Organic Pigments Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2021. the peak year at 27 filings, with the 2022 midpoint of 23 pointing to a flat-to-declining trend rather than continued growth.
- Claim density concentrates in two IPC subclasses. C09B (1,247 records) and C09D (926) dominate, while adjacent classes like D06P (132) and C08L (160) carry far lighter claim loads.
- Europe leads filing venues by a wide margin. EPO receives 427 records, ahead of the United States at 301 and WIPO/PCT at 167, shaping where freedom-to-operate checks matter most.
Filing growth compares 2021 (27 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 1,464 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 1,464 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine organic pigment or colorant subject matter with claims touching crystal modification, lightfastness, particle-size control, heat stability or tinting strength, classified under C09B67, C09B62 and C09D17. The scope is deliberately narrow: it is not all pigment chemistry, but the subset where performance properties — how a pigment disperses, holds colour under light or heat, or is milled to a target particle size — are claimed directly.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 figures in any trend line understate real filing activity; treat the most recent one to two years as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,464-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A flat-to-declining filing curve since 2021
Filings rose from 13 in 2017 to a peak of 27 in 2021, then held near that level at 23 in 2022 before the trend softened. That pattern is more consistent with a mature, contested claim space than an expanding one — new entrants are filing into territory that established players have already staked out.
Claim density sits in two core subclasses
C09B (dyes and pigments, organic) and C09D (coatings, paints and inks) between them account for the large majority of records, meaning most granted claim language already sits in those two buckets. B41M and B41J (printing processes and equipment) form a secondary cluster tied to inkjet and print-media applications, while C08K, C08L, C09C and D06P — additives, polymer compositions, inorganic pigment treatment and textile dyeing — carry comparatively light claim loads relative to their technical adjacency.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,464 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Organic Pigments and Colorants with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about organic pigments and colorants and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US20030047118A1 — Organic pigment dispersion for coloring building materials
An aqueous organic pigment dispersion for integrally coloring concrete and other building materials, combining alkali metal silica particles as binder, organic pigment, water and a dispersing agent, prepared by high-shear mixing followed by bead milling to reduce pigment particle size to roughly 100-300 nanometers.Filed by Sun Chemical Corporation; the claims tie a specific binder chemistry to a defined milling process and a numeric particle-size window, which is the pattern worth checking against before drafting adjacent particle-size claims.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5231131A | Aqueous graft copolymer pigment dispersants | 473 |
| 2 | US6057384A | Latex polymer blends for improving the permanence of ink-jet inks | 227 |
| 3 | US5928419A | Surface-treated organic pigment and process for the production thereof | 212 |
| 4 | US5932309A | Colored articles and compositions and methods for their fabrication | 142 |
| 5 | US4871371A | Tint compositions useful for providing coloration to aqueous and non-aqueous liquids | 128 |
| 6 | EP0763378A2 | Non-aqueous type pigment dispersing agent, composition containing thereof, and non-aqueous pigment dispersion | 115 |
| 7 | US5681380A | Ink for ink jet printers | 109 |
| 8 | US5885337A | Colorant stabilizers | 107 |
| 9 | US6248805B1 | Ink-jet printing ink compositions having magnetic properties and specific core/shell binder | 93 |
| 10 | US6770331B1 | Colorant preparations | 81 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus and skew toward older filings that have simply had more time to accumulate citations; read them as markers of influence on subsequent drafting, not as a signal of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the filing trend, citation pattern and venue split that matter for anyone deciding where to file or where to challenge.
Growth has stalled, not accelerated
The gap between the 2021 peak and the 2022 midpoint is narrow enough to read as plateau rather than continued expansion. Combined with a 2026 count of just 2 (a partial year, understated by publication lag), the honest read is that filing activity has cooled from its 2021 high rather than kept climbing.
Europe is the primary filing venue
The EPO count exceeds the US by a wide margin, with WIPO/PCT, Japan, Canada and Australia trailing further behind. A freedom-to-operate review that skips European filings is reviewing a minority of the relevant art.
Two subclasses hold most of the claim language
C09B and C09D together dominate the classification split, while printing-process classes (B41M, B41J) form a distinct secondary cluster. Additive and textile-dyeing classes are present but thin, which is where claim space is least occupied.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to organic pigments and colorants, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Fujifilm Corporation | TATEISHI KEIICHI | 16 |
| Toyo Ink Mfg. Co., Ltd. | Toyo Color Co., Ltd. | 13 |
| Clariant Finance (BVI) Limited | Clariant International Ltd. | 12 |
| Fujifilm Corporation | HAYASHI SHINYA | 9 |
| Fujifilm Corporation | NAGATA YOSHIAKI | 6 |
| Dainichiseika Color & Chemicals Mfg. Co., Ltd. | Nippon Steel & Sumikin Micro Metal Co., Ltd. | 5 |
| Fujifilm Corporation | NAKAMURA TOMOAKI | 4 |
| Dainichiseika Color & Chemicals Mfg. Co., Ltd. | Ukima Chemicals & Color Mfg. Co., Ltd. | 4 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest link — Fujifilm and Tateishi Keiichi at 16 shared families — is an order of magnitude ahead of most other pairs, suggesting joint filing is the exception rather than a common strategy in this space.
