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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/polymer-additive-manufacturing-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Advanced ManufacturingPolymer additive manufacturing patents: who leads and where filing is headed
- Concentrated but not locked up. the five largest filers hold 44.1% of all 528 records in scope, and the ten largest hold 56.4% — a dense top with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind it.
- Filing has plateaued, not collapsed. activity ran 61 filings in 2021 to 60 in 2024, a -2% shift over that span, after peaking at 83 in 2019 — read the most recent years as still filling in given publication lag.
- Dentistry sits inside the core, not the edge. A61C dentistry and oral hygiene classification appears on 14.4% of records, alongside B33Y additive manufacturing at 58.0% and B29C plastics shaping at 37.3%.
528
Published Records
44%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-2%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (61 records) with 2024 (60) — 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 528 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape draws on 528 published records matching polymer additive manufacturing processes — vat photopolymerization, polymer powder fusion, and related build methods — combined with process-control claims around temperature, tool geometry, material feed, dimensional tolerance, material phase and surface layer. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, though the most recent one to two years understate true filing volume because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The technology composition points to a field anchored in plastics processing and additive build methods, with a meaningful dental and orthodontic sub-cluster and a smaller but persistent powder-metallurgy overlap where polymer and metal powder fusion processes share tooling and process-control claims.
Records by filing year, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 528-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims fall under.
Filing activity, 2017 to 2026
Filings rose from 23 in 2017 to a peak of 83 in 2019, then settled into a lower band; 2021 (61) to 2024 (60) shows a -2% change, effectively flat. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B33Y (additive manufacturing) and B29C (plastics shaping) between them cover the majority of records, at 58.0% and 37.3% of the 528 in scope respectively. C08F and C08G polymer chemistry classes, A61C dentistry, B22F powder metallurgy, B24B grinding/polishing and B29K materials indexing each cover a smaller but non-trivial share; a single record can carry more than one class, so these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 528 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 Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative and most-cited records
Representative filing
Wire anchoring for co-extruded printing (US20250010553A1)
UT-BATTELLE, LLC
Methods and apparatus for embedding metallic wires within polymer structures through co-extrusion printing in large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM). The method covers receiving user input for object and wire regions, performing Boolean operations on the meshes, generating printing paths, and determining an optimized print order, with a cutting tool separating anchors from the finished object.Filed by UT-BATTELLE, LLC, published 2025-01-09 — close to the data cut-off, so its citation record is still forming.
Most-cited records in this landscape
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170007362A1 | Dental materials using thermoset polymers | 252 |
| 2 | US10492888B2 | Dental materials using thermoset polymers | 124 |
| 3 | US10152661B2 | Structurally encoded component and method of manufacturing structurally encoded component | 114 |
| 4 | US10781274B2 | Polymerizable monomers and method of polymerizing the same | 107 |
| 5 | US20210147672A1 | Crystallizable resins | 105 |
| 6 | US20140223583A1 | System, method, and program product for digital production management | 96 |
| 7 | US20170056970A1 | Control of a three-dimensional printing process using estimated thermal parameters | 91 |
| 8 | US20200023584A1 | Fabrication and design of composites with architected layers | 89 |
| 9 | US20170203406A1 | Porous chemical mechanical polishing pads | 88 |
| 10 | WO2017066077A1 | Method and apparatus for forming advanced polishing pads using an additive manufacturing process | 86 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited within this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not a ranking of current importance.
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 Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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 a filing decision
Read alongside the trend and composition data, these patterns point to where claim space is dense, where it has gone quiet, and what still carries weight in citation terms.
Concentration
44.1% / 56.4%
share held by top 5 / top 10 of 528 records
A dense top, a long tail behind it
The five largest filers account for 44.1% of all 528 records, and the ten largest for 56.4%. That leaves a long tail of the remaining 78 ranked assignees each holding a modest slice — room to differentiate exists, but not in the areas the leaders have already staked out.
88 companies ranked in total
Momentum
61 → 60
records, 2021 to 2024 (-2%)
Flat, not falling, filing activity
Filing volume peaked at 83 in 2019 and has since settled into a lower, roughly stable band: 61 records in 2021 against 60 in 2024, a -2% change. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures will keep revising upward and should not yet be read as a further slowdown.
