Advanced High Strength Steel Rolling Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 63.2% of all 3,364 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 77.8% — a small group of steelmakers controls most of the filed art.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. Published filings ran from 260 in 2017 to 79 in 2024, with annual counts down 55% between 2021 and 2024 on the last complete years of data.
- Heat treatment sits alongside alloy claims almost everywhere. C22C alloy claims appear in 79.2% of records and C21D heat-treatment claims in 74.7%, while rolling-specific B21B claims sit at just 3.4%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (175 records) with 2024 (79) — 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 3,364 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset covers 3,364 published records matched on dual phase steel, TRIP steel and quenching-partitioning steel together with retained austenite, springback, hydrogen embrittlement, annealing cycle design, edge ductility and bake hardening. It spans publication dates from 2015 through the July 2026 data cut-off. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually is.
The composition and assignee figures below use patent families and IPC subclasses rather than raw document counts, which is the fairer unit for comparing filers across jurisdictions and continuation practice.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,364 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Published filings peaked at 260 in 2017 and declined to 79 by 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete; 2021 to 2024 alone shows a 55% drop. Later years in the chart are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, so they should not be read as a continued decline.
IPC subclass composition
C22C (alloys) and C21D (heat treatment of metals) dominate, appearing in 79.2% and 74.7% of records respectively, reflecting that most claims in this space are chemistry-plus-process combinations. Coating (C23C, 27.8%) and layered products (B32B, 10.0%) trail well behind, and rolling-process-specific claims under B21B sit at only 3.4% of records — each record can carry several classes, so these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,364 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 Rolling with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about advanced high strength steel rolling and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim
Dual phase steel sheet with good bake-hardening properties
A dual phase steel sheet with good bake-hardening properties is provided, characterized by a specific composition window (carbon, silicon plus aluminium, manganese, phosphorus and sulphur limits) and a microstructure holding at least 3% retained austenite, at least 30% bainite and no more than 50% ferrite. The sheet is further defined by a bake-hardening stress increase greater than 50 MPa after 2% pre-strain and a paint-bake heat treatment at 170°C for 20 minutes, giving a balance of strength and workability.Filed by Kobe Steel; published 2009-10-01.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6070671A | Creating zonal isolation between the interior and exterior of a well system | 426 |
| 2 | WO1998000626A1 | Method for expanding a steel tubing and well with such as tubing | 343 |
| 3 | JP1986157625A | Manufacture of high-strength steel sheet | 329 |
| 4 | WO1999035368A1 | Method for drilling and completing a hydrocarbon production well | 312 |
| 5 | EP2325346A1 | High-strength steel plate and manufacturing method thereof | 177 |
| 6 | US20010002626A1 | Method of creating a wellbore in an underground formation | 166 |
| 7 | WO1999006670A1 | Creating zonal isolation between the interior and exterior of a well system | 152 |
| 8 | US20060011274A1 | Method for producing steel with retained austenite | 145 |
| 9 | US6371203B2 | Method of creating a wellbore in an underground formation | 119 |
| 10 | WO2002103073A2 | High-strength alloyed aluminum-system plated steel sheet and high-strength automotive part excellent in heat … | 113 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Reading the concentration, trend and composition figures together points to where claim space is occupied and where the field is still moving.
A small group controls most of the filed art
With the top 5 assignees holding 63.2% of all records and the top 10 holding 77.8%, a new entrant is filing into space already mapped by a handful of integrated steelmakers. Freedom-to-operate work here should start with those leaders' portfolios, not a broad landscape search.
Activity has cooled from its 2017 peak, but recent years understate reality
Filings ran from a peak of 260 in 2017 down to 79 in 2024, and leading assignees show falling year-on-year counts in the momentum data. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as confirmation the field has stalled.
