Stereolithography Miniaturization Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filings peaked in 2019 at 20 and have not returned to that level, with 2022 sitting at 14 — a flat-to-declining trend rather than a growing one.
- One record, US20110033887A1 on microfabricated bioreactors, carries 133 citations, more than four times the next most-cited document in this set.
- Every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year, which is consistent with publication lag but also suggests no single player is currently pulling ahead.
Filing growth compares 2021 (19 records) with 2024 (3) — 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 103 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 103 patent families filed against stereolithography and vat photopolymerization claims that specifically address micro-scale features: microstereolithography, two-photon polymerization, and high-resolution vat printing. The search combines title/abstract terms for the miniaturized processes with classification codes spanning additive manufacturing (B33Y), plastics shaping (B29C), and photolithography (G03F), which is why the composition below shows heavy overlap between 3D-printing and photomechanics codes rather than a single clean category.
Filing activity runs from 2017 through a partial 2026, with the United States as the dominant receiving office ahead of the EPO and WIPO's PCT route. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend line will read lower than actual filing activity turns out to be.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 103 families: how filing volume moved year over year, and which classification codes carry the claim density.
A peak in 2019, then a plateau
Filings rose from 5 in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2019, then settled near the midpoint value of 14 by 2022. That pattern reads as a technology that established its core claim positions early rather than one still accelerating.
Additive manufacturing and plastics codes dominate
B33Y (additive manufacturing) appears in 83 of 103 records and B29C (plastics shaping) in 72, confirming this is fundamentally a 3D-printing corpus. G03F (photolithography, 22) and the ceramics-and-polymer codes (C08G, C08L, C04B, B28B) mark the smaller but real branches into photoresist chemistry and preceramic materials.
Shares are the percentage of the 103 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Stereolithography Miniaturization and Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about stereolithography miniaturization and integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent filing
Tuning Crosslinking of Hybrid Preceramic Polymers in Vat Photopolymerization Toward Controlled Ceramic Yields
Filed by UT-Battelle, this January 2026 application addresses controlling the crosslinking of preceramic polymers during UV-curable vat photopolymerization to hit target ceramic yields. It treats crosslinking chemistry, rather than the printing hardware, as the lever for producing polymer-derived ceramics with predictable conversion.Abstract condensed from the original filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110033887A1 | Three-Dimensional Microfabricated Bioreactors with Embedded Capillary Network | 133 |
| 2 | US20090133800A1 | Stereolithography method | 30 |
| 3 | GB2477828A | Three dimensional optical and material structures | 29 |
| 4 | US9492969B2 | High resolution projection micro stereolithography system and method | 19 |
| 5 | US20170204227A1 | Resin formulations for polymer-derived ceramic materials | 17 |
| 6 | US20210299952A1 | Roller-membrane layering micro stereolithography | 15 |
| 7 | US20190077921A1 | Resin formulations for polymer-derived ceramic materials | 15 |
| 8 | US20170136692A1 | Emulsion stereolithography and 3D printing of multimaterials and nanoscale material gradients | 15 |
| 9 | US20210276249A1 | Immersion multi-material projection micro stereolithography | 12 |
| 10 | US10221284B2 | Resin formulations for polymer-derived ceramic materials | 12 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched set and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of prior-art density, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once family counts, citation weight and classification spread are put side by side.
Growth has flattened since the 2019 peak
The trend line does not show a technology still in its land-grab phase. A peak of 20 filings in 2019 followed by a decline to 14 by 2022 suggests the core process claims — projection micro-stereolithography, resin formulation for fine features — were staked out early, and later activity has filled in rather than expanded the frontier.
One bioreactor patent anchors the citation graph
US20110033887A1, on microfabricated bioreactors with embedded capillary networks, draws 133 citations — more than four times the second most-cited record. Anyone filing near micro-scale fluidic or biological structures made by vat photopolymerization should expect this document to surface as blocking or highly relevant prior art.
