Patent Analytics Report on Nanofabrics

Introduction

A fiber that has a width of less than 1000 nanometers (1000 nm or 1 µm) is generally defined as a nanofiber. A nanoparticle is defined as a small group of atoms or molecules with a radius of less than 100 nanometers (100 nm).Particles on the nanoscale have a very high surface area to volume ratio, whereas this ratio is much lower for objects on the macroscopic scale.

Nanofabrics are textiles engineered with small particles that give ordinary materials advantageous properties such as superhydrophobicity, odor and moisture elimination, increased elasticity and strength, and bacterial resistance. Depending on the desired property, a nanofabric is either constructed from nanoscopic fibers called nanofibers, or is formed by applying a solution containing nanoparticles to a regular fabric.

Applications of nanofabrics have the potential to revolutionize textile manufacturing and areas of medicine such as drug delivery and tissue engineering.

Points covered:

• Overview of the top companies involved in nanofabrics and their publication trend
• Focus on the processes for nanofabrics
• Trends for different applications of nanofabrics and their patent activity

Patent Categories

To get deeper insights nanofabrics record set was classified as follows:

The illustration below shows the different categories prepared and the number of records in each. The categorization involved defining a search
strategy for each topic and then conducting the search using the Advanced Searching capability in Patent iNSIGHT Pro. Details of search strings used for each category are given in Appendix.

Publication Trend

What has been the publication trend for nanofabrics?

Nanofabric publications have emerged from 1997 with the real surge in the activity around this technology has happened in the last 5 years.
It’s clear the current activity around these technologies is likely to continue seeing more innovation in the near future.

Top Players

The top organizations are:

Research activity around world

How is research around nanofabrics spread across different countries?

In terms of regional pockets where patent protection is being sought most frequently for these technologies, CN leads the count, followed by the US and KR. The table below ranks top priority countries and helps provide an indication of where innovation in this area is originating: