Protein Chromatography Column Packing Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 25.7% of all 1,876 records sit with just five assignees — concentrated enough that a newcomer's freedom-to-operate review starts with a short list, not a long one.
- Filing peaked in 2020 at 106 and the 2021→2024 complete-year span shows a -35% pull-back (63 to 41), a real cooling rather than a data artifact.
- C07K and B01D dominate composition at 72.9% and 46.6% of records respectively, while therapeutic-activity framing (A61P) touches only 7.8% — a gap worth checking before assuming it's occupied.
Filing growth compares 2021 (63 records) with 2024 (41) — 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 1,876 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Protein chromatography column packing sits at the intersection of separation engineering and biologics purification: claims here cover bed height, packing pressure, bed uniformity, plate number and flow distribution as applied to protein A affinity chromatography and related chromatographic purification steps. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawing on 1,876 published records across the classes tied to separation apparatus (B01D15/08), protein/peptide chemistry (C07K1/16) and enzyme/microorganism processing (C12N9/00).
Filing activity in this set is driven by biologics manufacturers protecting downstream purification steps rather than by chromatography hardware makers alone, which shows up in the heavy overlap between separation-process classes and peptide/protein classes rather than a single dominant IPC code.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the final one or two years in any chart will always look thinner than they will eventually be. Read the trend and the composition chart together: one shows momentum, the other shows where claim density actually sits.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 87 in 2017 to a peak of 106 in 2020, then eased through the complete-year window to 41 in 2024 — a -35% move from 2021's 63 filings. The final years in the chart (2025-2026) are still filling in under publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C07K (peptides & proteins) touches 72.9% of the 1,876 records and B01D (separation processes) 46.6%, confirming that most filings frame the invention as a purification or protein-handling step rather than a standalone apparatus claim. G01N (material analysis, 29.5%) and C12N (microorganisms/genetic engineering, 26.5%) show the analytical and upstream-biology adjacencies that recur alongside the core packing claims. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to well over 100% of the record total and should not be summed.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,876 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Protein Chromatography Column Packing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about protein chromatography column packing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this set
CA2995385A1 — Purification of FKBP-type peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase (FkpA) and its use in recombinant polypeptide production
Filed by Genentech, this record describes methods for producing FkpA polypeptides at very high purity levels and for purifying polypeptides — including multispecific antibodies — made in bacteria that overexpress one or more chaperones. The claimed methods combine affinity chromatography with mixed-mode and hydrophobic interaction chromatography steps.Abstract text taken directly from the published filing.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5795469A | High performance liquid chromatography method and apparatus | 426 |
| 2 | US5968367A | High performance liquid chromatography method and apparatus | 414 |
| 3 | WO1999040188A2 | Tumor-associated antigen derivatives from the MAGE family, and nucleic acid sequences encoding them, used for… | 367 |
| 4 | US6576134B1 | Method for displacement chromatography | 322 |
| 5 | US6602990B1 | Process for the production of a porous cross-linked polysaccharide gel and its use as a gel filtration media … | 309 |
| 6 | US7396467B2 | Method of preparing a chromatography matrix | 148 |
| 7 | US6344172B1 | Protein chromatography system | 147 |
| 8 | US20040082047A1 | Protein purification | 137 |
| 9 | WO1997017132A1 | Adsorption method and separation medium | 125 |
| 10 | US20160024147A1 | Purification Platform for Bispecific Antibodies | 121 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they've had longer to accumulate citations inside a searched corpus — treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not a ranking of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing decisions
Three patterns matter more than any single ranking: where filings concentrate, how fast the field is still moving, and which jurisdictions actually see the volume.
The top of the field is tight
Five assignees hold a quarter of all records in scope, and the top ten combined reach 39.4% of the 1,876 records. For a newcomer, that means a freedom-to-operate check on a handful of portfolios covers a meaningful share of the crowded ground before touching the long tail.
Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak
Activity peaked at 106 filings in 2020 and had fallen to 41 by 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete under publication lag. That's a real pull-back in new filing rather than researchers moving to trade secret — the earlier peak suggests the core packing-parameter claims were staked out quickly.
