.2% concentration at the top. The top 5 of 96 ranked assignees hold 127 of 324 records in scope — a tight leading group over a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Filings ran from 17 in 2017 to a peak of 34 in 2018, then troughed at 2 in 2021 before climbing to 25 in 2024 — a +1150% move over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 read low because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; treat the tail as incomplete, not as a slowdown.
- 1SCHOLAR ROCK INC33
- 2SINGULAR GENOMICS SYSTEMS INC30
- 3VAXXAS PTY LTD27
- 4TISSUEVISION INC21
- 5PRESIDENT & FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE16
See the full microtomy and sectioning 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 microtomy and sectioning patents
Who holds the most patents in microtome sectioning and tissue preparation?
The assignee ranking covers 96 companies across 324 records, with the top-ranked assignee holding 33 records and the top 5 combined holding 127 records, or 39.2% of all records in scope. That leaves a substantial long tail of organisations with only a handful of filings each, so the field is led but not locked up by a single player. Anyone doing competitive tracking should look at the top 5 and top 10 groups separately, since the drop from fifth place (16 records) to tenth place (10 records) is gradual rather than sharp.
Is patent filing in microtomy and sectioning growing or slowing down?
Filings grew sharply from 2 in 2021 to 25 in 2024, a +1150% increase over that three-year span, after an earlier peak of 34 in 2018. The apparent decline in 2025 and 2026 is not a real slowdown — patent publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any filing trend will always look artificially low until later data catches up. Treat 2024 as the most recent year with a reasonably complete picture.
What technology areas overlap most with microtome sectioning patents?
Material analysis and testing (G01N) appears in 41.4% of the 324 records and medicinal preparations (A61K) in 34.6%, making these the two dominant overlapping classes. Therapeutic activity of compounds (A61P), diagnosis and surgery (A61B), and optical elements (G02B) each appear in roughly 16-18.5% of records. Because a single patent can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%, reflecting how often sectioning claims are bundled with the downstream diagnostic or therapeutic use of the tissue section.
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 Microtomy and Sectioning 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.