PPS Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled, not grown. activity peaked at 67 families in 2018 and has declined since, with the latest full year sitting well below the 2022 midpoint of 58.
- Japan dominates the filing map. 1,093 of the tracked records were filed at the Japanese office, more than double the EPO and US totals combined.
- Composition claims crowd out processing claims. C08L polymer-composition filings (2,019 records) outnumber B29C shaping/processing filings (294) by nearly 7 to 1.
Filing growth compares 2021 (50 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 2,338 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the PPS patent record actually shows
Polyphenylene sulfide is a high-performance engineering resin whose patent activity concentrates on three practical problems: making it tough enough not to shatter, resistant enough to survive automotive fuel and chemical exposure, and reinforced enough to hold structural loads. The search corpus behind this page pulls together 2,338 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026 under IPC classes covering condensation polymers (C08G), polymer compositions (C08L) and polymer additives (C08K), filtered to documents whose title or claims explicitly reference melt viscosity, chemical resistance, glass fiber reinforcement, crystallization or curing.
The filing curve is not a growth story. Activity rose to a peak in 2018, held roughly flat through the early 2020s, and has fallen off since — a pattern more consistent with a mature, already-claimed material than an emerging one. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year understates true filing volume, but the multi-year decline predates that lag effect.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,338-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how the claim space splits across IPC subclasses.
A peak-then-decline filing curve
Filings rose from 52 in 2017 to a peak of 67 in 2018, held near that level through the 2022 midpoint of 58, and have since fallen to 8 in the latest (partial) year — a trajectory consistent with a resin whose core composition claims were staked out early.
Composition and additive claims dominate
C08L (polymer compositions) appears in 2,019 records and C08K (additives) in 1,151 — together indicating that most inventive activity sits in formulation rather than in shaping or processing, where B29C accounts for only 294 records.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,338 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS) Technology with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about polyphenylene sulfide (pps) technology and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe documents setting the boundaries
US5237022A — Process for preparing polyphenylene sulfide resins
Brittleness of polyphenylene sulfide resins is significantly reduced and contrariwise toughness thereof is remarkably enhanced by a two-stage process which comprises the steps of subjecting a polyphenylene sulfide resin as synthesized to a thermal treatment under an inert atmosphere at a temperature above 200 degrees C so as to give a substantially linearly grown polyphenylene sulfide resin having an increased melt viscosity of not less than 800 poises, and then curing the substantially linear resin by heating it under an oxidative atmosphere at a temperature above 200 degrees C so as to produce a polyphenylene sulfide resin having a still more increased melt viscosity.Filed by Tosoh Corporation, granted 1993.
View full record →| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6505866B1 | Pipe joint | 105 |
| 2 | JP1998138372A | Multilayer fuel tube | 97 |
| 3 | US7115677B2 | Flame-retardant resin composition | 92 |
| 4 | US4528346A | Resin composition | 92 |
| 5 | US9422451B2 | Low density fuel resistant sulfur-containing polymer compositions and uses thereof | 86 |
| 6 | US20040254270A1 | Flame-retardant resin composition | 84 |
| 7 | US5789083A | Aqueous fluoropolymer primer for smooth substrates | 83 |
| 8 | US5131827A | Fiber- and whisker-reinforced injection moldable resin composition for scroll compressor parts and method of … | 82 |
| 9 | JP2009030030A | Polyphenylene sulfide resin composition and molding made therefrom | 80 |
| 10 | US6149840A | Electrically conductive polymeric materials and use thereof | 77 |
Citation counts favour older documents in any searched corpus; treat this table as a map of foundational influence, not of current filing activity.
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
Three read-outs from the trend, the IPC split and the citation table that matter more for strategy than the raw counts alone.
The core composition art was staked out early
Filing peaked in 2018 and has declined in every subsequent period, including through the flat 2022 midpoint. That shape usually means the foundational composition and curing claims were filed and granted years ago, and later entrants are filing narrower improvement claims around the edges rather than opening new ground.
Japan is the primary battleground, not a secondary market
Nearly half of all tracked filings went through the Japanese receiving office, more than the EPO, US, China and Canada combined. Any freedom-to-operate check that skips a Japanese prior-art search on PPS is checking less than half the relevant record.
