Automated Fiber Placement Head and Material Feed Mechanism Patents
69.8% concentration. The top five assignees alone account for 513 of the 735 records in scope - a field with a narrow set of gatekeepers rather than a broad, open one. Filings rose to a peak of 72 in 2020, then declined through the following years - 16 in 2021 down to 6 in 2024, a -63% move over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as evidence of continued decline, since publication lag means recent filings have not all surfaced yet.
- 1THE BOEING CO280
- 2FIVES MACHINING SYSTEMS INC109
- 3INGERSOLL MACHINE TOOLS INC80
- 4CYTEC IND INC26
- 5ISOGRID COMPOSITES CANADA18
See the full afp head and material feed mechanisms analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about AFP head and feed mechanism patents
Who holds the most patents on automated fiber placement heads?
One assignee dominates this corpus with 280 of the 735 records in scope, well ahead of the next four ranked companies combined. The top five assignees together hold 513 records, or 69.8% of the field, and the top ten reach 79.5%. This is a heavily concentrated space, so any freedom-to-operate review should start with that leading assignee's portfolio rather than treating the field as fragmented.
Is patent filing in AFP head technology growing or slowing down?
Filings peaked at 72 in 2020 and then declined, falling from 16 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a -63% change over that three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year with reasonably complete data; 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months. It would be premature to read the very latest years as confirming a continued drop.
What technology areas do these patents actually cover?
The large majority, 73.7% of the 735 records, classify under B29C, shaping of plastics, which fits since AFP heads are fundamentally plastics-forming tools. Layered products and laminates (B32B) appear in 15.2% of records and web/filament handling (B65H) in 9.8%, with material testing (G01N) present in 9.3% of records, indicating a meaningful secondary cluster around inline quality inspection. Since records often carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on AFP Head and Material Feed Mechanisms covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.