Flexible Moisture-Barrier Encapsulation Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- A long tail behind a single leader. 19 ranked assignees cover the field, with the leader at 10 filings and the fifth-place holder already down to 5 — most of the ranking holds single-digit counts.
- Filing activity peaked in 2022 at 16 records, then fell sharply; the tracked 2021→2024 window shows a -100% change, though 2025–2026 counts are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates.
- Claims cluster in semiconductor devices and coatings, with H01L at 37.5% of the 48 records in scope and C23C/A61B each at 27.1% — organic semiconductor and polymer-processing classes sit well below that.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 48 published records at the intersection of moisture-barrier and thin-film encapsulation techniques and printed, flexible or stretchable electronics substrates, filed or published between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off. The scope pulls together barrier film chemistry, coating deposition processes and the device classes — implantable sensors, OLED lighting, wearable and stretchable circuits — that depend on those barriers to survive in use. Patent families, not raw document counts, are the fairer unit for judging how concentrated this space really is.
Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend line will always look thinner than the true filing rate. Read the 2022 peak and the subsequent fall together with that lag in mind, and treat 2025–2026 as provisional rather than a genuine slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 48-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 16 in 2022, then declined; the 2021-to-2024 window the dataset tracks moved from 5 to 0, a -100% change over that span. Because 2025 and 2026 filings are still being published, this fall should not be read as the field going quiet — only as the visible portion of a lagging dataset.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) touches 37.5% of the 48 records, the single largest class. A61B (diagnosis & surgery) and C23C (coating & surface deposition) each sit at 27.1%, followed by A61N (electrotherapy) at 25.0% and B05D (coating processes) at 22.9%. H10K (organic semiconductors), B32B (laminates) and C08J (polymer processing) trail at 14.6%, 12.5% and 10.4% respectively — since records can carry multiple classes, these figures sum to well over 100% and should be read against the 48-record total, not against each other as a closed pie.
Shares are the percentage of the 48 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Encapsulated flexible electronics for long-term implantation (US20200022601A1)
Provided are methods of making a long-term implantable electronic device, and related implantable devices, including by providing a substrate having a first encapsulation layer that covers at least a portion of the substrate, the first encapsulation layer having a receiving surface; providing one or more electronic devices on the first encapsulation layer receiving surface; and removing at least a portion of the substrate from the first encapsulation layer, thereby making the long-term implantable electronic device.Filed by The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois; published 2020-01-23; the most-cited record in this corpus at 50 citations.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200022601A1 | Encapsulated flexible electronics for long-term implantation | 50 |
| 2 | US20190376650A1 | High-yield low-cost large-area flexible OLED lighting module | 48 |
| 3 | WO2011163556A2 | Conductive polymer on a textured or plastic substrate | 40 |
| 4 | US20230211076A1 | Compressible, minimally invasive implants and relatedsystems and methods | 17 |
| 5 | US20170239686A1 | A process for preparation of a composite layer or a laminate, and product obtained therewith | 15 |
| 6 | WO2016001213A1 | A process for preparation of a composite layer or a laminate, and product obtained therewith | 7 |
| 7 | US11517238B2 | Encapsulated flexible electronics for long-term implantation | 6 |
| 8 | US20140158991A1 | Sealed organic opto-electronic devices and related methods of manufacturing | 5 |
| 9 | CA3184890A1 | Compressible, minimally invasive implants and related systems and methods | 3 |
| 10 | US20230245913A1 | Techniques for fabricating and separating flexible microelectronics devices from rigid substrates | 2 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — treat this as a signal of influence within the field, not a ranking of current importance.
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Three patterns stand out once filing trend, technology mix and citation weight are read together.
A single leader, then a fast drop-off
The ranked leader holds 10 filings; by fifth place that has already fallen to 5, and the tenth-ranked assignee sits at 3. With 19 companies covering the ranking, most of the field holds only a handful of filings each — this reads as an open competitive field rather than a locked one.
Semiconductor-device claims dominate, coatings are close behind
H01L is the single largest class touched, but C23C coating/surface deposition and A61B diagnosis & surgery each sit at 27.1% of the 48 records — the corpus is as much about deposition process and device application as about the semiconductor structures themselves.
A sharp fall after the 2022 peak, read with caution
Filings peaked at 16 in 2022 before the tracked 2021-to-2024 window shows a full -100% decline. Because publication lags filing by around eighteen months, 2025 and 2026 counts are not yet complete and should not be read as evidence the field has gone cold.
