Patenting the Glass Compositions During the Last Century

Glass is a material that is widely used in various fields of techniques and engineering (optics, electric devices, ware, medicine, etc.) due to a unique combination of properties, many of them being possible to vary in wide ranges depending on chemical composition. For this reason chemical compositions of glasses of various usage are widely patented. In the paper, the history of patenting the glass compositions since 1907 as well as present-day trends of development of new glasses are analyzed by using the database SciGlass IP containing the data about 100,000+ patents and patent applications published worldwide. Today's challenges during the development of new glass compositions and possible solutions are characterized.