Formulation is crowded; processing equipment is comparatively open
Composition and additive classes (C08L, C08K) carry the bulk of filings, while shaping and processing (B29C) and layered products (B32B) are thinner. That asymmetry is a filing signal: process and tooling claims around PPS parts face less dense prior art than resin-formulation claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to polyphenylene sulfide (pps) technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Tosoh Corporation | Tosoh Susteel Co., Ltd. | 86 |
| Asahi Kasei Corporation | Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. | 29 |
| Tosoh Corporation | Hodogaya Chemical Co., Ltd. | 21 |
| Tosoh Corporation | Toyo Soda Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 15 |
| Kureha Corporation | Polyplastics Co., Ltd. | 11 |
| Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. | Mitsui Petrochemical Industries, Ltd. | 7 |
| Toray Industries, Inc. | Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. | 6 |
| DIC Corporation | Olyzon Electric Co., Ltd. | 6 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest single pair recurs 86 times — co-development in PPS is the exception, most families are filed by a single assignee.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
Recent-year momentum tells a different story from the historical ranking: several of the assignees with the deepest historical portfolios show zero filings in the latest tracked year.
Established portfolios have gone quiet
Toray and Asahi Kasei both show a -100% year-on-year change with zero filings in the latest tracked year, alongside other long-standing assignees such as DIC, Tosoh and Mitsui Chemicals also recording zero recent filings. That does not mean these companies have exited PPS — publication lag means the most recent year is always undercounted — but it does mean their public claim activity has stalled for now.
One partnership dominates joint filings
The Tosoh Corporation / Tosoh Susteel pairing appears 86 times, far ahead of the next-strongest pairs. This concentration suggests a structured internal or affiliate filing relationship rather than an open industry collaboration pattern.
A long tail beneath a handful of repeat filers
The assignee ranking spans the full 2,338-family set, with automotive-adjacent names such as Denso, Koito and Toyota Gosei appearing alongside the dedicated resin producers — a sign that PPS claim activity is shaped as much by end-use component makers as by the material suppliers themselves.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Toray Industries, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| DIC Corporation | 0 | — |
| Tosoh Corporation | 0 | — |
| Tosoh Susteel Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Asahi Kasei Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Kureha Corporation | 0 | — |
| Polyplastics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and ranking answer who has filed and where the claim density sits. The next questions are specific to a given product or process and need a closer read of individual claims.
Check freedom-to-operate against the Japanese filing base
With nearly half of all records filed in Japan, a US- or Europe-only prior-art search will miss the majority of the relevant claim history for any new PPS composition or curing process.
Run a claim search in Eureka →Map the under-claimed processing branches
B29C shaping and B32B laminate claims are thinner than composition claims — worth a focused search before committing to a processing-route patent strategy.
Explore white space in Eureka →Common questions about PPS patent activity
No, not on the current evidence. Filings peaked in 2018 at 67 families and have declined since, including through a flat 2022 midpoint of 58, down to just 8 in the most recent tracked year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year is always undercounted, but the multi-year downward trend predates that lag effect and points to a maturing, already-claimed material rather than an expanding one.
The historical ranking is led by established Japanese chemical producers including Toray, DIC, Tosoh, Asahi Kasei and Mitsui Chemicals, alongside specialty players such as Kureha and Polyplastics. Several of these same companies show zero filings in the latest tracked year, so historical leadership in family count does not necessarily mean current filing momentum — the two need to be checked separately.
Japan is by far the largest receiving office in this dataset, with 1,093 of 2,338 tracked records, more than double the combined total for Europe (418) and the United States (323). China (206), the WIPO PCT route (80) and Canada (53) make up the remainder. Any competitive or freedom-to-operate review of PPS technology that does not include Japanese-language prior art is checking less than half of the relevant filing record.
The IPC breakdown shows composition and additive claims (C08L, C08K) are far denser than shaping, laminate and cable-insulation claims (B29C, B32B, H01B). Specific under-claimed areas visible in this data include multilayer fuel-tube laminate structures, glass-fiber/PPS interface bonding for connector applications, and cured-resin melt-viscosity control processes. These are narrower processing and application-specific branches rather than core resin composition, which is comparatively saturated.
US5237022A, assigned to Tosoh Corporation and granted in 1993, claims a two-stage thermal treatment process — an inert-atmosphere heat treatment followed by oxidative-atmosphere curing — that raises PPS melt viscosity in a controlled, staged way to improve toughness. It is a process patent on how the resin is cured, not a composition-of-matter patent, so it constrains particular curing sequences and viscosity targets rather than PPS chemistry generally. Given its age, its direct term has very likely expired, but it remains useful as a reference point for how the curing-process claim space was originally staked out.
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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.