Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2018. the peak year for new families, with the 2022 midpoint already below it and later years falling further, before the usual publication lag is even accounted for.
- One 1980s patent still anchors the field. US4693935A on polysiloxane-grafted PSA compositions carries far more citations than any other record in the set, a sign of how much current work still traces back to it.
- Momentum has gone quiet at the top. several of the most active historical filers show zero or sharply negative year-on-year activity in the latest tracked year, even as the overall corpus stays large.
What the pressure sensitive adhesive patent corpus actually covers
The dataset tracks 5,850 patent families filed against pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) tape and coating technology, drawn from claims and description text referencing tack, peel adhesion, shear holding power, removability and coating weight, and classified under the core adhesive, addition-polymer and layered-product IPC groups. Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with C09J (Adhesives) present in nearly the entire corpus and C08F (addition polymers) and B32B (layered products) forming the next-largest technical layers beneath it.
Filing offices skew toward the United States and Europe, with WIPO PCT filings a distant third and Australia, Canada and Japan trailing behind. That distribution points to a field where protection strategy still concentrates on the two largest end markets rather than broad multi-jurisdiction filing, which matters when assessing freedom-to-operate outside those two regions.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Annual filing counts and the IPC breakdown together show a field that grew into a 2018 peak and has been giving that ground back since, while the underlying chemistry mix has stayed anchored in core adhesive and addition-polymer classes.
A 2018 peak followed by a steady decline
Filings rose from 153 in 2017 to a peak of 172 in 2018, then eased toward 117 at the 2022 midpoint and down to single digits by the final tracked year. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years understate true activity, but the multi-year direction from peak to midpoint is a genuine decline, not an artefact of the cut-off.
Concentration in C09J with meaningful cross-filing into polymer and laminate classes
C09J covers 5,756 of the 5,850 families, confirming that nearly every record is squarely an adhesive-composition claim rather than an adjacent use. C08F (1,302), B32B (1,112) and C08L (935) show that a large share of filers also stake claims in the underlying polymer chemistry or the laminate structure the adhesive is coated onto, while smaller classes like A61L (404, sterilising/disinfecting) and G09F (299, signage/display) mark narrower application niches layered on top of the core chemistry.
Shares are the percentage of the 5,850 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Pressure Sensitive Adhesives with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about pressure sensitive adhesives and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records set the boundaries current claims are drafted against
Acrylic pressure sensitive adhesive composition and pressure sensitive adhesive tape (US20050209380A1, Nitto Denko)
The filing claims an acrylic pressure sensitive adhesive built from a (meth)acrylic acid alkyl ester copolymerised with a carboxyl-containing unsaturated monomer, combined with at least four kinds of natural-product-based tackifier resins, aimed at improving both adhesive performance and removability.Abstract text is quoted directly from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4693935A | Polysiloxane-grafted copolymer pressure sensitive adhesive composition and sheet materials coated therewith | 1,039 |
| 2 | US6569521B1 | Stretch releasing pressure sensitive adhesive tape and articles | 604 |
| 3 | US4112213A | Pressure sensitive adhesive tapes and method of making same | 584 |
| 4 | US5082706A | Pressure sensitive adhesive/release liner laminate | 573 |
| 5 | JP1985196956A | Adhesive metal sheet for fixing semiconductor wafer | 505 |
| 6 | US3620366A | Wallpaper | 447 |
| 7 | US4981903A | Polysiloxane-grafter copolymer topical binder composition with novel hydrophilic monomers and method of coati… | 346 |
| 8 | US20060100299A1 | Transformable pressure sensitive adhesive tape and use thereof in display screens | 306 |
| 9 | US5209971A | Radiation curable polyolefin pressure sensitive adhesive | 287 |
| 10 | US5851664A | Semiconductor wafer processing adhesives and tapes | 280 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and are skewed toward older filings; a low count on a recent family does not mean it is unimportant.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Four figures from the dataset frame the current state of PSA patenting: a filing peak already behind us, one dominant legacy citation anchor, a jurisdiction bias, and a small set of strong co-filing relationships.
Volume has been declining since 2018
The corpus peaked at 172 families in 2018 and had already fallen to 117 by the 2022 midpoint, well before the recent-year publication lag comes into play. A field this large declining in volume signals occupied claim space rather than a technology past its useful life.
One 1980s composition patent still dominates influence
US4693935A is cited more than 400 times as often as the next entries in the ranking approach, showing how much of the field's foundational chemistry still traces back to a single composition family from the 1980s.
