Wood Coatings and Furniture Finishes Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled since 2021. the peak year in the dataset, with the 2022 midpoint at 9 filings and a decline through the most recent years on record.
- The top 5 assignees hold 28.4% of all 243 records, and the top 10 hold 43.2% — concentrated enough to matter, but with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- C09D dominates at 75.7% of records, while B27K wood preservation and B05D coating processes sit at just 7.0% each — the clearest sign of where claim space is still open.
What the wood coatings and furniture finishes patent record shows
Wood coatings and furniture finishes sit at the intersection of formulation chemistry and surface performance: grain raising, blocking resistance, chemical resistance and VOC compliance are the recurring technical pressure points that show up across the corpus. The search scope combines waterborne wood coating and furniture finish terminology with these performance and compliance concepts, capturing 243 published records spanning 2015 through the 2026 cut-off. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in any trend understates real activity.
Most of the activity classifies under coatings, paints and inks (C09D), with secondary weight in polymer composition classes — a pattern consistent with a field where the coating formulation itself, rather than the substrate or the application process, carries most of the claimed novelty.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 243 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the technical sub-areas of the field.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 5 in 2017 to a peak of 19 in 2021, then eased back — the 2022 midpoint of 9 confirms the slowdown rather than a data artefact. The final years on record are necessarily undercounted given publication lag.
IPC subclass composition
C09D (coatings, paints and inks) covers 75.7% of the 243 records in scope, with C08L, C08G, C08F and C08K polymer-chemistry classes each appearing in a meaningful minority. Layered products (B32B), coating processes (B05D) and wood preservation (B27K) each sit at 7.0-7.8%, marking the thinner branches of the tree. Because a record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 243 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wood Coatings and Furniture Finishes with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wood coatings and furniture finishes and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
US20230303859A1 — Waterborne wood coating composition and wood article manufactured therefrom
The application covers a waterborne wood coating composition combining an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles with pigments, fillers, cosolvents, thickeners, leveling agents or defoamers, plus an oligosiloxane carrying hydrolysable functional groups. The claimed coating film is defined by a 60-degree gloss of not higher than 40.Filed by Sherwin-Williams (Guangdong) New Material Co., Ltd., published 2023-09-28.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN101481437A | 一种高封闭性聚丙烯酸酯分散体的制备方法 | 74 |
| 2 | EP0486278A1 | Aqueous-based radiation-curable coating composition | 65 |
| 3 | US20040013895A1 | Alkyd-based free radical wood coating compositions | 53 |
| 4 | US5922410A | Wood coating composition | 38 |
| 5 | US20050154121A1 | Poly(ethylene-butylene) (meth)acrylates and related compositions | 33 |
| 6 | US20050054798A1 | Polybutadiene (meth)acrylate composition and method | 26 |
| 7 | US7192688B2 | Polybutadiene (meth)acrylate composition and method | 26 |
| 8 | WO2014190515A1 | Wood coating composition | 25 |
| 9 | US5590785A | Furniture finish color spot repair kit and method of making the same | 24 |
| 10 | CN104629576A | 一种高性能水性木器涂料 | 22 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this searched corpus — treat the ranking as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the concentration, composition and momentum figures above.
Leadership is real but not overwhelming
The leader holds 18 records and the top 5 combined hold 69 — 28.4% of the 243 records in scope. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail, including many single-filing entrants, which is typical of a formulation-heavy field where regional paint and coatings makers each protect narrow variants.
Formulation claims dominate the field
Three-quarters of records classify under coatings, paints and inks, with polymer-chemistry classes (C08L, C08G, C08F, C08K) forming the next tier. Process and substrate classes — B32B, B05D, B27K — each sit near 7-8%, suggesting the coating chemistry itself is where most applicants choose to stake claims.
Activity has cooled from its 2021 peak
Filings climbed from 5 in 2017 to 19 in 2021, then fell back toward the 2022 midpoint of 9 and lower still through the most recent years. Several previously active assignees show zero filings in the latest year, consistent with a field past its filing peak rather than one still accelerating.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wood coatings and furniture finishes, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and collaboration patterns
The ranked leaders cover 100 companies, counted in records — not a top-50 or top-100 selection, but the full set the data endpoint returns. Filing is led by a handful of established coatings and materials companies, with regional wood-finish manufacturers and research institutes filling out the tail.
