Texturization Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Texturization and product formulation patents: mapping fibrous structure and mouthfeel claims
49.5% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 428 of 865 records in scope — a field where claim space is already occupied by a small group, not a wide-open race. Annual filings rose from 16 in 2017 to a peak of 73 in 2019, then declined; the last complete year, 2024, sits at 20 — a -52% move from the 2021 figure of 42. 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, so the visible drop at the very end of the chart understates however much filing is actually happening now.
- 1PROCTER & GAMBLE CO149
- 2CP KELCO APS104
- 3DONALDSON CO INC82
- 4DSM IP ASSETS BV47
- 5BASF SE46
See the full texturization and product formulation 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
Questions practitioners ask about this landscape
Who holds the most patents in protein texturization and fibrous structure formulation?
The ranked assignee list in this dataset covers 100 companies, and the pattern is heavily top-weighted: the leading assignee holds 149 records while the top five combined hold 428, or 49.5% of the 865 records in scope. That gap narrows quickly further down the list, with the tenth-ranked assignee at only 16 records, so most of the remaining ground is held by a long tail of smaller filers rather than a second tier of large competitors.
Is patent filing activity in this space growing or shrinking?
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 73 records and has declined since, falling from 42 in 2021 to 20 in 2024 — a drop of 52% over that span, using 2024 as the last complete filing year. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the true current filing rate is understated in the most recent years shown on any trend chart.
What does US7459179B2 actually cover, and does it block new formulation work?
US7459179B2, assigned to Procter & Gamble and published in 2008, claims a process for making a fibrous structure by contacting it with a solid additive so that the additive concentrates at the surface rather than distributing evenly through the bulk. Anyone designing a fibrous-structure process that places additives specifically at the surface layer should check this claim’s scope carefully, since it is a process claim tied to that surface-versus-bulk placement mechanism rather than to a specific product composition. Work that distributes additives uniformly through the structure, or that uses a fundamentally different contacting step, sits outside what this particular claim covers.
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 Texturization and Product Formulation 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.