CPC technology class · C14

C14B — Mechanical Treatment OR Processing OF Skins

Mechanical treatment or processing of skins, hides or leather in general; pelt-shearing machines; intestine-splitting machines. 102 US utility patents granted 2015–2025, with the leading assignees and year-by-year filing trajectory.

102
US patents granted
C14
Parent CPC class
16
Active assignees
+44%
5-yr velocity
Top assignee: MINKPAPIR A/S (9 patents)

CPC subclass C14B — MECHANICAL TREATMENT OR PROCESSING OF SKINS, HIDES OR LEATHER IN GENERAL; PELT-SHEARING MACHINES; INTESTINE-SPLITTING MACHINES — covers 102 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025 according to USPTO PatentsView records. This subclass sits within the broader CPC class C14 (SKINS; HIDES; PELTS; LEATHER), 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 C14B 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 C14B is shaped by 16 distinct companies actively filing in this space. MINKPAPIR A/S leads with 9 patents, followed by MINKPAPIR A/S at 12 grants and EIKON TECHNOLOGIES HOLDING SARL at 6. 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 C14B 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 C14B innovation accelerating?

US utility-patent grants per year in C14B, 2015–2025 — recent five years are up 44% versus 2015–2019.

0510152025 20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025 6

Who leads C14B?

The 12 most active assignees in MECHANICAL TREATMENT OR PROCESSING OF SKINS, HIDES OR LEATHER IN GENERAL; PELT-SHEARING MACHINES; INTESTINE-SPLITTING MACHINES — wider bars mean more grants

patents

What this shows Minkpapir A/S is the most active filer in C14B, holding 9 of the 102 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 C14B belongs to class C14.

102 patents were granted in this class between 2015 and 2025.

16 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 C14B?
CPC subclass C14B covers MECHANICAL TREATMENT OR PROCESSING OF SKINS, HIDES OR LEATHER IN GENERAL; PELT-SHEARING MACHINES; INTESTINE-SPLITTING MACHINES. It belongs to CPC class C14 (SKINS; HIDES; PELTS; LEATHER). 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 C14B?
102 US utility patents were granted in CPC subclass C14B between 2015 and 2025, based on USPTO PatentsView data.
Which company holds the most patents in C14B?
MINKPAPIR A/S leads C14B with 9 patents, making it the most active assignee in this technology area.
How is patent data for C14B 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., C14) is a broad technology category. Subclasses like C14B 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