Advanced Ceramic Sintering Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not grown. annual filings rose from 77 in 2017 to a peak of 174 in 2025, but the mid-period reading of 104 in 2022 shows the growth curve flattening well before the peak.
- Powder metallurgy overlaps ceramics claim space. B22F (powder metallurgy) appears in 836 records against C04B's 1,718, meaning over a third of this corpus sits at the ceramics-metallurgy boundary rather than in pure ceramics classes.
- China leads filing volume by a wide margin. 758 records were filed at the Chinese receiving office, more than the United States (532) and EPO (301) combined with WIPO's PCT filings (171).
Filing growth compares 2021 (95 records) with 2024 (104) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 2,425 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Advanced ceramic sintering and densification covers the processes used to consolidate ceramic powders into dense, mechanically sound components: spark plasma sintering, hot pressing, and additive routes that rely on post-process densification. The claim space tracked here spans sintering aids, grain-growth control and relative-density targets, indexed under core ceramics (C04B), powder metallurgy (B22F) and alloy classifications (C22C).
The dataset draws on 2,425 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026, filtered to documents that combine sintering-process language with microstructure or density claim terms. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 count of 49 understates actual filing activity for that year.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the technology's boundaries.
A plateau after a slow build
Filings climbed from 77 in 2017 toward a peak of 174 in 2025. The 2022 midpoint of 104 sits well below a straight-line path to that peak, indicating the growth phase concentrated in more recent years rather than a steady decade-long climb. The 2026 figure of 49 is a partial-year count and should not be read as a decline.
Ceramics core, metallurgy overlap
C04B (ceramics, cement and refractories) anchors the corpus at 1,718 records, but B22F (powder metallurgy) at 836 and C22C (alloys) at 465 show substantial overlap with metal-powder processing. Smaller but distinct clusters sit in coating deposition (C23C, 251), additive manufacturing (B33Y, 90) and friction applications (F16D, 80) — pointing to where sintering IP is being applied downstream rather than developed as core process art.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,425 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Advanced Ceramic Sintering and Densification with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about advanced ceramic sintering and densification and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Densification of ceramic layers for solid oxide cell technology
A ceramic layer, especially for use in solid oxide cell (SOC) technology, is densified by depositing a porous ceramic layer onto a support system, pre-sintering to consolidate a porous layer, impregnating the layer with a sintering-aid solution or suspension, evaporating the impregnant to achieve a homogeneous dispersion of sintering aid, and applying a further thermal treatment to complete densification.Filed by Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (Technical University of Denmark), 2014-07-10.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5431967A | Selective laser sintering using nanocomposite materials | 401 |
| 2 | US5745834A | Free form fabrication of metallic components | 371 |
| 3 | US5997795A | Processes for forming photonic bandgap structures | 284 |
| 4 | US4744943A | Process for the densification of material preforms | 229 |
| 5 | US5905000A | Nanostructured ion conducting solid electrolytes | 183 |
| 6 | US20060153728A1 | Synthesis of bulk, fully dense nanostructured metals and metal matrix composites | 169 |
| 7 | US4547337A | Pressure-transmitting medium and method for utilizing same to densify material | 152 |
| 8 | US4829027A | Liquid phase sintering of silicon carbide | 148 |
| 9 | US5098740A | Uniformly-coated ceramic particles | 133 |
| 10 | US5711187A | Gear wheels rolled from powder metal blanks and method of manufacture | 128 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern signals
Three findings that shape where new filings are likely to succeed and where they will meet dense prior art.
Growth has already crested
The jump to 174 filings in 2025 followed years of comparatively flat activity around the 100-filing mark in 2022. That shape is consistent with a wave of filings responding to a specific application pull — likely additive manufacturing or energy-storage ceramics — rather than steady organic growth across the whole field.
China is the primary filing venue
China's receiving-office count exceeds the United States by over 200 records and more than doubles EPO volume. Combined with WIPO PCT filings of 171, this suggests domestic Chinese filing strategy dominates volume even where international protection is also sought.
Powder metallurgy claims sit inside ceramics claim space
Nearly half as many records classify under powder metallurgy (B22F) as under core ceramics (C04B), and alloy classification (C22C) adds another 465. Sintering-aid and densification claims are being filed as much from the metallurgy side as from the ceramics side, which widens the prior-art search burden for either camp.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to advanced ceramic sintering and densification, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where activity has cooled
Recent-year momentum data shows most tracked assignees filing at most one record in the latest year, with several long-standing names showing zero. That pattern is more consistent with a fragmented field of academic and specialist filers than with a small number of dominant commercial programmes.
