Spray Drying Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
Spray Drying and Atomization Patents: Who Files, What They Claim, Where It's Open
Filing has cooled from its peak. Activity rose to 887 filings in 2021 then fell to 539 by 2024, a 39% decline over that span — not a collapse, but a clear pullback from the post-pandemic surge in inhalable and encapsulated formulations. Annual filings climbed from 660 in 2017 to a peak of 887 in 2021, then fell to 539 by 2024 — a 39% decline over that three-year window. That is the last year the trend can be read as complete; 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as publication catches up.
- 1BASF SE3.0%
- 2PROCTER & GAMBLE CO2.3%
- 3DOW GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES LLC1.3%
- 4NOVARTIS AG1.3%
- 5VERTEX PHARMACEUTICALS INC1.2%
See the full spray drying and atomization analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about spray drying patents
Who holds the most patents in spray drying and atomization?
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 1,888 records, with a gradual drop-off to 777 at fifth place and 518 at tenth. No single company dominates the field outright: the top 5 combined account for only 9.0% of the 63,510 records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 14.0%. That spread means the field is contested across a broad set of pharmaceutical, chemical and food-science filers rather than locked up by one or two companies.
Is spray drying patent activity growing or shrinking?
Filings rose steadily to a peak of 887 in 2021, then declined to 539 by 2024 — a 39% drop over that three-year span. That is the most recent year the trend can be read reliably, since patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months and 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete. The honest read is a pullback from a post-2021 high, not necessarily a long-term decline.
What patent classes cover spray drying technology?
The dataset’s records span pharmaceutical formulation classes far more heavily than industrial process classes. A61K (medicinal preparations) touches 15.7% of all 63,510 records, ahead of A61P therapeutic activity at 4.7%, A23L foods and beverages at 4.4%, and B01J chemical and physical processes at 4.3%. Because a single patent can carry several IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than summing to 100%, but the ranking makes clear that drug and food formulation claims dominate over pure equipment or process engineering claims.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Spray Drying and Atomization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.