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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/organic-uv-filters-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent landscape · Sun care & photoprotectionOrganic UV filter patents: mapping the sunscreen chemistry claim space
- 31.0% of all filings sit with five assignees. 1,058 of the 3,415 records in scope trace to the top five, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below them.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. The peak year was 2017 at 141 filings; the confirmed 2021-to-2024 span shows a 26% decline, from 129 to 96 filings a year.
- Medicinal and cosmetics classes dominate, but polymer and optics classes are sizeable. A61K and A61Q each cover roughly a third of records, while C08K, C07D and G02B each still account for over 9% of the 3,415 records in scope.
3,415
Published Records
31%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-26%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (129 records) with 2024 (96) — 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 3,415 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field overview
What the organic UV filter patent record actually covers
Organic UV filters sit at the intersection of cosmetic formulation, polymer stabilisation and optical engineering. The search string behind this landscape pulls records that combine a UV-absorbing chemistry claim with a functional constraint — photostability, absorbance spectrum, filter combination, systemic absorption, regulatory approval or solubility limit — which is why the corpus skews toward formulation and combination claims rather than raw new-molecule disclosures.
3,415 published records fall inside this scope, spanning 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity and should be read as provisional.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,415 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, a confirmed post-2021 decline
Filings ran from 141 in 2017 down to 10 in the most recent (partial) year. The reliable comparison is 2021 to 2024, where filings fell 26%, from 129 to 96 a year — a real cooling, not an artefact of publication lag, though years after 2024 are still filling in and should not be read as a continuation of the drop.
Technology composition: formulation classes lead, polymer and optics are secondary
A61K (medicinal preparations) and A61Q (cosmetics use) each touch roughly a third of the 3,415 records, confirming that most claims are written as formulations or use-cases rather than standalone chemistry. C08K, C07D, C09K, C09D, G02B and C08L each still cover between 9% and 18% of records, showing meaningful claim activity in polymer additive, heterocyclic synthesis, coating and optical-element applications. Records can carry more than one class, so these shares add to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,415 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative and most-cited filings
Representative recent filing
US20250049667A1 — Sunscreen or daily care composition comprising bemotrizinol and avobenzone
BASF SE
Filed by BASF SE and published 2025-02-13, this application claims a sunscreen or daily-care composition combining bemotrizinol and avobenzone with a water-soluble organic UV filter and a further compound selected from a defined list including benzotriazolyl dodecyl p-cresol and ethylhexyl methoxycrylene.The claim structure is a multi-component combination, not a new chemical entity, which is typical of how this field has been claimed since the peak filing years.
Most-cited records in the organic UV filter corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5115346A | Anti-scatter, ultraviolet protected, anti-misting, electro-optical rearview mirror | 713 |
| 2 | US5073012A | Anti-scatter, ultraviolet protected, anti-misting, electro-optical assemblies | 712 |
| 3 | US8232533B2 | Photolytically and environmentally stable multilayer structure for high efficiency electromagnetic energy con… | 648 |
| 4 | US5239406A | Near-infrared reflecting, ultraviolet protected, safety protected, electrochromic vehicular glazing | 602 |
| 5 | WO2004085412A2 | Symmetrical triazine derivatives | 596 |
| 6 | US8664624B2 | Illumination delivery system for generating sustained secondary emission | 486 |
| 7 | US8519359B2 | Photolytically and environmentally stable multilayer structure for high efficiency electromagnetic energy con… | 478 |
| 8 | US20100315693A1 | Variable transmittance optical filter and uses thereof | 348 |
| 9 | EP1308084A1 | Synergistic UV absorber combination | 347 |
| 10 | US5523877A | Reduced near-infrared radiation transmitting ultraviolet protected, safety protected, electrochromic vehicula… | 345 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had longer to accumulate references; treat them as a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Read together, the concentration, trend and class data point to a field where the top of the table is settled but the surrounding chemistry space is still open.
Concentration
31.0%
of 3,415 records held by top 5
The top of the field is settled, not crowded everywhere
Five assignees hold 1,058 of the 3,415 records in scope, a 31.0% share, while the ranked leaders' list runs to 100 companies with a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants below tenth place. New entrants are competing for space outside that top tier, not inside it.
Top 5 vs. all records in scope
Momentum
-26%
2021→2024 filing change
Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak
Volume ran from 141 filings in the 2017 peak down through a confirmed 26% decline between 2021 (129) and 2024 (96). This is a genuine slowdown over a comparable span, though the years immediately after 2024 are still being published and should not yet be read as an extension of the trend.
