OLED Indium & Material Recovery Patent Snapshot 2026
The patent corpus for OLED indium and material recovery is, at present, extremely sparse — only one patent family has been identified in scope, filed by Lanzhou University in 2025 via a Chinese national application. This near-empty evidence snapshot signals an early, pre-competitive field with essentially no established IP positions.
A single applicant holds all identified IP in this nascent field
The corpus currently contains one patent family, assigned entirely to Lanzhou University. This single filing represents 100 percent of the top-five filers’ share of the ranked applicants visible in this query — a reflection of how underdeveloped the IP evidence snapshot remains, not of genuine commercial concentration.
There is no meaningful tier structure to describe: with only one active applicant on record, there is no gap between a leader and challengers — challengers simply do not yet exist in the identified corpus.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lanzhou University | 1 |
Lanzhou University’s position implies that early academic research in microbial and hydrometallurgical routes for indium recovery from OLED materials is outpacing any commercial filing activity detected to date, leaving the entire applied-engineering space open.
Patent publication lag typically runs 18–24 months from filing date, so applications filed in late 2024 or 2025 will not yet appear fully in this corpus; the true scope of nascent activity may be larger than a single family suggests.
A single 2025 filing marks the first detected activity in this area
Annual filing data shows zero activity from 2017 through 2024, with one family appearing in 2025. The technology composition of that single family spans microbiology and metal extraction, pointing toward a bio-hydrometallurgical approach rather than conventional pyrometallurgical or solvent-extraction methods.
Annual filing trend
The trend line remains flat at zero for eight consecutive years before a single filing appears in 2025. The 2025 entry should be treated as a first signal rather than a trend; publication lag means any filings made in late 2024 or 2025 may not yet be fully represented.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
All three IPC subclasses associated with the sole family — microorganisms and genetic engineering (C12N), microorganisms index (C12R), and metal extraction and refining (C22B) — carry equal weight, indicating the filing bridges biotechnology and extractive metallurgy. No electronics-oriented or materials-chemistry classes appear yet.
↗ 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.
利用百岁兰曲霉发酵液从废弃OLED显示屏中浸出铟的方法
本发明公开了一种利用百岁兰曲霉发酵液从废弃OLED显示屏中浸出铟的方法。本发明通过往蔗糖发酵培养基中加入百岁兰曲霉孢子悬浮液形成百岁兰曲霉发酵体系，震荡下发酵培养6~18天，过滤掉百岁兰曲霉菌球，得到百岁兰曲霉发酵液；接着往发酵液中投加裁剪好的OLED屏幕进行浸出，浸出完成后过滤，得到含铟浸出液。相较于化学浸出法，本发明处理条件温和，几乎不存在二次污染；相较于其他生物浸出OLED法，本发明拥有发酵周期短、浸出量大，不需要复杂地预处理等优点；相较于其他生物浸出OLED法，本发明还拥有发酵时间短的优势；本发明对废旧OLED屏幕中铟的浸出效率可达到70%~90%，拥有良好的铟回收效率。 (excerpt from the patent abstract)
Open this patent in Eureka →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.
Lanzhou University
Lanzhou University holds the only identified patent family in this space, filed in 2025 under Chinese application CN121759722A. The technology emphasis spans microbial metal extraction (C12N, C12R) and hydrometallurgical refining (C22B), suggesting a bio-leaching or biosorption approach to indium recovery. No applicant momentum data is available given the single-filing baseline.
patent families: 1No challenger on record
No second applicant appears in the identified corpus. Commercial OLED panel manufacturers, indium tin oxide producers, and e-waste recycling firms have not yet registered detectable patent activity in this specific recovery niche — representing a structural gap that challengers or new entrants could exploit.
patent families: 0Frequently asked questions
The identified corpus contains one patent family in scope. This extremely low count reflects either genuine early-stage activity in this specific niche, classification under adjacent IPC codes not captured by the current search, or both.
Lanzhou University is the only identified applicant, holding the single patent family on record. No commercial entities appear in the current corpus.
The single family is classified under microorganisms and genetic engineering (C12N), microorganisms index (C12R), and metal extraction and refining (C22B), indicating a bio-metallurgical or bio-leaching approach to indium recovery rather than conventional pyrometallurgical or solvent-extraction methods.
The sole identified family was filed only in China via CNIPA. No PCT, US, European, Japanese, or Korean filings have been detected in the current corpus, leaving those jurisdictions open to first-mover filings.
Based on the evidence — one family, filed in 2025, with zero prior-year activity — this field is at a pre-emergence stage. A formal life-cycle classification cannot be assigned from a single data point, but every structural indicator points to an area where systematic R&D and IP development has not yet begun at scale.
The observed IPC coverage suggests that solvent-extraction and ionic-liquid routes (C22B 3/xx) and electrochemical recovery methods (C25C) for indium from spent ITO and OLED substrates are absent from the identified corpus. These represent technically adjacent approaches with established feasibility in broader indium-refining literature, though they should be validated against a broader search before committing resources.
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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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