Claims cluster on chemistry and heat treatment, not rolling mechanics
C22C alloy claims and C21D heat-treatment claims each cover roughly three-quarters of records, while B21B metal-rolling claims sit at only 3.4% and B21D sheet-metal working at 4.5%. The rolling process itself looks comparatively open next to the composition and annealing space around it.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated in a few relationships
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pairing far ahead of the others. Most filers in this field prosecute alone rather than through joint ventures or research partnerships.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to advanced high strength steel rolling, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | Shinshu TLO Co., Ltd. | 37 |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | voestalpine Stahl GmbH | 15 |
| JFE Steel Corporation | ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG | 12 |
| voestalpine Stahl GmbH | Toyota Motor Europe | 12 |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company | 8 |
| NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP | Aoyama Seisakusho Co., Ltd. | 7 |
| voestalpine Stahl GmbH | Toyota Motor Corporation | 6 |
| JFE Steel Corporation | ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company | 5 |
Co-assignee activity is thin and dominated by one recurring pairing, consistent with a field where large integrated steelmakers file independently rather than through joint research vehicles.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders are almost all integrated steelmakers with decades of alloy and heat-treatment portfolios; recent-year momentum shows most of them pulling back from peak filing rates even as they retain dominant positions.
The leader's count dwarfs the rest of the field
The top assignee holds 661 records against 224 at fifth place and 65 at tenth, a steep drop-off that marks this as a field with one dominant filer rather than several evenly matched competitors.
Even the leaders are filing less than they were
Recent-year momentum shows declines across the named leaders, with drops as steep as -78% and -80% year-on-year for individual assignees, alongside others filing only a handful of records in the latest year. This is consistent with the broader 2021-2024 pullback rather than a single company retreating.
Filing activity spans Europe, the US and India
Europe (EPO) leads with 888 filings, followed by the United States at 777 and India at 460, with Germany, Canada and Austria also carrying meaningful volume. This spread suggests the commercial audience for these steels is genuinely multi-regional rather than concentrated in one jurisdiction.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ArcelorMittal SA | 4 | -78% |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 3 | -50% |
| POSCO | 2 | -80% |
| JFE Steel Corporation | 1 | — |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP | 0 | — |
| Tata Steel IJmuiden BV | 0 | — |
| voestalpine Stahl GmbH | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape figures point to where to look next, not to a final answer — the following steps narrow from field-wide patterns to a specific freedom-to-operate or whitespace question.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With one assignee holding 661 records, a targeted claim-chart pass against that portfolio will tell you more about actual freedom to operate than any field-wide statistic.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest a claim in the under-claimed branches
Rolling-process parameters and edge-ductility control both show thin claim density relative to the alloy and heat-treatment core; a first claim there is worth drafting and searching before committing to composition-space filing.
Run a whitespace search in EurekaTrack the post-2024 filing signal as it fills in
2025 and 2026 counts will keep rising as publication catches up; re-pulling the trend in a few months will show whether the 2021-2024 pullback continued or reversed.
Set up a filing alert in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads with 661 records out of 3,364 in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 224 and tenth place at 65. The top 5 assignees together hold 63.2% of all records and the top 10 hold 77.8%, so the field is dominated by a small group of integrated steelmakers rather than spread evenly. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should prioritise those leading portfolios before widening the search.
Published filings fell from a peak of 260 in 2017 to 79 in 2024, and the 2021-2024 span shows a 55% decline, so activity has genuinely cooled from its peak. However, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are still incomplete and should not be read as continued decline. The honest read is that the field has pulled back from a 2017 high, with the most recent trend still uncertain.
Alloy composition (IPC class C22C) and heat treatment of metals (C21D) dominate, appearing in 79.2% and 74.7% of the 3,364 records respectively, meaning most claims combine a chemistry window with a specific thermal process. Coating and surface deposition (C23C) covers 27.8% of records, while rolling-process-specific claims under B21B sit at just 3.4%. That gap between composition claims and rolling-process claims is a useful signal for where the claim space is less crowded.
Hydrogen embrittlement is one of the search terms used to build this dataset and appears alongside retained austenite, springback and bake hardening as a technical concern rather than as a distinct IPC subclass of its own. It shows up embedded within the dominant C22C alloy and C21D heat-treatment claims, meaning mitigation approaches are typically claimed as part of a broader composition or annealing-cycle claim rather than standalone. A practitioner searching this angle specifically should expect to filter within the C22C/C21D set rather than find a separate class.
Co-assignment is rare across this dataset: only 10 co-assignee pairs were identified among 3,364 records, and one pairing recurs well ahead of the others. Most filers in advanced high strength steel prosecute independently rather than through joint ventures or shared research vehicles. This suggests that most of the intellectual property in the space is developed and held in-house by individual steelmakers rather than through formal collaboration.
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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.