Plant Cell Culture Cell Retention Patents: Who Leads 2026
- One assignee dominates. the leading filer holds 469 of the records in scope, while fifth place sits at just 2 and tenth place at 1 — a long tail behind a single very large filer.
- Filing has cooled but not collapsed. the count moved from 29 in 2021 to 26 in 2024, a -10% change over that span, after peaking at 61 in 2019.
- Retention claims sit inside a food and feed cluster. 53.1% of records also carry A23K animal feed classification and 49.2% carry A23J protein/peptide classification alongside the core cell-culture classes.
Filing growth compares 2021 (29 records) with 2024 (26) — 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.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of plant cell and tissue culture with the mechanical and process problems of keeping cells in the bioreactor while letting spent medium out: retention efficiency, filter fouling, cell bleed, shear exposure, viable density and membrane pore behaviour. The scope is defined by title/abstract/claim language combined with C12N5/04, A01H4/00 and C12M3/00 classification, giving 533 records published between 2015 and mid-2026.
The receiving-office pattern is unusually concentrated: the large majority of filings in scope entered through Canada, with only single-digit counts routed through the US, Israel, Australia, Europe and Japan. That skews the dataset toward one jurisdiction's filing behaviour rather than a globally distributed technology race.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 533-record set: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Volume rose to a peak of 61 in 2019, then eased to 29 by 2021 and 26 by 2024 — a -10% move over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 counts are still filling in given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so the visible drop at the right edge of the chart should not be read as the technology going quiet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C12N (99.4% of records) and A01H (96.8%) anchor almost every record, confirming the corpus is squarely about plant cell genetics and culture. The larger surprise is downstream: A23K animal feed (53.1%), A23J proteins/peptides (49.2%) and A23L foods (36.6%) show that a large share of retention-technology claims are written with a food or feed end-use in view, not just a lab-scale culture process.
Shares are the percentage of the 533 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Plant Cell Culture Cell Retention with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about plant cell culture cell retention and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art
High-rate perfusion bioreactor (US20090280565A1)
The present invention relates to a novel perfusion bioreactor allowing continuous medium feed and extraction of metabolites or other desired products from cells. The invention is useful for plant cell cultures but may also be used for mammalian, insect and bacterial cell cultures. The design includes sedimentation columns mounted inside the bioreactor to separate single cells and cell aggregates from the culture medium at very low shear stress, maintaining a stable cell/medium separation by keeping the medium's upward velocity equal to or slightly below the cell sedimentation velocity.Filed by Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal; this record and its WO counterpart are the two most-cited documents in the dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090280565A1 | High-rate perfusion bioreactor | 69 |
| 2 | WO2007071072A1 | High-rate perfusion bioreactor | 34 |
| 3 | US6200808B1 | Induction of embryogenesis from plant microspores | 24 |
| 4 | US6013862A | Wheat aleurone regulatory elements | 18 |
| 5 | US5900375A | Induction of embryogenesis using cytoskeleton inhibitors or protein synthesis inhibitors | 18 |
| 6 | CA2770639A1 | High yielding soybean variety XB28a12 | 5 |
| 7 | JP1985210982A | Method and apparatus for culturing cell of human, animal andplant, and hybrid cell and microorganism | 5 |
| 8 | CA2808850A1 | High yielding soybean variety XB22t13 | 4 |
| 9 | CA2808846A1 | High yielding soybean variety XB22z13 | 4 |
| 10 | CA2808684A1 | High yielding soybean variety XB21y13 | 4 |
Citation counts favour older documents inside any searched corpus — they signal historical influence on later filings, not that a record is the strongest asset to hold today.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Read together, the trend, the composition and the citation table point to a narrow but structurally important sub-field rather than a broad, fast-moving race.
One filer, then a long tail
The leading assignee's count of 469 dwarfs the rest of the 19 ranked companies; fifth place sits at 2 and tenth at 1. Most of the ranked field filed only once or twice, which usually means the retention-specific art outside the leader's own portfolio is thin and easier to design around.
A cooling but still-active field
Filing fell from 29 in 2021 to 26 in 2024. That is a real decline, not a collapse, and it follows a 2019 peak of 61 — consistent with a technology that had an early burst of claiming activity and has since settled into steady, lower-volume filing.
