Pulp & Papermaking Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 27.4% sits with five filers. The top five assignees combined account for 1,980 of the 7,238 records in scope — concentrated at the top, with a long tail of single-digit filers behind them.
- Filings cooled through the early 2020s. From 2021 to 2024, the last fully-published year, filings fell from 217 to 120 — a 45% drop across three years.
- Pulp and paper compositions dominate the claim space. D21H accounts for 40.6% of all 7,238 records, more than three times the share of the next largest class, D04H nonwovens and felts.
Filing growth compares 2021 (217 records) with 2024 (120) — 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 7,238 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape draws on 7,238 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, searched against fiber pulp and web-formation terminology combined with structural markers such as fiber diameter, tensile strength, fiber bonding and surface treatment. The scope spans core papermaking machinery and pulp chemistry alongside adjacent nonwoven, laminate and absorbent-structure applications that share the same underlying fiber-web science. Patent families, rather than raw document counts, are the fairer unit for judging real filing activity because they neutralise continuation practice and multi-jurisdiction duplication.
Coverage runs through 2026, but publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend chart will always understate actual filing activity until later data catches up.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 7,238-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how those records split across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 254 in 2017 to a peak of 281 in 2019, then eased through the early 2020s; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a 45% decline from 217 to 120 filings, the last year with reasonably complete publication data. Years after 2024 are still filling in and should not be read as a continuation of that decline.
IPC subclass composition
D21H (pulp and paper compositions) covers 40.6% of the 7,238 records, well ahead of D04H nonwovens (12.0%), D21F papermaking machines (9.9%) and D21C pulp production (9.5%). Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read as claim density per class, not as a partition of the whole field.
Shares are the percentage of the 7,238 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Pulp & Papermaking Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about pulp & papermaking patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and the most-cited prior art
US20070163736A1 — Multi-layer web formation section (Valmet Technologies)
The filing describes a multi-layer web formation section built from two successive wire units sharing a common wire. A first headbox supplies fiber pulp to the first wire unit forming a partial web; a second headbox adds a new pulp layer at the second wire unit, on top of the first web. A non-pulsating dewatering zone with a curved, perforated formation shoe sits at the forward end of the two-wire stretch.Abstract text is drawn directly from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5284703A | High pulp content nonwoven composite fabric | 1,342 |
| 2 | US6615840B1 | Electrical smoking system and method | 661 |
| 3 | US5059654A | Affinity matrices of modified polysaccharide supports | 486 |
| 4 | US6688313B2 | Electrical smoking system and method | 476 |
| 5 | US6362389B1 | Elastic absorbent structures | 454 |
| 6 | US5389202A | Process for making a high pulp content nonwoven composite fabric | 422 |
| 7 | US6183596B1 | Super microfibrillated cellulose, process for producing the same, and coated paper and tinted paper using the… | 406 |
| 8 | US5432000A | Binder coated discontinuous fibers with adhered particulate materials | 403 |
| 9 | US4594130A | Pulping of lignocellulose with aqueous alcohol and alkaline earth metal salt catalyst | 363 |
| 10 | US5303720A | Smoking article with improved insulating material | 340 |
Citation counts reward older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the filing and citation data are read together: concentration at the top, a compositions-heavy claim map, and cooling filing activity among the largest historical filers.
Filing activity is concentrated but not locked
The top five assignees combined hold 27.4% of all records, and the top ten hold 34.5% — meaningful concentration, but well short of dominance. The tenth-ranked assignee holds only 94 records against the leader's 1,302, meaning most of the ranked field is a long tail of smaller filers.
Pulp and paper compositions is the densest claim space
D21H claims cover four in ten records in this dataset, more than three times the share of the next-largest class. New entrants filing compositions claims here are working against the thickest prior art in the field; adjacent classes such as A61F implants (6.1%) and C12N microorganisms (5.5%) carry comparatively less claim density.
