Advanced High-Strength Steel Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled since its 2018 peak. 20 families filed that year against 3 in the most recent (partial) year, with the 2022 midpoint already back down to 10 — this is a maturing claim space, not a growing one.
- Heat treatment claims dominate the corpus. 189 of 202 records sit in C21D and 181 in C22C, meaning almost every filing pairs a heat-treatment step with the alloy composition claim rather than claiming composition alone.
- China leads filing volume by a wide margin. 67 records were filed through China's receiving office versus 53 through the EPO and 30 through the USPTO, with momentum among the largest Chinese and Korean steelmakers now flat or negative year-on-year.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families filed against dual-phase steel, TRIP steel composition, microalloyed steel and alloying-element design, scoped to C22C38/00, C22C38/02 and C21D8. It captures 202 published patent families between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from filings that pair a specific steel chemistry claim with a processing or heat-treatment route.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent filing year in any trend line is undercounted and should be read as a floor, not a final figure. The dataset still shows a clear shape: a 2018 peak followed by a flattening trend, concentrated heavily in heat-treatment and alloy IPC codes, with China's receiving office carrying the largest single share of filings.
Filing trends and technology concentration
Annual filing counts and IPC subclass distribution for the 202 families in this corpus, spanning 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off.
Filing activity has flattened since 2018
Filings rose to a peak of 20 in 2018, held near the 2022 midpoint of 10, and have declined toward the most recent partial year of 3. Read the tail end cautiously: publication lag means 2025 and 2026 filings are still arriving.
Heat treatment and alloy codes anchor the corpus
C21D (189 records) and C22C (181 records) cover nearly the entire dataset, confirming that claims in this space are built around a composition-plus-process pairing. Coating (C23C, 64) and rolling (B21B, 57) trail well behind, and steelmaking (C21C, 9) and extrusion (B21C, 8) are the thinnest branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 202 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Advanced High-Strength Steel Alloy Composition with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about advanced high-strength steel alloy composition and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Dual-phase steel sheet with excellent formability and manufacturing method therefor (US20170306438A1)
The present invention relates to a high-strength steel sheet and, more specifically, to a dual-phase steel sheet having excellent formability, so as to be appropriately applied to vehicle panels and the like, and a manufacturing method therefor.Filed by POSCO, published 2017-10-26. Selected as representative of the dual-phase composition-plus-formability claim pattern common across this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN101348885A | 一种1000MPa级冷轧热镀锌双相钢及其制造方法 | 78 |
| 2 | US20110048589A1 | High-strength steel sheet and method for manufacturing the same | 68 |
| 3 | JP2006274418A | High-strength cold-rolled steel sheet having superior in uniform elongation and manufacturing method therefor | 66 |
| 4 | US20110030854A1 | High-strength steel sheet and method for manufacturing the same | 44 |
| 5 | US20060191612A1 | High-strength steel sheet excellent in deep drawing characteristics and method for production thereof | 42 |
| 6 | JP2007284776A | High-strength steel sheet having high young's modulus and adequate press formability, hot-dip galvanized stee… | 41 |
| 7 | CN105603325A | 一种600MPa级含钒热镀锌双相钢及其制备方法 | 35 |
| 8 | CN106011643A | 一种抗拉强度590MPa级冷轧双相钢及其制备方法 | 29 |
| 9 | CN105063510A | 一种高塑性700MPa级冷轧耐候双相钢及其制备方法 | 29 |
| 10 | CN104561812A | 一种1000MPa级高铝热镀锌双相钢及其制备方法 | 28 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of technical reference weight, not of present-day commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns in the data matter more than the raw counts: where claim density sits, how citation weight is distributed, and what the co-filing pairs reveal about how this work actually gets done.
Composition claims rarely stand alone
Only a small share of filings claim alloy chemistry without a paired heat-treatment or processing step. A composition-only claim is likely to run into prior art already covering the same chemistry inside a process claim.
Older dual-phase filings still anchor the field
The most-cited records date from the mid-2000s to 2011 and centre on cold-rolled, hot-dip galvanized dual-phase and high-strength cold-rolled sheet. New filings in adjacent chemistry are likely to be examined against these.
The largest filers have gone quiet
Recent-year momentum among the biggest historical assignees is flat or negative — one leading Chinese steelmaker shows a -83% year-on-year drop to a single filing, and several major Japanese and Korean steelmakers show zero filings in the latest year.
Co-filing is limited and mostly intra-group
The strongest co-assignee pair links two entities within the same Chinese steel group, and the next-strongest pairs link a Korean steelmaker with named individual inventors rather than external corporate partners.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to advanced high-strength steel alloy composition, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has stopped
Filing activity in this corpus is concentrated among a small set of large steelmakers, most of them Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and recent momentum has slowed across nearly all of them.
Ansteel's filing pace has dropped sharply
Ansteel Company shows only 1 filing in the latest year, an 83% drop year-on-year, after being one of the more active filers historically in this dataset.
JFE Steel, POSCO, Nippon Steel and Pangang show no recent activity
Four of the historically largest assignees in this corpus, including JFE Steel, POSCO and Nippon Steel, recorded no filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the broader post-2018 slowdown.
Shougang's filings cluster within its own group
The strongest co-assignee relationship in the dataset links Shougang Group with its Jingtang joint venture, pointing to internal group filing coordination rather than external collaboration.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Angang Steel Company Limited (Ansteel) | 1 | -83% |
| JFE Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| POSCO Co., Ltd | 0 | — |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Pangang Group Panzhihua Iron & Steel Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Christal S.A. | 0 | — |
| Shougang Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing data points to a claim space that is dense at its centre and thinning at its edges. Two directions make sense from here.
Map the white space branches in detail
The under-claimed IPC branches — steelmaking-stage microalloying, extrusion-drawn profiles, layered composites — carry far fewer filings than the C21D/C22C core and deserve a closer claim-by-claim read before ruling them out or in.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the assignees that have gone quiet
Several of the largest historical filers show zero or sharply reduced activity in the latest year. Confirming whether that reflects a strategy shift, a portfolio consolidation, or simply publication lag matters before drawing conclusions.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions on advanced high-strength steel patents
Filing in this corpus is concentrated among a small group of large steelmakers, historically including Chinese, Japanese and Korean groups such as Ansteel, JFE Steel, POSCO and Nippon Steel. Several of these large historical filers show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, so current leadership by volume looks different from historical leadership. Anyone assessing 'who leads' should separate cumulative filing counts from recent-year momentum, since the two tell different stories in this dataset.
Filing peaked at 20 records in 2018 and has fallen toward 3 in the most recent partial year, with the 2022 midpoint already down to 10. This pattern is consistent with a claim space where the dominant composition-plus-heat-treatment approaches have already been filed by the largest players, leaving less open ground for straightforward continuation filings. Part of the recent drop is also publication lag, since filings from the last 18 months are typically still working through the pipeline and are undercounted in any live dataset.
Both appear throughout this corpus, and the search scope specifically includes TRIP steel composition and dual-phase steel as core terms alongside microalloyed steel and alloying-element design. The most-cited records in the dataset, including a top-cited Chinese filing on cold-rolled hot-dip galvanized dual-phase steel, tend to pair a specific alloy chemistry with a named heat-treatment or rolling process rather than claiming the metallurgical phase behaviour in isolation. Reviewing the composition-plus-process pairing in a target filing is more informative than classifying it as 'dual-phase' or 'TRIP' alone.
The dataset shows heavy concentration in heat treatment (C21D, 189 records) and alloy composition (C22C, 181 records), but far fewer filings in steelmaking-stage microalloying (C21C, 9 records), extrusion-drawn profiles (B21C, 8 records) and layered steel composites (B32B, 16 records). These thinner branches sit adjacent to the dense core and are worth a claim-by-claim review before assuming they are blocked. Low filing volume does not guarantee freedom to operate, but it does mean less prior art to design around.
Citation counts in this corpus favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate references from later applicants; the most-cited record here dates back to a mid-2000s Chinese dual-phase steel filing cited 78 times. A high citation count signals that a filing sits on a well-trodden technical path that later applicants had to reference, not that the underlying technology is still the most commercially relevant option. Recent filings with low citation counts should not be dismissed on that basis alone, since they simply haven't had time to accumulate citations yet.
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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.