Protection concentrates in two markets
The United States and the European Patent Office each receive well over 1,400 filings, with WIPO PCT, Australia, Canada and Japan all trailing meaningfully behind, indicating that most filers prioritise the two largest end markets over broad global coverage.
Co-assignee activity is thin outside a few pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the whole corpus, and one pairing accounts for the great majority of shared filings, meaning most PSA patenting in this dataset is done by single assignees rather than joint ventures or research partnerships.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to pressure sensitive adhesives, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where activity has gone quiet
The assignee ranking is dominated by a handful of large adhesive and materials companies, but recent-year momentum data shows that several of the most historically active filers have slowed to a near-standstill, opening room for newer entrants to stake out ground that legacy filers are no longer actively defending.
Even the most active recent filer is pulling back
3M's innovation arm still shows the most latest-year activity of any tracked assignee at 3 families, but that is down 25% year-on-year, suggesting even the field's most persistent filer is easing off new PSA composition claims.
Several historical leaders show zero recent filings
Avery Dennison, Rohm and Haas, Dow Silicones and Tesa all register zero families in the latest tracked year, with some showing a full year-on-year drop to zero. That does not necessarily mean exit from the space, but it does mean their most recent claim positions are not visible in this window.
The strongest partnership sits inside one corporate family
The largest co-assignee pair links Rohm and Haas and Dow, entities that share corporate ownership, which explains the scale of the pairing relative to the next-strongest ones in the ranking.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| 3M Innovative Properties Company | 3 | -25% |
| 3M Company | 0 | — |
| Avery Dennison Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Rohm and Haas Company | 0 | — |
| Dow Silicones Corporation | 0 | — |
| Tesa SE | 0 | -100% |
| Lintec Corporation | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation patterns above raise questions that are best worked through against the full claim text and family history rather than summary counts alone.
Map claims against the cited anchor patents
Run a claim-by-claim comparison against the most-cited records, starting with the polysiloxane-grafted composition family, to see exactly which elements are already occupied and which are open for a new filing.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the assignees that have gone quiet
Zero-filing years do not confirm exit from the field; pull the full family history for the affected assignees to check for continuations, licensing moves or a shift to trade secret protection.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTest white space claim language
Draft a first claim around one of the under-claimed sub-areas and search it against the full corpus to confirm the gap holds before committing drafting time.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on the PSA patent landscape
The corpus is dominated by a small group of large adhesive and materials manufacturers with long-standing filing programmes, rather than a single runaway leader. Historical filing volume is concentrated among a handful of established names, but recent-year momentum data shows several of them at zero or sharply negative year-on-year activity, so current filing volume leadership is not the same as historical filing volume leadership. Anyone assessing ownership should look at both the cumulative ranking and the latest-year momentum figures together.
No. Filings peaked at 172 in 2018 and had already fallen to 117 by the 2022 midpoint, and continued lower toward the end of the tracked window. Some of that late-window drop is the normal publication lag, since filings typically take around 18 months to appear in the record, but the decline from the 2018 peak through the 2022 midpoint predates that lag and reflects a genuine slowdown in new filing activity.
US4693935A covers a polysiloxane-grafted copolymer pressure sensitive adhesive composition and sheet materials coated with it, and it is cited far more heavily than any other record in this corpus. That level of citation concentration means a large share of later silicone-based PSA composition work has had to draft around or build on its claims, making it a standard reference point for freedom-to-operate review in this chemistry. New filings touching polysiloxane-grafted PSA chemistry should assume examiners and competitors will raise it.
The smaller IPC classes in this dataset, such as sterilising and disinfecting overlap (A61L), condensation-polymer PSA backbones (C08G), and signage or display-mount applications (G09F), carry far fewer families than the core C09J and C08F classes. That imbalance suggests claim space in those adjacent applications is less densely occupied than in mainstream acrylic and silicone PSA chemistry, though a targeted prior-art search is still needed before relying on any specific gap.
The United States and the European Patent Office lead by a wide margin, with 1,513 and 1,435 filings respectively, followed at a distance by WIPO PCT applications and then Australia, Canada and Japan. This distribution indicates that most applicants prioritise protection in the two largest end markets rather than pursuing broad multi-jurisdiction coverage, which is a relevant consideration when evaluating freedom-to-operate risk outside the US and Europe.
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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.