The corpus is additive-manufacturing-first, ceramics-adjacent
B33Y and B29C together dominate, but the presence of C08G, C08L, C04B and B28B in meaningful numbers shows a real secondary branch into preceramic and ceramic-yield chemistry — not just plastics. That is where the most recent representative filing sits.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to stereolithography miniaturization and integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Allnex Belgium SA | Ghent University | 10 |
| Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC | President and Fellows of Harvard College | 4 |
| Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC | 3D Systems Corporation | 4 |
| Shenzhen Moldworks New Material Technology Co., Ltd. | XIA CHUNGUANG | 1 |
| Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) | YING JACKIE Y | 1 |
| Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) | KAN SHYI HERNG | 1 |
| Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) | HSIEH TSENG MING | 1 |
Only 7 co-assignee pairs appear across the set, and the strongest — a materials company paired with a university — recurs 10 times, pointing to a small number of durable industry-academia partnerships rather than a broad collaboration network.
Who holds the claims, and where the gaps sit
Filing activity is split between a national laboratory, a university-linked cluster, and equipment makers, with no assignee showing filings in the most recent tracked year.
Lawrence Livermore anchors an academic cluster
Lawrence Livermore National Security appears in co-assignee pairs with both Harvard's President and Fellows and with 3D Systems, each pair recurring 4 times. That pattern points to a lab running parallel collaborations rather than a single exclusive partnership.
Allnex Belgium and Ghent University lead joint filing
The strongest co-assignee pair in the set, at 10 shared filings, links a resin/coatings manufacturer to a university research group — consistent with formulation chemistry being the shared claim territory rather than hardware.
No assignee shows current-year momentum
Every named assignee, from Lawrence Livermore to 3D Systems to Ghent University, shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this likely understates real activity rather than signalling the field has gone quiet.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Moldworks New Material Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| 3D Systems Corporation | 0 | — |
| Allnex Belgium SA | 0 | — |
| Ghent University | 0 | — |
| HRL Laboratories, LLC | 0 | — |
| University of Pittsburgh – Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education | 0 | — |
| Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation patterns above point to specific follow-up work for teams deciding where to file or where freedom-to-operate risk concentrates.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-cited records
The 133-citation bioreactor patent and the other high-citation documents are the ones most likely to surface in an examiner's prior-art search for micro-scale vat photopolymerization claims.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkWatch the preceramic and ceramic-yield branch
The C08G/C04B-linked filings, including the most recent representative record, suggest ceramic-yield control is an active but still narrow claim area worth monitoring for new entrants.
Track this branch in EurekaMap the academia-industry co-filing pattern
With only 7 co-assignee pairs but one recurring 10 times, understanding who a materials company partners with can reveal where licensing or collaboration conversations are already happening.
Explore assignee relationshipsCommon questions about this landscape
In this landscape, it means vat photopolymerization processes adapted to produce micro-scale features, covering microstereolithography, two-photon polymerization, and high-resolution vat printing. These are captured through title and abstract terms combined with classification codes for additive manufacturing (B33Y), plastics shaping (B29C), and photolithography (G03F). The overlap between these codes is intentional: a micro-scale SLA claim often reads on both an additive-manufacturing process and an optical patterning method, which is why single-code searches undercount this space.
Filings rose from 5 in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2019, then fell to 14 by 2022, and the most recent tracked year shows minimal activity across every assignee. Part of that drop is real: once foundational process and resin claims are staked out, follow-on filing naturally slows. Part of it is an artefact of publication lag, which runs roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years understate actual filing activity rather than proving the field has stalled.
The dataset shows a small cluster of repeat filers rather than one dominant company: a national laboratory (Lawrence Livermore National Security), a resin manufacturer (Allnex Belgium), an equipment maker (3D Systems), and university partners including Ghent University and Harvard's President and Fellows. None of these shows filings in the latest tracked year, which is consistent with the broader lag effect rather than a sign any of them has exited the space.
Start with the highest-cited records in this corpus: US20110033887A1 on microfabricated bioreactors carries 133 citations, well ahead of the next document, and US9492969B2 on high-resolution projection micro-stereolithography systems is also frequently cited. Any claim touching micro-scale fluidic structures, projection-based SLA systems, or fine-feature resin formulations should be checked against these specifically, since citation weight in a searched corpus tends to concentrate on a handful of foundational documents.
The smaller IPC branches — C08G, C08L, C04B and B28B, covering polymer and ceramic materials rather than the dominant B33Y and B29C additive-manufacturing codes — carry far fewer filings and represent less occupied claim territory. Preceramic polymer crosslinking control, as shown in the most recent representative filing, and two-photon polymerization resin chemistry both sit in this lower-density zone. High filing density elsewhere means claim space there is occupied, not that these adjacent branches are unimportant.
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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.