A clear leader, then a gradual drop-off
The leading assignee holds 18 records, roughly double the fifth-place count of 9 and triple the tenth-place count of 6 — a gradual taper rather than a cliff, typical of a field with several established coatings houses competing rather than one dominant filer.
Co-filing is concentrated within corporate families
The strongest co-assignee pairing links Rohm and Haas with Dow Global Technologies at a strength of 7, consistent with post-acquisition corporate filing rather than an external partnership. Other strong pairings link related entities within the same corporate group, rather than cross-company joint development.
Several established filers have gone quiet
Multiple assignees that filed steadily in earlier years — including large multinational and regional formulators — show zero filings in the latest year, one showing a -100% year-on-year change. That pattern lines up with the broader post-2021 slowdown rather than signalling exit from the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rohm and Haas Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Universiti Putra Malaysia | 0 | — |
| MUYLLE FACON | 0 | -100% |
| Sartomer Technology Co., Inc. | 0 | — |
| ADVANCED WOOD PAINT | 0 | — |
| ASIAN PAINTS | 0 | — |
| Shanghai Zhanchen Coatings Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| FPInnovations Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field past its filing peak with formulation claims concentrated in a few IPC classes. Two directions are worth pursuing from here.
Map freedom-to-operate against the leading assignees
With 28.4% of records held by five assignees and dense co-filing within at least one corporate family, a freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignees' claim scope is the first practical step before committing to a formulation direction.
Explore assignee claim scope in EurekaProbe the under-claimed IPC branches directly
B27K wood preservation and B05D coating processes each sit at 7.0% of records, well below the C09D formulation share — worth a targeted prior-art search before assuming the space is occupied.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on wood coatings and furniture finish patents
Within this dataset of 243 records, the leading assignee holds 18 records, with the top 5 assignees combined holding 69 records — 28.4% of all records in scope. The drop-off from first to fifth place is gradual rather than a cliff, and the top 10 combined reach 43.2% of records, meaning well over half of filings sit outside the leading group in a long tail of regional formulators and research institutes. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at both the concentrated top group and the broader tail, since a narrow formulation niche may be held by an assignee well outside the leading ranks.
No — filing peaked at 19 records in 2021 and has declined since, with the 2022 midpoint at 9 records and lower activity in subsequent years. Several previously active assignees show zero filings in the latest year on record. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year or two in any such trend will always look thinner than it eventually turns out to be, but the decline from the 2021 peak predates that lag effect and looks like a genuine slowdown.
Coatings, paints and inks (IPC class C09D) appear in 75.7% of the 243 records in scope, by far the dominant classification. Polymer-chemistry classes — C08L, C08G, C08F and C08K — each appear in a meaningful minority of records, reflecting the underlying resin and additive chemistries used in these coatings. Process-oriented classes such as B05D coating processes and B27K wood preservation sit much lower, near 7.0% each, indicating that most claimed novelty concentrates in the coating formulation itself rather than in application processes or substrate treatment.
The IPC composition points to wood preservation hybrids (B27K), coating-process optimisation (B05D) and layered-product constructions (B32B) as the thinner branches, each sitting at 7.0-7.8% of records against C09D's 75.7%. Within performance attributes named in the search scope — blocking resistance, grain-raising suppression and low-formaldehyde crosslinking — filing density also appears lighter than the core waterborne-dispersion formulation claims. These are reasonable starting points for a freedom-to-operate or prior-art search rather than confirmed gaps, since IPC-level thinness does not guarantee an absence of blocking claims.
US20230303859A1, filed by Sherwin-Williams (Guangdong) New Material Co., Ltd. and published 2023-09-28, claims a waterborne wood coating composition combining an aqueous polymer dispersion with an oligosiloxane carrying hydrolysable functional groups, defined by a coating film with a 60-degree gloss of no higher than 40. It does not block waterborne wood coatings generally — it blocks the specific combination of oligosiloxane chemistry with that gloss ceiling. Formulators working with different siloxane chemistries, different additive packages, or coatings targeting a different gloss range have room to design around it, though a freedom-to-operate review of the specific claim language is advisable before commercial use.
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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.