X-Ray Diffraction Instrumentation Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
- 27.3% of the field sits with five assignees. 432 of 1,584 records in scope belong to the top five filers, with a long tail of single- and low-count entrants behind them.
- Filing peaked in 2018 at 104 records. Volume has since eased to 45 in 2024, a 17% decline from 2021's 54 — read 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in, not as a falling trend.
- Instrumentation claims sit inside a pharma-heavy corpus. Medicinal preparations (A61K, 44.7%) and heterocyclic compounds (C07D, 41.7%) outweigh the dedicated analysis class G01N, which covers only 7.4% of records.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (45) — 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 1,584 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 1,584 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine X-ray diffraction hardware terms — powder diffractometer, diffraction goniometer, source brilliance, detector type, sample spinner, alignment calibration, peak broadening and measurement time — with core diffraction claims. The result is a corpus where instrumentation claims are frequently filed alongside, or embedded within, chemistry and pharmaceutical patents that use diffraction as a characterisation method rather than an end in itself.
That mix matters for freedom-to-operate work: a search limited to instrumentation-only IPC classes like G01N would miss most of this field, because much of the diffraction hardware and method language sits inside compound and formulation filings from pharmaceutical and materials companies.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,584 records: the year-by-year filing count, and the IPC subclasses those records carry.
Filing trend
Filings ran from 76 in 2017 to a peak of 104 in 2018, then eased through the early 2020s — 54 in 2021 down to 45 in 2024, a 17% three-year decline. 2025 and 2026 counts are partial because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; treat the last two bars as undercounted rather than as a continuation of the decline.
IPC composition
A61K (medicinal preparations, 44.7%) and C07D (heterocyclic compounds, 41.7%) dominate the corpus, with A61P (therapeutic activity, 33.2%) close behind. Dedicated analytical and instrumentation classes — G01N at 7.4%, B01J at 9.0% — are present but minority shares, confirming that most records use diffraction as a supporting method inside a chemistry or pharma filing rather than as the primary invention.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,584 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on X-Ray Diffraction Instrumentation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about x-ray diffraction instrumentation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
EP2455747B1 — Compact powder diffractometer in transmission geometry
A compact powder diffractometer arranges one or more detectors no more than 300mm — in one example 55mm — from the sample stage. High resolution is achieved despite the small footprint through a geometry that produces suitable X-ray divergence at the sample and a small spot size using a grazing-exit condition on a monochromator crystal.Filed by PanAlytical B.V., published 2016-01-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2007035372A2 | Polymorphs of benzoate salt of 2-[[6-[(3R)-3-amino-1-piperidinyl]-3,4-dihydro-3-methyl-2,4-dioxo-1(2H)-pyrimi… | 142 |
| 2 | US20140162130A1 | Compositions comprising free-standing two-dimensional nanocrystals | 126 |
| 3 | US20050189231A1 | Articles with electroplated zinc-nickel ternary and higher alloys, electroplating baths, processes and system… | 121 |
| 4 | WO2006127926A2 | Crystalline and other forms of 4-amino-5-fluoro-3-[6-(4-methylpiperazin-1-YL)-1h-benzimidazol-2-YL]-1h-quinol… | 105 |
| 5 | US6269144B1 | Method and apparatus for diffraction measurement using a scanning x-ray source | 96 |
| 6 | US20060144793A1 | Novel adsorbents and process of making and using same | 86 |
| 7 | US20130295469A1 | Lithium sulfide compositions for battery electrolyte and battery electrode coatings | 65 |
| 8 | US20050133376A1 | Alkaline zinc-nickel alloy plating compositions, processes and articles therefrom | 61 |
| 9 | WO2019102240A1 | Method for the manufacture of lumateperone and its salts | 60 |
| 10 | US20060019163A1 | Copper fluoride based nanocomposites as electrode materials | 58 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate them; treat this table as a signal of influence within the searched corpus, not a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the filing pattern, technology mix and citation structure.
Filing is concentrated but not locked up
The top five assignees hold 27.3% of the 1,584 records in scope; the top ten hold 42.9% (679 records). That leaves a majority of filings spread across a long tail — room for a well-targeted filing to stand out, but also a sign that no single company can be designed around in isolation.
