CPC technology class · B41

B41J — Typewriters

Typewriters; selective printing mechanisms, i.e. mechanisms printing otherwise than from a forme; correction of typographical errors. 26,654 US utility patents granted 2015–2025, with the leading assignees and year-by-year filing trajectory.

26,654
US patents granted
B41
Parent CPC class
20
Active assignees
-7%
5-yr velocity
Top assignee: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION (5,146 patents)

CPC subclass B41J — TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS — covers 26,654 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025 according to USPTO PatentsView records. This subclass sits within the broader CPC class B41 (PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS), 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 B41J 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 B41J is shaped by 20 distinct companies actively filing in this space. SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION leads with 5,146 patents, followed by Canon Kabushiki Kaisha at 34,378 grants and BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA at 7,931. 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 B41J 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 B41J innovation accelerating?

US utility-patent grants per year in B41J, 2015–2025 — recent five years are down 7% versus 2015–2019.

1,0001,5002,0002,5003,0003,500 20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025 1,442

Who leads B41J?

The 12 most active assignees in TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS — wider bars mean more grants

patents

What this shows Seiko Epson is the most active filer in B41J, holding 5,146 of the 26,654 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 B41J belongs to class B41.

26,654 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 B41J?
CPC subclass B41J covers TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. It belongs to CPC class B41 (PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS). 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 B41J?
26,654 US utility patents were granted in CPC subclass B41J between 2015 and 2025, based on USPTO PatentsView data.
Which company holds the most patents in B41J?
SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION leads B41J with 5,146 patents, making it the most active assignee in this technology area.
How is patent data for B41J 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., B41) is a broad technology category. Subclasses like B41J 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