Carbon Brake Disc Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 85.3% of all 367 records sit with just five assignees, leaving a long tail of 51 ranked companies with a handful of filings each.
- Filings fell 73% from a 2021 peak of 51 records to 14 in 2024, the last year the trend can be read as complete.
- F16D covers 82.6% of records showing most patent activity concerns brake-stack mechanics and wear sensing, not the composite material itself.
Filing growth compares 2021 (51 records) with 2024 (14) — 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 367 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 367 published patent records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine carbon-carbon brake disc or brake disc stack claims with functional elements such as oxidation protection coatings, wear rate, friction stability, energy absorption, stator disc geometry or torque tube design. It spans both the mechanical brake-assembly side of the technology and the underlying composite material chemistry.
Filing activity rose through the late 2010s, peaked in 2021, and has since declined through the last complete year of data — a pattern that reflects a maturing claim landscape around disc-stack architecture and wear sensing rather than declining interest in the underlying material system.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset covers 367 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, spanning wear-measurement systems, disc-stack architecture and the carbon-carbon composite chemistry that makes the discs work under repeated high-energy braking.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 51 records in 2021, then fell to 14 by 2024 — a 73% drop over that three-year span. Years after 2024 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the apparent decline should not be read as a verdict on the technology's future.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
F16D (clutches and brakes) covers 82.6% of the 367 records, confirming that most filings concern the mechanical brake assembly rather than the friction material itself. B64C (aircraft) appears in 21.3% of records and C04B (ceramics and refractories, the composite chemistry layer) in 12.8% — each record can carry several classes, so these figures do not sum to 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 367 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Brake disc stack wear measurement (US9482301B2)
A brake wear measurement system uses an emitter and a passive powered sensor mounted so they move relative to each other as the brake disc stack wears. The changing signal characteristic between emitter and sensor is read by a processor to determine wear, giving a way to monitor disc-stack condition without an externally powered sensing element.Filed by Honeywell International Inc., dated 2016-11-01.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5962135A | Carbon/carbon friction material | 80 |
| 2 | US20040011596A1 | Brake condition monitoring | 78 |
| 3 | WO2002012043A1 | Brake condition monitoring | 65 |
| 4 | US4878563A | Brake apparatus | 60 |
| 5 | US20090229926A1 | Proximity sensor for brake wear detection | 55 |
| 6 | WO2003057529A2 | Advanced composite hybrid-electric vehicle | 52 |
| 7 | US4742948A | Bonding of carbon-based components | 52 |
| 8 | US8152246B2 | Brake condition monitoring | 50 |
| 9 | US7086503B2 | Brake condition monitoring | 49 |
| 10 | US3934686A | Carbon friction members having torque transmitting formations | 46 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older records; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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The numbers describe where claim space is dense, where it is thin, and where activity has genuinely cooled versus where publication lag is still catching up.
A five-company core, then a long tail
With the leader alone holding 213 of 367 records and the top five holding 85.3%, most of the disc-stack and wear-sensing claim space is already occupied by a small group. The remaining 46 ranked companies file in single digits, which typically means narrow, defensive filings around specific components rather than broad architecture claims.
A real cooling, not just a lag artifact
Filings dropped from 51 in 2021 to 14 in 2024 — a comparison between two years both old enough to be treated as complete. That is a genuine decline in new filing activity in this specific corpus, even though later years will still revise upward as publication catches up.
Mechanics outweigh materials chemistry
Brake-assembly mechanics (F16D) appear in more than six times as many records as the underlying ceramic/composite chemistry (C04B). Programmes that only secure material composition claims will still need to clear a dense layer of mechanical disc-stack and wear-sensing patents.
US and Europe dominate filing strategy
The United States (118) and the European Patent Office (97) receive far more filings than Germany, the UK or Austria individually, reflecting where aircraft brake certification and manufacturing activity concentrates. A competitor tracking programme should watch both offices, not just one.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to carbon brake discs for aircraft, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Honeywell International Inc. | WALKER TERRENCE B | 2 |
| Honeywell International Inc. | WAGHRAY AKSHAY | 2 |
| Honeywell International Inc. | BLUNT ALLAN W | 2 |
| Hypercar | WRIGHT CHRIS | 2 |
| Hypercar | WAREING DAVID | 2 |
| Hypercar | TAGGART DAVID | 2 |
| Hypercar | SIM MALCOLM | 2 |
| Hypercar | PLOUMEN SERVE | 2 |
The strongest co-assignee pairings all sit within the leading assignee's own filings, pointing to a small, consistent inventor team iterating on the same core wear-sensing concept across multiple applications rather than broad external collaboration.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
Filing is dominated by a small group of aerospace braking system suppliers, with a long tail of smaller entrants filing narrow, component-level claims around the core architecture.