Even active filers are filing thin
Guangdong University of Technology and Central South University each show only a single filing in the latest tracked year, with Central South University flat at 0% year-over-year. This is a field of narrow, incremental filing activity rather than large annual portfolios.
Established names have gone quiet
Dow Chemical, GTE Laboratories, CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and Honeywell International all show zero filings in the latest year despite appearing among tracked assignees, suggesting these organisations' core sintering IP positions were established earlier and are not being actively extended.
Research consortia dominate co-assignment
The strongest co-assignee pair, CNRS with Université Toulouse III, spans 23 shared records; a Japanese pairing between NGK Insulators and Tohoku University reaches 10. These are academic-industrial or inter-institutional pairings rather than joint ventures between competing manufacturers.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Guangdong University of Technology | 1 | — |
| Central South University | 1 | 0% |
| Dow Chemical Company | 0 | — |
| GTE Laboratories Incorporated | 0 | — |
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Michelin (Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin) | 0 | — |
| Université Toulouse III (Paul Sabatier University) | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation patterns above answer what has already been claimed. The next step is testing a specific process route or claim draft against that prior art.
Map a specific sintering route
Take one process variant — spark plasma sintering with a named sintering aid, for example — and pull every family that combines it with grain-growth or relative-density claim language.
Explore in EurekaCheck freedom-to-operate across IPC boundaries
Given the overlap between C04B, B22F and C22C, a search confined to one subclass risks missing blocking art filed from an adjacent classification.
Run a search in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches
Additive manufacturing and friction-material applications show lower filing density than the ceramics core — worth monitoring before that space fills in.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on ceramic sintering patents
Sintering refers to the thermal process that bonds ceramic particles together, typically below the material's melting point, while densification is the outcome of reducing porosity to raise the material's relative density. Patents in this space often claim sintering as the process step and densification (measured as relative density or residual porosity) as the resulting property. Many filings, including the representative filing in this dataset, combine both: a sintering-aid impregnation step followed by thermal treatment specifically to reach a target density. Understanding which of the two a claim actually covers matters for freedom-to-operate, since a process claim and a resulting-material claim block different activities.
B22F covers powder metallurgy processes, and many densification techniques — hot pressing, spark plasma sintering, pressure-assisted consolidation — apply equally to metal and ceramic powders, so patent offices classify a meaningful share of ceramics-sintering filings there too. In this dataset, 836 records carry a B22F classification against 1,718 under core ceramics class C04B, meaning searches limited to C04B alone would miss a large share of relevant prior art. Firms filing new sintering-aid or grain-growth claims should search across both classes, plus the related alloy class C22C, to get a complete prior-art picture.
The trend is better described as flat-to-plateaued than growing. Annual filings rose from 77 in 2017 to a peak of 174 in 2025, but the 2022 midpoint of 104 shows that growth was not a steady climb — it built later in the period. The 2026 figure of 49 looks like a drop, but because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, that figure is a partial and understated count rather than evidence of an actual decline. A clearer read on 2025-2026 momentum will only be possible once later filings publish.
Recent-year momentum in this dataset is thin across the board: tracked assignees such as Guangdong University of Technology and Central South University show only one filing each in the latest tracked year, and longer-established names including Dow Chemical, GTE Laboratories, CNRS and Honeywell International show zero filings in that same window. This pattern points to a fragmented filer base — largely academic and specialist institutions — rather than a small set of companies running large, continuously renewed portfolios. Anyone assessing competitive activity should weight cumulative portfolio size and citation influence alongside this recent-year momentum, since a quiet recent year does not mean an organisation has exited the space.
Based on IPC composition, the branches with comparatively lower filing density relative to the ceramics core (C04B, 1,718 records) include additive manufacturing integration (B33Y, 90 records), friction and brake applications (F16D, 80 records), and clay/cement shaping hybrids (B28B, 95 records). These are not empty spaces — each has active filings — but they carry a fraction of the density seen in core ceramics or powder-metallurgy classes, which generally means fewer blocking claims to design around for a narrowly drafted application in those areas.
Research Advanced Ceramic Sintering and Densification in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole advanced ceramic sintering and densification corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.