Wet Strength Resins for Paper Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Wet Strength Resins for Paper: Patents, Leaders and Filing Trends
72.3% concentration. The top five assignees account for 3,604 of the 4,984 records in scope — this field is held by a small group of tissue and chemical majors, not a fragmented crowd. Filings peaked at 245 in 2017 and have since declined; the cleanest comparison available — 2021 (73) versus 2024 (58) — shows a 21% drop over three years. 2025 and 2026 figures are necessarily incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent bars will fill in over time rather than confirming a further decline.
- 1PROCTER & GAMBLE CO1,694
- 2GPCP IP HOLDINGS LLC716
- 3KIMBERLY CLARK WORLDWIDE INC698
- 4KEMIRA OY329
- 5GEORGIA PACIFIC CONSUMER PRODS LP167
See the full wet strength resins for paper 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
What are the main chemical routes for wet strength resins in paper and tissue?
The two dominant chemistries tracked in this landscape are polyamidoamine epichlorohydrin (PAE) resins and glyoxalated polyacrylamide (GPAM) systems. PAE resins are the longer-established route and deliver permanent-type wet strength, while GPAM systems are more commonly associated with temporary wet strength that decays after wetting, which matters for flushability and repulpability requirements. Both routes appear heavily in the D21H pulp and paper composition subclass, which covers 74.4% of the 4,984 records in this scope, and the choice between them in a given filing usually tracks whether the end product needs permanent or temporary strength.
Who are the leading patent filers in wet strength resin technology?
Filing in this space is highly concentrated: the top five assignees account for 3,604 of the 4,984 records in scope, or 72.3%, and the top ten account for 83.1%. The single leading assignee holds 1,694 records, roughly ten times the tenth-place total of 87. Recent-year momentum data shows most of these leaders filing far less than their historic pace, with the top assignee down 81% year-on-year in the latest tracked year, so leadership by cumulative volume does not necessarily mean leadership in current filing activity.
Why has wet strength resin patent filing declined since 2017?
Filing peaked at 245 records in 2017 and the cleanest available comparison, 2021’s 73 filings against 2024’s 58, shows a 21% decline over that three-year span. This is consistent with a mature, consolidated field where the largest players already hold dense claim positions and have less need to keep filing at peak rates. It is important not to over-read the very latest years: publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset will understate true activity and should not be treated as confirming a continuing drop.
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 Wet Strength Resins for Paper 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.