Who holds the claim space, and where activity has stopped
Recent-year momentum tells a consistent story: several of the assignees with the deepest historical filing records show zero filings in the latest year, which is either a genuine slowdown or an artefact of publication lag catching up. Either way, the leaderboard's top names are not currently pushing new claims into publication.
Historical leaders have gone quiet
Fujifilm, Toyo Ink, DIC and Ciba Specialty Chemicals Holding all show zero filings in the most recent year despite deep historical positions. Given the 18-month publication lag, some of this is pipeline rather than genuine exit, but the pattern is broad enough across multiple leaders to be worth watching rather than dismissing.
Joint filings cluster around a handful of relationships
The Fujifilm plus Tateishi Keiichi pairing and the Toyo Ink plus Toyo Color pairing account for the bulk of the co-assignee activity that exists at all. With only 10 pairs total across 1,464 families, most filings in this space are single-assignee efforts.
European filing strategy dominates the leaderboard
With EPO filings well ahead of the US and PCT routes, assignees prioritising this technology area have historically treated Europe as the primary filing jurisdiction, a pattern worth confirming against any specific competitor's portfolio before assuming US-centric coverage.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Fujifilm Corporation | 0 | — |
| Toyo Ink Mfg. Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | 0 | — |
| DIC Corporation | 0 | — |
| Ciba Specialty Chemicals Holding Inc. | 0 | — |
| Sun Chemical Corporation | 0 | — |
| Dainichiseika Color & Chemicals Mfg. Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing or competitive tracking.
Check freedom-to-operate against the EPO-heavy leaderboard
With 427 EPO records against 301 in the US, any clearance search that weights US prior art more heavily than European filings is likely missing the denser claim territory in this field.
Run a clearance search in EurekaDraft into the thinner IPC branches
C08K, C08L, C09C and D06P carry markedly fewer records than C09B and C09D despite technical adjacency, which is where a well-drafted first claim has more room to stand.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch whether quiet leaders re-enter
Several long-standing assignees show zero filings in the latest year; confirming whether that reflects genuine exit or publication lag matters before assuming the field is open.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The leaderboard is dominated by a small group of established chemical and imaging companies including Fujifilm, Toyo Ink, DIC, Ciba Specialty Chemicals Holding and Sun Chemical, several of which have filed for decades in this space. Notably, most of these leading assignees show zero filings in the most recent year in the dataset, which may reflect either a genuine slowdown or the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication. A useful next step is checking a specific competitor's filing history directly rather than relying on the aggregate leaderboard alone.
Filing volume rose from 13 records in 2017 to a peak of 27 in 2021, then held near that level with 23 filings by the 2022 midpoint, which points to a plateau rather than continued growth. The most recent one to two years in any dataset like this will always look lower than reality because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months. Taken together, the honest read is that this field has matured into steady, rather than expanding, filing activity since around 2021.
Europe leads by a clear margin, with 427 records filed through the EPO compared with 301 in the United States and 167 through the WIPO PCT route. Japan, Canada and Australia follow at meaningfully lower volumes. Anyone running a freedom-to-operate check in this field should treat European filings as the primary body of prior art rather than a secondary check after the US.
US20030047118A1, assigned to Sun Chemical Corporation, claims an aqueous organic pigment dispersion for coloring concrete and building materials, built from alkali metal silica particles as a binder, organic pigment, water and a dispersing agent. The claimed process specifies high-shear mixing followed by bead milling to bring the pigment particle size down to roughly 100 to 300 nanometers. Anyone drafting a similar binder-plus-pigment dispersion for construction materials, particularly one relying on a comparable particle-size window, should review this filing's specific claim language before finalising their own.
The IPC composition shows a heavy concentration in C09B and C09D, with much thinner coverage in adjacent classes such as C08K and C08L (additive-polymer interactions), C09C (inorganic-organic hybrid treatment) and D06P (textile dyeing durability). These thinner classes sit next to the technically related, heavily claimed core, which is typically where a well-scoped first claim has room to stand rather than colliding with existing prior art. Confirming this with a full freedom-to-operate search is still necessary before filing.
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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.