Thick Film Resistor Paste Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Thick film resistor and conductor paste patents: where filings concentrate and where they thin out
29.9% sits with five assignees. The top five combined hold 914 of the 3,060 records in scope, a concentration that shapes freedom-to-operate for anyone entering fresh. Filings ran from 26 in 2017 to a peak of 48 in 2019, then settled into a lower but rising band: 13 in 2021 climbing to 19 in 2024, a +46% increase over that span. The 2025 and 2026 figures understate real activity because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
- 1EI DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO10.3%
- 2PANASONIC HOLDINGS CORP7.1%
- 3HITACHI LTD4.7%
- 4TAIYO YUDEN KK4.0%
- 5SUMITOMO METAL MINING CO LTD3.7%
See the full thick film resistor and conductor pastes 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 this landscape
Who holds the most patents in thick film resistor and conductor pastes?
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies drawn from 3,060 records, and one company leads with 316 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 114 and tenth place at 49. The top five combined account for 29.9% of all records in scope, and the top ten for 40.9%. That leaves a meaningful share of filings spread across dozens of smaller filers, so the field is concentrated at the top but not dominated by a single player.
Is patent filing in thick film resistor pastes growing or slowing down?
Filings rose from 13 in 2021 to 19 in 2024, a +46% increase over that three-year span, which is the clearest recent signal in the data. The counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than a real decline, since not all filings from those years have published yet. Treat the 2019 peak of 48 filings as historical context rather than a ceiling being retested.
What technology areas get the most patent claims in this field?
H01C, the resistor classification, appears on 52.8% of the 3,060 records, making it the dominant category by a wide margin. H05K, covering printed circuits and assemblies, follows at 26.7%. Classes tied to underlying materials — glass and enamel compositions (C03C) and ceramics (C04B) — sit in single-digit shares, which is where compositional claim space looks comparatively less occupied.
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 Thick Film Resistor and Conductor Pastes 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.