2021–2024 is the last fully comparable span
Technology mix
37.0%
of records classed A61K
Formulation claims outnumber new-chemistry claims
A61K and A61Q together cover most of the corpus, meaning the bulk of active claiming is around how filters are combined, dosed and applied rather than around novel absorber molecules. C07D, the heterocyclic-compounds class, still reaches 17.3% of records, so new-molecule activity has not disappeared.
Classes overlap; shares sum above 100%
Geography
881
US-received filings
US, EPO and PCT carry the bulk of filing activity
The United States leads receiving offices at 881 filings, ahead of the EPO at 571 and WIPO/PCT at 390, with Australia and India each in the low hundreds. Filers building a defensive position outside these three offices are covering a smaller, less contested slice of the record.
Receiving office counts, not family counts
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to organic uv filters, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the momentum has gone
The ranked leaders' list runs to 100 companies, with the top handful holding the largest single shares and most others contributing a handful of filings each. Recent-year momentum has slowed even among the historic leaders.
Leader
449
records
One assignee holds a clear lead
The leading assignee's 449 records sit well above fifth place at 90 and tenth place at 55, a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
Leader vs. 5th and 10th place
Momentum
-75% YoY
leader's latest-year filings
Even the leader has pulled back recently
The top assignee filed only 3 records in the latest year, down 75% year over year, while several other historically active assignees show zero filings in the same period. This matches the broader post-2021 cooling rather than contradicting it.
Latest-year filings by assignee
Collaboration
10 pairs
co-assignee relationships
Collaboration is limited and concentrated around one hub
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the data, and the strongest links all run through the same leading corporate filer paired with a research institute and named inventors, rather than forming a broader web of joint filers.
Strongest pair by shared record count
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BASF SE | 3 | -75% |
| Symrise GmbH & Co KG | 1 | — |
| Ciba Specialty Chemicals Holding Inc | 0 | — |
| Essilor International | 0 | -100% |
| Eastman Kodak Co | 0 | — |
| Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp | 0 | — |
| DSM IP Assets BV | 0 | -100% |
| Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy or white-space filing.
Check freedom-to-operate against the concentrated top
With 31.0% of records held by five assignees, any formulation combining bemotrizinol, avobenzone or similar triazine chemistries should be checked against that group's active claims before filing.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the post-2021 slowdown by sub-class
The 26% drop in filings between 2021 and 2024 is aggregate; breaking it out by IPC subclass shows whether the pullback is uniform or concentrated in formulation classes.
Build a class-level trend view in EurekaDraft claims into the under-claimed branches
Optical-element coatings and systemic-absorption-reduction claims show thinner filing density than the cosmetics and medicinal core, making them a reasonable place to test a first claim.
Draft a claim scope in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about organic UV filter patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 449 records, well ahead of fifth place at 90 and tenth place at 55. The top five assignees combined hold 1,058 records, 31.0% of the 3,415 records in scope, so the field has a clear leader plus a long tail of companies with far smaller filing counts. The full ranking covers 100 companies, so most of the field's activity comes from names outside that top tier.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 141 records and has cooled since. The most reliable comparison, 2021 to 2024, shows a 26% decline from 129 to 96 filings a year. Years after 2024 are still being published because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, so those later years understate real activity and should not be read as confirming a further drop.
Most records fall under A61K (medicinal preparations) and A61Q (cosmetics use), each touching roughly a third of the 3,415 records in scope, reflecting the corpus's emphasis on formulation and use claims. Meaningful shares also sit in C08K (polymer additives), C07D (heterocyclic compounds), C09K, C09D, G02B (optical elements) and C08L, each between about 9% and 18% of records. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%.
The technology composition data shows thinner filing density in branches like optical-element UV coatings, water-soluble filter carrier systems and systemic-absorption-reduction claims compared with the crowded cosmetics and medicinal formulation core. These are not unclaimed, but they carry noticeably less density than A61K and A61Q, making them a more realistic place to file a first claim without immediately colliding with the concentrated top assignees.
It is moderately concentrated at the very top and thin below it. The top five assignees hold 31.0% of the 3,415 records in scope and the top ten hold 40.8%, but the ranked list runs to 100 companies, meaning well over half of tracked filing activity comes from assignees outside the top ten. Co-assignee collaboration is also limited, with only 10 recorded co-assignee pairs in the dataset.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Organic UV Filters covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Research Organic UV Filters in depth with Eureka
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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.