Volume has eased since the 2018 peak
From a peak of 104 records in 2018, annual filing dropped to 54 in 2021 and 45 in 2024 — a 17% decline over that span. Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 counts will rise as more records post; this is a cooling filing pace through 2024, not yet a verdict on the years after it.
Diffraction claims live mostly inside chemistry filings
Medicinal preparations (A61K) and heterocyclic compounds (C07D) each cover over 40% of records, while the dedicated analytical class G01N covers only 7.4%. Anyone scoping instrumentation-only prior art needs to search across pharma and materials classes, not just G01N, or they will miss the bulk of relevant claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to x-ray diffraction instrumentation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the openings sit
The ranked leaders are pharmaceutical and chemical companies using diffraction characterisation inside compound and formulation patents, alongside a smaller group filing on the instrumentation itself.
A single leader sits well ahead of fifth place
The top-ranked assignee holds 102 records against 79 for fifth place and 39 for tenth — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
Co-assignee activity is limited and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, and the strongest link — 41 shared records between two related Bayer entities — dwarfs the next pairs, which sit at five shared records each. Cross-company co-filing is not a major pattern here.
Several established filers show no latest-year activity
A number of the ranked leaders recorded zero filings in the latest year captured by this dataset. Given the ~18-month publication lag, this may reflect filings still in the pipeline rather than a genuine stop, but it is worth confirming directly before assuming continued activity from any single name.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Bayer Pharma AG | 0 | — |
| Bristol Myers Squibb Co | 0 | — |
| Novartis AG | 0 | — |
| BASF SE | 0 | — |
| UOP LLC | 0 | — |
| Sandoz Ltd | 0 | — |
| Egis Gyogyszergyar | 0 | -100% |
| E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to decide.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claim set
With one assignee holding 102 records and a further concentration in the next four, a targeted claim chart against that portfolio is a faster first step than a broad landscape read.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaScope the under-claimed instrumentation branches
Sample spinner mechanisms, alignment calibration and peak-broadening correction sit inside the search terms but show thin dedicated filing — worth a closer look before assuming the space is occupied.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the 2025–2026 filings as they post
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the current downturn reading should be revisited once 2025 and 2026 data mature.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Filing in this dataset is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 102 records, fifth place holds 79, and tenth place holds 39, out of a 100-company ranking drawn from 1,584 total records. The top five assignees together account for 27.3% of all records, and the top ten for 42.9%. Most of the highest-volume filers are pharmaceutical and chemical companies using diffraction characterisation within compound and formulation patents, rather than instrumentation specialists exclusively, so a full picture requires looking at both groups.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 104 records, then declined to 54 by 2021 and 45 by 2024 — a 17% drop over that three-year span, which is the most recent period that can be read as complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are still low, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual stop in activity. Treat the 2024 figure as the current baseline and expect the two most recent years to rise as records continue to post.
The corpus is dominated by chemistry and pharmaceutical classes rather than dedicated instrumentation ones: A61K (medicinal preparations) appears in 44.7% of the 1,584 records, C07D (heterocyclic compounds) in 41.7%, and A61P (therapeutic activity) in 33.2%. The analytical class G01N, which most directly covers diffraction measurement equipment, appears in only 7.4% of records. This means an instrumentation-only search of G01N will miss the majority of diffraction-related claims, which sit embedded in compound and formulation filings.
EP2455747B1, assigned to PanAlytical B.V. and published in 2016, covers a compact powder diffractometer that places one or more detectors no more than 300mm from the sample stage — as close as 55mm in its example — while still achieving high resolution through a specific X-ray divergence geometry and a grazing-exit monochromator arrangement. It blocks designs that combine that short detector-to-sample distance with that particular divergence and grazing-exit geometry for resolution recovery. Designs using longer detector arms, different monochromator geometries, or alternative resolution-recovery methods are not automatically covered, but any close-geometry compact diffractometer should be checked against this claim specifically.
The search terms behind this dataset include sample spinner mechanisms, alignment calibration routines, peak broadening correction and measurement-time reduction, but the dominant filing activity sits in pharmaceutical and chemical compound classes rather than these specific instrumentation sub-areas. That gap suggests dedicated claims on spinner mechanics, calibration workflows, or broadening-correction algorithms face a thinner prior art wall than compound-level diffraction claims do. Any first filing in these branches should still be checked against the leading assignees' broader portfolios, since several file across both chemistry and instrumentation classes.
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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.