US and EPO carry the bulk of filings
The United States (417) and the European Patent Office (342) lead receiving-office volume, with Israel (179), WIPO/PCT (167), Canada (140) and Australia (127) following. That spread points to biologics manufacturers filing where regulatory approval and commercial biomanufacturing capacity already concentrate.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to protein chromatography column packing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where the openings are
The ranked list runs 100 assignees deep, from a clear leader to a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum matters as much as raw totals: several of the largest historical filers show no activity in the latest year, which either reflects publication lag on the most recent filings or a genuine pause in new claim-staking.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's 193 records sit far above fifth place (63) and tenth place (45), a steep drop-off that says the leader built a wide portfolio early rather than the field growing evenly. That gap is worth mapping claim-by-claim before assuming the leader's coverage is uniform across bed-height, pressure and flow-distribution sub-claims.
Most of the field files rarely
Beyond the leaders, the ranking runs to a hundred assignees, many with only a handful of records each. That long tail includes hardware specialists and single-product biologics firms whose filings cluster tightly around one process step rather than a broad platform claim.
Co-filing is limited and mostly bilateral
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairing recurs across several filings rather than being a one-off. That pattern points to individual inventor-company relationships rather than broad industry consortia driving joint IP in this space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG | 0 | — |
| EMD Millipore Corp. | 0 | — |
| UCB Biopharma SPRL | 0 | -100% |
| Genentech, Inc. | 0 | — |
| GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences AB (Sweden) | 0 | — |
| Upfront Chromatography A/S | 0 | — |
| GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
This page is a starting map, not a clearance opinion. Two directions make sense depending on what decision you're making.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leaders
Start with the top five assignees, who together hold 25.7% of the 1,876 records in scope, and pull their claims against your specific bed-height, pressure and flow-distribution parameters rather than the field as a whole.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest the white-space branches before filing
The under-claimed sub-areas flagged above are candidates, not guarantees — verify current claim density against the latest filings before drafting around them.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset's leading assignee holds 193 records, well ahead of fifth place at 63 and tenth place at 45. The top five assignees combined hold 25.7% of all 1,876 records in scope, and the top ten reach 39.4%. That said, the ranking runs 100 assignees deep, so beyond the leaders there is a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, and the leader's edge is not evenly spread across every sub-claim area like bed uniformity or flow distribution.
No — filings peaked at 106 in 2020 and, over the last span that can be treated as complete under publication lag, fell from 63 in 2021 to 41 in 2024, a -35% change. The most recent one to two years in any chart understate true activity because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those years should not be read as confirming a continued decline. Taken together, the pattern is a real cooling from an early-2020s peak rather than an ongoing collapse.
C07K (peptides and proteins) appears in 72.9% of the 1,876 records and B01D (separation processes) in 46.6%, making these the two dominant frames for claims in this space. G01N (material analysis and testing) at 29.5% and C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) at 26.5% show up as recurring adjacencies, usually tied to upstream biology or in-process testing steps. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these percentages overlap and should not be added together to estimate total coverage.
CA2995385A1, filed by Genentech, covers methods for producing high-purity FkpA polypeptides and for purifying polypeptides — including multispecific antibodies — made in chaperone-overexpressing bacteria, using a combination of affinity, mixed-mode and hydrophobic interaction chromatography. It is a process-and-purity claim tied to a specific chaperone-removal use case rather than a broad claim over column packing parameters generally. Anyone working on FkpA-related purification or similar multi-step chromatography combinations for chaperone removal should review its specific claim language, but it does not appear to reach general bed-height or packing-pressure claims outside that context.
The technology composition shows A61P (therapeutic activity of compounds) touching only 7.8% of the 1,876 records, well below the 20-70% range seen for the core process classes — suggesting claims tying specific packing parameters to therapeutic outcomes are thinner on the ground. Co-assignee collaboration is also limited to just 10 pairs in the dataset, pointing to individual partnerships rather than broad consortium filing, which leaves room for new collaborative claim strategies. Any white-space read should be verified against current filings before drafting, since density can shift quickly in an active field like this one.
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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.