Peak year: 2019, 83 records
Composition
58.0% / 37.3%
B33Y / B29C share of 528 records
Additive build methods dominate, plastics shaping is close behind
B33Y additive manufacturing classification appears on 58.0% of records and B29C plastics shaping on 37.3%, confirming the core of this landscape sits at the intersection of 3D-printing process control and plastics processing rather than pure materials chemistry.
A record can carry multiple IPC classes
Geography
242 / 92 / 80
US / EPO / WIPO filings
Filing is US-centred with a real European and PCT presence
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 242, with the European Patent Office at 92 and WIPO (PCT) at 80 close behind, followed by smaller national office counts in Germany, Canada and Australia — a filing footprint that favours US-first strategies with PCT and EPO follow-on.
Six receiving offices tracked
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 polymer additive manufacturing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The ranked assignee list covers 88 companies across the 528 records in scope. The leader holds 116 records; by fifth place that figure is 17, and by tenth place 12 — a steep drop-off that defines where a newcomer would need to compete rather than lead.
Leader
116 records
records held by the top-ranked assignee
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 116 records, more than six times the fifth-placed filer's count of 17 — a gap that signals a company treating this space as core IP rather than an occasional filing area.
Out of 528 records in scope
Mid-field
17 → 12
records, 5th to 10th place
A tight mid-field behind the leader
From fifth place (17 records) to tenth place (12 records), filing counts compress quickly, indicating a group of active but not dominant players rather than a second clear leader.
Top 10 hold 56.4% of all records combined
Long tail
88 companies
total ranked assignees
Most ranked filers hold only a handful of records
With 88 companies ranked and the top ten already accounting for 56.4% of the 528 records, the remaining assignees each hold small counts — typical of a field still open to focused entrants rather than fully consolidated.
Ranking counted in records, not families beyond the total
Recent filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Align Technology, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | 0 | — |
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
| BIORETEC | 0 | — |
| Local Motors IP, LLC | 0 | — |
| Arevo, Inc. | 0 | — |
| AUTHENTISE | 0 | — |
| The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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 dataset points to a field with a dominant leader, a compressed mid-field, and specific under-claimed process branches. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going deeper on the records that matter to a given roadmap.
Map a specific claim against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 116 of 528 records, checking a planned claim against that portfolio first avoids the densest prior art before searching further.
Explore in Eureka →Track the under-claimed branches as they develop
Thin filing density in areas like embedded-wire co-extrusion or in-process tolerance feedback can close quickly once one filer moves — worth monitoring rather than assuming it stays open.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
The ranked list covers 88 companies across 528 records in scope, and it is concentrated at the top: the five largest filers together hold 44.1% of all records, and the ten largest hold 56.4%. The single leading assignee holds 116 records on its own, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 17. Below the top ten, filing counts drop quickly into a long tail of companies with only a handful of records each, so the field is dominated by a small group rather than evenly spread.
Filing peaked at 83 records in 2019 and has since settled into a lower, largely flat band, with 61 records in 2021 against 60 in 2024 — a -2% change over that span. That is stabilization rather than either strong growth or a real decline. The 2025 and 2026 figures in the underlying data are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the most recent two years will revise upward as more records publish.
Based on IPC classification across the 528 records, additive manufacturing process claims (B33Y) appear on 58.0% of records and plastics shaping claims (B29C) on 37.3%, making these the two dominant classes. Smaller but consistent shares fall under addition and condensation polymer chemistry (C08F, C08G), dentistry and oral hygiene applications (A61C, at 14.4%), powder metallurgy (B22F), and grinding/polishing (B24B). Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares overlap and add up to more than 100%.
The data points to several branches that are proportionally thin relative to the two dominant classes: embedded-wire co-extrusion printing, powder-to-polymer hybrid fusion tooling, in-process dimensional tolerance feedback, dental-specific resin cure kinetics, and large-format print path optimization. These sit adjacent to the dense core additive and plastics-shaping claims rather than replacing them, meaning a first claim there would need to specifically differentiate its process-control mechanism rather than restate the base build method. A freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignee's 116 records is a sensible first filter before drafting.
Patent applications are typically published around 18 months after they are filed, so the most recent one to two years in any filing trend will always show fewer records than were actually filed. In this dataset, 2026 shows only 3 records so far, but that reflects publication lag rather than an actual drop in filing activity. Any comparison of growth or decline should stop at the last complete year — here, 2024 — rather than drawing conclusions from 2025 or 2026 figures.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Polymer Additive Manufacturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.