CPC technology class · E03

E03D — Water-closets OR Urinals WITH Flushing Devices

Water-closets or urinals with flushing devices; flushing valves therefor. 1,515 US utility patents granted 2015–2025, with the leading assignees and year-by-year filing trajectory.

1,515
US patents granted
E03
Parent CPC class
20
Active assignees
+22%
5-yr velocity
Top assignee: TOTO LTD. (245 patents)

CPC subclass E03D — WATER-CLOSETS OR URINALS WITH FLUSHING DEVICES; FLUSHING VALVES THEREFOR — covers 1,515 US utility patents granted between 2015 and 2025 according to USPTO PatentsView records. This subclass sits within the broader CPC class E03 (WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE), 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 E03D 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 E03D is shaped by 20 distinct companies actively filing in this space. TOTO LTD. leads with 245 patents, followed by Kohler Co. at 1,594 grants and Shanghai Kohler Electronics, Ltd. at 68. 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 E03D 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 E03D innovation accelerating?

US utility-patent grants per year in E03D, 2015–2025 — recent five years are up 22% versus 2015–2019.

50100150200250 20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025 107

Who leads E03D?

The 12 most active assignees in WATER-CLOSETS OR URINALS WITH FLUSHING DEVICES; FLUSHING VALVES THEREFOR — wider bars mean more grants

patents

What this shows Toto is the most active filer in E03D, holding 245 of the 1,515 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 E03D belongs to class E03.

1,515 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 E03D?
CPC subclass E03D covers WATER-CLOSETS OR URINALS WITH FLUSHING DEVICES; FLUSHING VALVES THEREFOR. It belongs to CPC class E03 (WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE). 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 E03D?
1,515 US utility patents were granted in CPC subclass E03D between 2015 and 2025, based on USPTO PatentsView data.
Which company holds the most patents in E03D?
TOTO LTD. leads E03D with 245 patents, making it the most active assignee in this technology area.
How is patent data for E03D 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., E03) is a broad technology category. Subclasses like E03D provide finer granularity within that category. PlainPatent organizes data at the subclass level (4-character codes) for the most useful view of technology domains.

Learn More

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