CPC technology class · A61

A61J — Containers Specially Adapted FOR Medical OR Pharmaceutica…

Containers specially adapted for medical or pharmaceutical purposes; devices or methods specially adapted for bringing pharmaceutical products into particular physical or administering forms; devices for administering food or medicines orally; baby comforters; devices for receiving spittle. 6,855 US utility patents granted 2015–2025, with the leading assignees and year-by-year filing trajectory.

6,855
US patents granted
A61
Parent CPC class
20
Active assignees
+29%
5-yr velocity
Top assignee: Becton, Dickinson and Company (143 patents)

CPC subclass A61J — CONTAINERS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR MEDICAL OR PHARMACEUTICAL PURPOSES; DEVICES OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR BRINGING PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS INTO PARTICULAR PHYSICAL OR ADMINISTERING FORMS; DEVICES FOR ADMINISTERING FOOD OR MEDICINES ORALLY; BABY COMFORTERS; DEVICES FOR RECEIVING SPITTLE — covers 6,855 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025 according to USPTO PatentsView records. This subclass sits within the broader CPC class A61 (MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE), one of roughly 250 top-level technology categories in the Cooperative Patent Classification system jointly maintained by the USPTO and the European Patent Office. At the subclass level, four-character codes like A61J give the most practical resolution for tracking a specific technology domain without losing sight of adjacent filings. Every grant here has been classified by a USPTO examiner based on the technical disclosure in the patent specification.

The competitive landscape in A61J is shaped by 20 distinct companies actively filing in this space. Becton, Dickinson and Company leads with 143 patents, followed by CORNING INCORPORATED at 3,494 grants and DEKA Products Limited Parternship at 1,025. Concentration at the top of the leaderboard indicates whether this technology area is dominated by a handful of incumbents or fragmented across many filers — a useful signal for investors evaluating competitive moats and for product teams mapping freedom-to-operate risk.

Filing trajectory matters as much as static counts. The yearly series on this page plots grants from 2015 through 2025, highlighting whether innovation in A61J is accelerating, plateauing, or cooling. Technology areas with rising post-2020 activity often reflect emerging markets or new platform shifts, while declining filings can signal mature domains where incremental improvement has slowed. Researchers, licensing professionals, and competitive-intelligence teams use these patterns — together with the top-assignee distribution — to decide where to invest, where to license, and where to avoid entanglement. All counts on this page come directly from USPTO PatentsView and reflect US granted utility patents only.

Is A61J innovation accelerating?

US utility-patent grants per year in A61J, 2015–2025 — recent five years are up 29% versus 2015–2019.

400500600700800 20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025 473

Who leads A61J?

The 12 most active assignees in CONTAINERS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR MEDICAL OR PHARMACEUTICAL PURPOSES; DEVICES OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR BRINGING PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS INTO PARTICULAR PHYSICAL OR ADMINISTERING FORMS; DEVICES FOR ADMINISTERING FOOD OR MEDICINES ORALLY; BABY COMFORTERS; DEVICES FOR RECEIVING SPITTLE — wider bars mean more grants

patents

What this shows Becton Dickinson and is the most active filer in A61J, holding 143 of the 6,855 patents in this class. Concentration at the top signals how contestable this technology area is for new entrants.

Source USPTO PatentsView — granted utility patents As of 2015–2025 grant years
View data table

About This Class

CPC subclass A61J belongs to class A61.

6,855 patents were granted in this class between 2015 and 2025.

20 companies actively patent in this space.

Classification System

Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a hierarchical patent classification system used by the USPTO and EPO.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CPC class A61J?
CPC subclass A61J covers CONTAINERS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR MEDICAL OR PHARMACEUTICAL PURPOSES; DEVICES OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR BRINGING PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS INTO PARTICULAR PHYSICAL OR ADMINISTERING FORMS; DEVICES FOR ADMINISTERING FOOD OR MEDICINES ORALLY; BABY COMFORTERS; DEVICES FOR RECEIVING SPITTLE. It belongs to CPC class A61 (MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE). The Cooperative Patent Classification is a hierarchical system used by the USPTO and European Patent Office to categorize patents by technology.
How many patents have been filed in A61J?
6,855 US utility patents were granted in CPC subclass A61J between 2015 and 2025, based on USPTO PatentsView data.
Which company holds the most patents in A61J?
Becton, Dickinson and Company leads A61J with 143 patents, making it the most active assignee in this technology area.
How is patent data for A61J collected?
Patent data comes from USPTO PatentsView, a public research dataset maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It covers all US granted utility patents and assigns CPC codes based on the technology described in each patent.
What is the difference between CPC class and subclass?
A CPC class (e.g., A61) is a broad technology category. Subclasses like A61J provide finer granularity within that category. PlainPatent organizes data at the subclass level (4-character codes) for the most useful view of technology domains.

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Explore the patent dataset

Data sourced from USPTO PatentsView — official U.S. government patent data. See our methodology for computation details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainPatent Editorial