Retention art doubles as feed/food IP
More than half of the records carry an animal-feed classification alongside the core cell-culture classes, and roughly a third carry a foods classification. Anyone filing a pure process claim on cell retention should check whether the intended end product already narrows the available claim space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to plant cell culture cell retention, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| SIMMONDS DAINA H | ZHAO JIPING | 1 |
| SIMMONDS DAINA H | NEWCOMBE WILLIAM | 1 |
| SIMMONDS DAINA H | NEWCOMB WILLIAM | 1 |
| SIMMONDS DAINA H | GERVAIS CARMEN | 1 |
| Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal | LEGROS ROBERT | 1 |
| Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal | JOLICOEUR MARIO | 1 |
| Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal | HISIGER STEVE | 1 |
| Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal | DE DOBBELEER CAROLINE | 1 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, each linked to a single shared filing — collaborative filing is rare here; most records list a single assignee.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked field is short — 19 companies — and heavily skewed to one filer, which leaves several process variants effectively unclaimed by anyone but that leader.
The dominant filer
One assignee accounts for the large majority of records in the ranking, spanning plant breeding and cell-culture applications well beyond retention mechanics alone. Its portfolio is the first thing to clear against before filing any retention-specific claim.
Single- and double-filers
Below the leader, counts fall off sharply — fifth place holds 2 records and tenth place holds just 1. This is typical of a field where a small number of research groups or bioreactor developers file once around a specific mechanical design rather than building a defensive portfolio.
Recent activity has quieted across the board
Every one of the top-ranked assignees, including the leader, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the publication lag, this reads as an artefact of the data cut-off rather than a genuine stop in R&D, but it does mean recent competitive signal from filings alone is limited.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc | 0 | — |
| Agrigenetics Inc | 0 | — |
| Amgen Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada as represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food | 0 | — |
| Canadian Patents & Development Limited | 0 | — |
| SIMMONDS DAINA H | 0 | — |
| Corporation de l'École Polytechnique de Montréal | 0 | — |
| ZHAO JIPING | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a narrow, one-filer-dominated field with real but modest room outside the leader's claims.
Clear the leader's portfolio first
With one assignee holding the large majority of ranked records, any new filing on cell retention mechanics should start with a freedom-to-operate check against that portfolio specifically, not just a general prior-art search.
Search assignee portfolios in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
Membrane fouling countermeasures and shear-minimising geometries show up in the composition data without a dense single-owner thicket, making them worth a closer novelty check before assuming the space is crowded.
Run a white-space check in EurekaCommon questions
One assignee accounts for the majority of the 533 records in scope, with 469 records against a fifth-place count of just 2 and a tenth-place count of 1. That gap means the field is not a multi-way race; it is one very large portfolio surrounded by a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants. Anyone evaluating freedom to operate should treat that leading portfolio as the primary blocker to clear, rather than assuming risk is spread evenly across many players.
Filing peaked at 61 records in 2019 and had settled to 26 by 2024, a -10% move from the 29 recorded in 2021. That is a real decline over that three-year window, not a sharp collapse. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years are undercounted in any dataset and should not be read as the field going quiet.
It describes a perfusion bioreactor design using sedimentation columns mounted inside the reactor to separate single cells and cell aggregates from the culture medium at very low shear stress, keeping the medium's upward flow at or just below the cells' sedimentation velocity. It is the most-cited record in this dataset, with a closely related WO filing close behind, indicating it shaped a meaningful share of later filings in this space. It is described as useful for plant, mammalian, insect and bacterial cell cultures, so its reach extends beyond plant-specific applications.
The IPC composition shows dense coverage of core plant-genetics classes (C12N, A01H) but comparatively thinner, single-assignee-light activity around specific mechanical solutions such as membrane fouling countermeasures, shear-minimising sedimentation geometries and viable-density-triggered bleed control. These are not unclaimed outright, but the ranked assignee field is short enough that no single competitor has built a dense thicket around them the way the leading filer has around broader plant cell-culture claims.
Of the receiving offices recorded for this dataset, the vast majority of filings entered through Canada, with the US, Israel, Australia, the EPO and Japan each contributing only a handful. That pattern reflects where the dominant assignee and several of the smaller filers in this set chose to file first, rather than indicating that Canada is uniquely central to the underlying science. Readers assessing global freedom to operate should still check other jurisdictions individually, since a low count there is not the same as no risk.
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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.