The data picked polyolefin in 1992. Technomelt Supra went on sale nine years later.
Since the 1960s, packaging hot melts had been built on EVA. In the early 1990s, new single-site catalysts gave adhesive makers a second option: a polyolefin base. For each one we measured how much better per dollar it got each year, using only the patents that existed at the time.
% better per dollar each year. Readings every two years. The polyolefin line starts at its first reading, 1992: the first polyolefin hot melt patent was filed in 1989.
In 1992 polyolefin hot melts were getting about 32% better per dollar every year, EVA about 15%. Polyolefin stayed ahead at every reading since.
The new base kept its bond when boxes got hot or cold, holding at 90 to 93°C where EVA let go at 70 to 75°C. It also stayed cleaner in the melt tank and could run at lower temperatures. Henkel lists the same gains for Supra today: far more thermally stable, and up to 30% less adhesive.
Our data: polyolefin improving twice as fast as EVA.
The first polyolefin case-sealing hot melt goes on sale, H.B. Fuller’s Advantra.
Henkel launches Technomelt Supra, built “to replace hot melts based on EVA”.
Dow launches AFFINITY GA, the first polymers made for hot melts.
Technomelt Supra 1000: up to 40% less adhesive than EVA hot melts.
Technomelt Supra ECO: up to 98% bio-based, on a Dow polymer.
It would not have said which formulation to launch, or that EVA would keep the low-cost end of the market. It would have said the next premium case-sealing adhesive would sit on a polyolefin base, nine years before Technomelt Supra went on sale.
For the world’s largest adhesive maker, that was time to choose a polymer partner and have Supra ready before the first polyolefin case sealer reached the market in 1998. Henkel calls Supra “a milestone in our 150-year company history”. The reading showed where that milestone lay, nine years early.
Polyolefin still leads, but by 1.4 points, down from 17 in 2000. The same reading works for the choices in front of you now, from bio-based polymers to packs made for paper recycling.
TIR — the Technology Improvement Rate — measures how fast a technology gets better each year, computed from global patent data. Not who is filing, or how much: how fast the route is actually moving. Historically, the fastest-improving technology always wins.
Provenance. Every patent carries a filing date, so the record can be replayed: every improvement rate on this page uses only the patents that were public at the time. Chart data: GetFocus platform exports, October 2026. The polyolefin vs EVA reading is a property of the two technologies, not of any one company: the same 1992 signal appears in every account’s backtest. What differs is how each company acted on it.
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