Collaboration exists but is thin
Only 8 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest of them links two university research groups rather than a company partnership — most filings in this space are still solo efforts.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to printed & flexible electronics — flexible moisture-barrier encapsulation patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Northwestern University | The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois | 5 |
| WEBER | WEBER TAIYO | 2 |
| WEBER | PAUL WEBER | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | ROWEHL JILL A | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | GLEASON KAREN K | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | BULOVIC VLADIMIR | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | BARR MILES C | 2 |
| PAUL WEBER | TAIYO WEBER | 1 |
University-to-university collaboration outweighs company-to-company collaboration in this corpus, which fits a field still anchored partly in implantable-device research rather than purely commercial barrier-film production.
Who is filing, and what is still open
The assignee ranking spans 19 companies and research institutions, from a single leader at 10 filings down to a long tail of single- and double-digit filers. Recent-year momentum figures show the leading names essentially flat or down to zero in the latest tracked year — consistent with the corpus-wide fall, not a sign any one player has pulled ahead recently.
A modest lead, not a dominant one
The top-ranked assignee holds 10 filings against a field of 19 ranked companies — a real lead, but far from the kind of concentration that would make this space closed to new entrants.
Academic groups anchor the citation-heavy filings
University research groups, including the team behind the most-cited record in this corpus, show up both in the assignee ranking and in the strongest co-assignee pairing — a signal that foundational implantable-encapsulation IP still sits partly outside corporate ownership.
Most of the ranking is single-digit
By the tenth position the count has already dropped to 3 filings, and the ranking runs to 19 companies total — most participants hold only a few records each, which points to a field still being staked out rather than owned.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Knowfort Holding BV | 0 | — |
| WEBER | 0 | -100% |
| Omniply Tech Inc | 0 | — |
| Northwestern University | 0 | -100% |
| The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois | 0 | -100% |
| Beijing Summer Sprout Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to an open field with a thin leadership margin and a fall in visible recent-year filings that is at least partly a publication-lag artefact. Two directions make sense from here.
Watch the 2025–2026 catch-up
Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the true 2024–2026 filing rate will only become visible over the next reporting cycles. Re-checking this trend line in six to twelve months will separate a real slowdown from a lag artefact.
Track filing trends in EurekaMap claim language in the under-claimed branches
The gaps in roll-to-roll coating processes, stretchable laminates and low-temperature deposition are visible at the IPC level but need claim-by-claim reading to confirm they are genuinely open rather than covered by broader upstream claims.
Search claim language in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 19 companies and research institutions, with the top-ranked filer holding 10 records and the fifth-ranked holder already down to 5. That is a real but modest lead — not the kind of concentration seen in fields with one or two dominant players. University research groups, notably the team behind the most-cited implantable-encapsulation filing, appear alongside corporate filers in the ranking, which is unusual for a packaging-adjacent technology and reflects how much of this IP originated in implantable-device research.
The visible data shows a peak of 16 filings in 2022 followed by a sharp fall, with the tracked 2021-to-2024 window showing a -100% change. However, publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as proof the field has gone quiet. The safest complete read is through 2024; anything drawn from 2025–2026 counts will understate true activity.
Semiconductor device claims under H01L are the largest single class, touching 37.5% of the 48 records in scope. Coating and surface deposition claims (C23C) and diagnosis-and-surgery device claims (A61B) each sit at 27.1%, with electrotherapy device claims (A61N) close behind at 25.0%. Because a single patent can carry several IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, and they reflect that this corpus spans both the barrier materials themselves and the medical or display devices they protect.
US20200022601A1, assigned to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and published 2020-01-23, claims a method of building a long-term implantable device by forming a first encapsulation layer on a substrate, placing electronic components on that layer's receiving surface, and then removing the substrate. It is the most-cited record in this corpus at 50 citations, which signals strong influence on later filings in implantable flexible electronics specifically. It does not on its own block barrier work outside implantable devices — its claim scope is tied to the substrate-removal method for implantable constructions, so encapsulation approaches for non-implantable flexible electronics sit outside its direct reach.
The IPC composition points to several classes sitting well below the leading H01L and C23C shares — organic semiconductor encapsulation (H10K) at 14.6% and polymer-solution barrier formulations (C08J) at 10.4% of the 48 records are the clearest candidates. Roll-to-roll coating processes for flexible OLED and low-temperature deposition methods compatible with plastic substrates also show comparatively thin claim density in this dataset. Confirming any of these as genuinely open requires reading the actual claim language of the nearby filings, since IPC class share alone only shows where filing density is thin, not where claims are absent.
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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.
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