One company anchors the field
The leading assignee holds 213 of the 367 records in scope, more than five times the fifth-placed filer's count of 10. Its portfolio spans wear-sensing architecture, disc-stack retention and related monitoring systems.
A tight band below the leader
Filing drops sharply after the top few names — the fifth-ranked assignee holds 10 records and the tenth-ranked holds 4, meaning the top ten together already account for 94.0% of all 367 records.
Single-digit filers fill the tail
With the top ten holding 94.0% of records, the remaining 41 ranked companies share the final 6.0% between them — typically single or narrow filings targeting specific components rather than broad system architecture.
Even the leader has slowed
The leading assignee's filings fell 83% year-on-year in the most recent year, alongside several other major names showing zero filings in that year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this likely overstates the actual slowdown.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Honeywell International Inc. | 1 | -83% |
| Goodrich Corporation | 0 | — |
| MEGGITT AEROSPACE | 0 | — |
| Dunlop Ltd | 0 | — |
| Dunlop Aerospace | 0 | — |
| Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems Corp | 0 | — |
| MASSEY FERGUSON SERVICES NV | 0 | — |
| AIRCRAFT BRAKING SYSTEMS CORP | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures here establish where filing is concentrated and where it thins out. Turning that into a filing or clearance decision means going deeper on specific claims and specific competitors.
Run a freedom-to-operate check
Map any candidate disc-stack or wear-sensing design against the leading assignee's full claim set before committing engineering resources, given how much of the field one portfolio covers.
Check claims in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches
Composite lay-up, laminate structure and predictive wear-data claims sit below the density of the mechanical core — worth monitoring for new entrants before the space fills in.
Set up monitoring in EurekaWatch the next 18 months of publications
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true 2025-2026 filing volume is still forming. Revisit the trend once those years are more complete.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions about carbon brake disc patents
Filing in this field is heavily concentrated: the leading assignee alone accounts for 213 of the 367 records in scope, and the five largest filers together hold 85.3% of all records. That leaves a long tail of 51 ranked companies with only single-digit or single filings each. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should focus first on the leader's portfolio, since it covers the large majority of the mechanical and wear-sensing claim space.
Filings peaked in 2021 at 51 records and had fallen to 14 by 2024, a 73% drop over that three-year window. That is the most recent period that can be read as a complete trend, because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures will keep rising as more records publish. Treat the recent apparent slowdown as partly a data artifact rather than a confirmed pullback in R&D activity.
The overwhelming majority of records, 82.6%, sit in IPC class F16D (clutches and brakes), covering disc-stack architecture, torque tubes and wear measurement. Aircraft-specific classification B64C appears in 21.3% of records, and the underlying composite material chemistry, classified under C04B (ceramics and refractories), appears in 12.8%. Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these figures do not need to sum to 100%, and they show that mechanical system claims outnumber pure materials claims in this corpus.
US9482301B2, assigned to Honeywell International Inc. and filed in 2016, claims a brake wear measurement system using a passive powered sensor and an emitter mounted so their relative position changes as the disc stack wears, with a processor reading the resulting signal change. This blocks designs using that specific passive emitter/sensor wear-detection architecture, but does not automatically block mechanical wear-pin indicators, direct optical gauging, or actively powered sensor systems that avoid the passive-sensor structure. A full clearance check should also weigh other highly cited wear- and proximity-sensor patents in the same corpus.
The thinnest classes relative to the F16D and B64C core are B29C (plastics/composite shaping, 5.7% of records), B32B (layered products and laminates, 5.2%) and G06Q (data processing applied to brake condition, 5.4%). These sit well below the mechanical stack and materials classes, suggesting that manufacturing-process claims and data-driven wear-prediction claims around the disc stack are less crowded than the stack architecture itself. Combining a specific composite lay-up step with a defined predictive-monitoring output is one plausible unclaimed direction.
The United States receives the largest share of filings in this dataset at 118, followed by the European Patent Office at 97, with Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria each in the 29-35 range and WIPO PCT filings at 15. This spread indicates that applicants are pursuing protection across the major aerospace manufacturing and certification jurisdictions rather than concentrating filings in a single office.
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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.