OLED Evaporation Cluster-Tool Automation Patent Snapshot
The corpus of 2 patent families in scope is highly concentrated, with Applied Materials Inc accounting for the full top-ranked position among filers. Activity peaked around 2018 and has since eased, leaving this a narrow, specialist niche with very limited recent filings.
Applied Materials leads a two-player field with complete top-tier concentration
Applied Materials Inc ranks first with 2 patent records, followed by Kateeva Inc with 1 patent record. Together these two applicants account for 100% of the top hundred filers’ combined total, indicating an extremely narrow competitive field.
The tier gap between the two filers is modest in absolute terms, but the complete share concentration within just two entities signals that no broad coalition of players has formed around OLED evaporation cluster-tool automation.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Applied Materials Inc | 2 | |
| 2 | Kateeva Inc | 1 |
Applied Materials’ position — spanning organic semiconductor device fabrication (H10K) and coating and surface deposition (C23C) — reflects a vertically integrated equipment strategy, while Kateeva’s filing footprint is anchored in semiconductor device processing (H01L) and organic semiconductor subclasses.
The most recent filing years are subject to publication lag; apparent absence of filings in 2023–2026 should not be read as confirmed inactivity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has since eased; organic semiconductor classes dominate the technology mix
Two charts below capture the temporal filing pattern and the IPC class distribution of the corpus. Both reflect a narrow, specialist topic rather than a broad technology wave.
Annual filing trend
Recorded filings appeared in 2018 and 2021, with no activity in surrounding years within this corpus. The lifecycle evidence indicates the field peaked around 2018 and annual volume has eased since; years from 2023 onward are subject to publication lag and should not be interpreted as confirmed silence.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H10K (organic semiconductors, including OLED) is the visible IPC branch with 3 patent records, followed by H01L (semiconductor devices) with 2 records and C23C (coating and surface deposition) with 1 record. The preponderance of H10K confirms that filings address OLED device-layer fabrication directly, with process and deposition engineering as secondary themes.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Thin-film encapsulation
A method of encapsulating an organic light emitting diode (OLED) is provided. The method includes generating a first plasma in a process chamber, the first plasma having an electron density of at least 10<sup>11 </sup>cm<sup>−3 </sup>when an OLED device is positioned within the process chamber. The OLED device includes a substrate and an OLED formed on the… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Applied Materials Inc
Applied Materials holds 2 patent records in this corpus, focused on H10K50 and H10K71 (organic semiconductor device fabrication) and C23C16 (chemical vapor deposition and related coating processes). This combination reflects an integrated equipment-and-process approach to OLED evaporation tooling. Momentum data are not available for this corpus, so trajectory cannot be quantified further.
patent records: 2Kateeva Inc
Kateeva holds 1 patent record, with emphasis on H01L21 (semiconductor device manufacturing processes), H10K71, and H10K99. Kateeva’s positioning in inkjet-based OLED deposition complements rather than directly replicates Applied Materials’ cluster-tool evaporation focus. Momentum data are not available for this corpus.
patent records: 1Frequently asked questions
The current corpus contains 2 patent families in scope for this specific intersection of OLED evaporation and cluster-tool automation.
Applied Materials Inc leads with 2 patent records, followed by Kateeva Inc with 1 patent record. These two applicants together account for 100% of the top hundred filers’ combined total.
The field is classified as Decline. Annual filings eased back from a peak around 2018, and no new filings have been recorded in the corpus after 2021, though years from 2023 onward are subject to publication lag.
H10K (organic semiconductors, including OLED) is the visible class with 3 patent records, followed by H01L (semiconductor devices) with 2 records and C23C (coating and surface deposition) with 1 record.
Filings are distributed across three jurisdictions — China, Europe (EPO), and the United States — with one patent record each. China is the lead office in this corpus.
No co-applicant relationships are recorded in this corpus. There is no evidence of joint filings between companies or between industry and academic institutions within the current dataset.
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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.
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