Filing volume from established leaders is easing
Several of the largest historical assignees show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest published year, and overall filings fell 45% from 217 in 2021 to 120 in 2024. Whether this reflects a genuine slowdown or simply publication lag will not be clear until 2025-2026 data is more complete.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to pulp & papermaking patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | Dow Corning Corporation | 54 |
| Verenium Corporation | Syngenta AG | 23 |
| Verenium Corporation | BP Corporation North America Inc. | 15 |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | Shanghai University | 11 |
| UPM-Kymmene Corporation | Valmet Technologies, Inc. | 10 |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | TOPOLKARAEV VASILY A | 8 |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | SCHOLL NEIL T | 8 |
| Verenium Corporation | LUGINBUHL PETER | 8 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset; the strongest links point to joint filing between chemicals and materials suppliers rather than fragmented single-inventor activity.
Who is filing, and where the openings are
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted in records, not a top-50 or top-100 cut — this is the full ranked list the dataset returns. The leader holds 1,302 records; by fifth place that falls to 135, and by tenth place to 94, showing how quickly volume thins out below the top few names.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee's record count is nearly ten times that of the fifth-placed filer, reflecting decades of continuous filing across absorbent structures, nonwovens and pulp compositions rather than a single product line.
The mid-field is tightly bunched
Records drop from 135 at fifth place to 94 at tenth, a much shallower gap than between first and fifth place, suggesting a genuine cluster of comparably active filers competing for the same claim space.
Recent-year activity has slowed across several leaders
Multiple large historical filers show sharp drops or zero filings in the latest published year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is as likely to reflect incomplete recent data as an actual pullback, but it is worth tracking into the next data refresh.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Procter & Gamble | 3 | -67% |
| Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. | 2 | -85% |
| Eastman Chemical Company | 0 | — |
| UPM-Kymmene Corporation | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Verenium Corporation | 0 | — |
| Metso Paper, Inc. | 0 | — |
| E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a field with a stable core and a thinning tail of recent filings — the open question for any new program is which adjacent branch still has room.
Map your own claim set against the IPC composition
Compare a specific product's claim language against the D21H, D04H and D21F density shown here to see whether it sits in the crowded core or in an adjacent, thinner-filed branch.
Run a claim comparison in Patsnap Eureka →Track the leaders' next moves
Recent-year momentum figures suggest several large filers have slowed; watching their next published filings will show whether that is a real pullback or a publication-lag artifact.
Set up assignee monitoring in Patsnap Eureka →Test white-space claims before drafting
The under-claimed branches identified here are starting points, not conclusions — a freedom-to-operate search against the most-cited records is the next step before committing to a claim strategy.
Search prior art in Patsnap Eureka →Common questions about pulp and papermaking patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 1,302 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 135 and the tenth-placed filer at 94. The gap between the leader and the rest of the top ten is far larger than the gap within the top ten itself, which suggests one company built a long-running filing program while a cluster of others compete at a comparable, lower level. The full ranking covers 100 companies, so this is not a small or exhaustive list of every filer in the field, just the ones that rank highest by record count.
Filings fell 45% between 2021 and 2024, from 217 records to 120, using 2024 as the last year with largely complete publication data. Earlier in the period, filings peaked in 2019 at 281 records. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the years after 2024 will look artificially low until more data arrives, so it is too early to call this a permanent decline rather than a temporary dip in what has been published so far.
D21H, covering pulp and paper compositions, is by far the densest class, appearing in 40.6% of the 7,238 records in this dataset. Nonwovens and felts (D04H) and papermaking machinery (D21F) follow at roughly 12% and 10% respectively, with pulp production and treatment (D21C) close behind. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages describe claim density per class rather than a clean split of the field, and they will sum to more than 100%.
The core compositions and machinery classes are heavily claimed, but branches such as enzymatic pulp pretreatment, fiber-web surface functionalisation and microbial biomass-to-fiber conversion carry comparatively thinner filing density in this dataset. That does not guarantee freedom to operate — it means fewer competing claims have been published in scope, which is different from a formal freedom-to-operate clearance. Anyone considering these branches should still run a targeted prior-art search before drafting, since thin coverage in one search string does not rule out relevant filings indexed under different terminology.
US20070163736A1, assigned to Valmet Technologies, covers a specific multi-layer web formation architecture: two successive wire units sharing a common wire, two headboxes supplying separate pulp layers, and a non-pulsating dewatering zone using a curved, perforated formation shoe. It blocks that particular combination of structural elements, not multi-layer web formation in general. Designs that use a single wire unit, a different dewatering mechanism, or a non-curved shoe geometry would need a separate claim-by-claim comparison to confirm they fall outside its scope.
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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.