Casting, Forging & Rolling Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- One assignee holds 155 records well clear of the field — the next four leaders combined only bring the top five to 19.9% of all 1,640 records in scope.
- Metal rolling (B21B) touches 52.3% of records so process-control and roll-geometry claims sit on the densest prior art in the dataset; casting and extrusion classes each stay under 7%.
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak of 61 and the 2021-to-2024 span, the last complete years, shows a 33% decline to 32 filings — a real pullback, not just publication lag.
Filing growth compares 2021 (48 records) with 2024 (32) — 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 1,640 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent landscape covers
This landscape draws on 1,640 published records filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, all matched against process-control language — process temperature, tool geometry, material feed, dimensional tolerance, grain structure and rolling process — layered over the core casting, forging and rolling art. The scope is deliberately narrow: it is not every metals patent, but the subset where inventors are claiming control over a physical manufacturing variable rather than the alloy composition or end product alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 and has since receded, with the most recent complete year (2024) sitting well below the 2021 level. Publication lag means the last one to two years in the chart are still filling in, so the current dip should be read cautiously rather than as a confirmed end to filing activity.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,640 records: the year-by-year filing curve and the IPC subclasses that carry the claims. Together they show a field that grew fast through 2018, has since pulled back, and remains overwhelmingly weighted toward rolling process control.
A 2018 peak followed by a real pullback
Filings ran from 36 in 2017 to a peak of 61 in 2018. The 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch unaffected by publication lag, fell from 48 to 32 filings — a 33% decline. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional; they will rise as later publications catch up.
Rolling process control dominates the IPC mix
B21B (metal rolling) appears in 52.3% of the 1,640 records in scope, dwarfing every other subclass. Lubricants (C10M, 7.3%), casting (B22D, 6.0%), welding/brazing (B23K, 5.2%) and alloys (C22C, 5.2%) form a mid-tier, with extrusion/drawing (B21C, 4.8%) and heat treatment (C21D, 4.3%) close behind. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100% and should be read independently, not as parts of a whole.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,640 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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A control-loop approach to monitoring the rolling process
The filing describes a method for monitoring and/or controlling a metal rolling process built on time-series manufacturing data, predetermined signature pattern classes representing manufacturing events, and discrete snapshots generated from that time series with aligned reference times and consistent feature counts. Snapshots are fed to a classification step, positioning the claims around real-time event detection during rolling rather than around the mechanical tooling itself.Filed by ABB Schweiz AG, published 2020-11-18.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4126027A | Method and apparatus for eccentricity correction in a rolling mill | 483 |
| 2 | US4215406A | Digital computer monitored and/or operated system or process which is structured for operation with an improv… | 154 |
| 3 | US4389706A | Digital computer monitored and/or operated system or process which is structured for operation with an improv… | 123 |
| 4 | US5025547A | Method of providing textures on material by rolling | 116 |
| 5 | US4215407A | Combined file and directory system for a process control digital computer system | 111 |
| 6 | US20120279441A1 | System for continuous feeding of filler material for friction stir welding, processing and fabrication | 106 |
| 7 | US3988913A | Isothermal metal forming apparatus | 98 |
| 8 | US20210357555A1 | Data-driven representation and clustering discretization method and system for design optimization and/or per… | 90 |
| 9 | US5481084A | Method for treating a surface such as a metal surface and producing products embodying such including lithopl… | 88 |
| 10 | US4227245A | Digital computer monitored system or process which is configured with the aid of an improved automatic progra… | 86 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of current technical importance.
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Three figures anchor how concentrated, how technically weighted, and how geographically distributed this landscape actually is.
Leadership is concentrated but not locked up
The top five assignees combined hold 19.9% of all 1,640 records in scope, and the top ten reach 28.3%. That leaves more than seven in ten records spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants — a field with a clear leader but plenty of room beneath it.
Rolling process control is the dense zone
Metal rolling (B21B) appears in over half of all records, far ahead of lubricants, casting, welding and alloy classes, each in the 5-7% range. Anyone filing new rolling-control claims is filing into the most crowded part of the map.
Activity has pulled back from its peak
Filings fell from 48 in 2021 to 32 in 2024, a 33% decline across the last stretch of complete data. That follows a 2018 peak of 61, suggesting the initial wave of process-control claiming has largely run its course.
Filing is US- and Japan-weighted
The United States leads receiving offices with 407 records, followed by Japan at 248, EPO at 183, China at 174, the UK at 106 and Canada at 87. That ordering points to where enforcement and freedom-to-operate questions matter most for this art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to casting, forging & rolling patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Linde AG | Siemens PLC | 9 |
| Linde AG | Siemens VAI Metals Technologies GmbH (Austria) | 6 |
| Alcoa Inc. | SAMPLE VIVEK M | 5 |
| Alcoa Inc. | PAOLA VINCENT A | 5 |
| Alcoa Inc. | CHABAL RONALD G | 5 |
| Linde AG | Primetals Technologies Austria GmbH | 5 |
| Alcoa Inc. | REIGHARD SCOTT E | 3 |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | Toshiba Corporation | 3 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings cluster around a small number of firms — most assignees in this field file alone.
Who holds ground, and where the gaps sit
The ranked list spans 100 companies, but the distribution is lopsided: a single leader well out in front, a mid-tier of double-digit filers, and a long tail with one or two records each. Recent-year momentum has cooled across nearly all of the visible names.
One assignee sets the pace by a wide margin
The leading assignee holds 155 records, more than four times the fifth-place total of 34 and over seven times the tenth-place total of 21. That gap is the single clearest structural fact in this dataset.
A compressed mid-tier, not a second leader
Between fifth and tenth place, filing counts run from 34 down to 21 — a tight band rather than a clear second-tier leader. No single company outside the top spot has separated itself from its peers.
Recent-year filing has gone quiet across the board
Among the assignees tracked for recent momentum, filings in the latest year run at zero or one record each. That is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 pullback and suggests most established filers are not actively adding to their positions right now.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novelis Inc. | 1 | — |
| SMS Group GmbH | 1 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Corp | 0 | — |
| Miyoshi Oil & Fat Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Alcoa Inc. | 0 | — |
| General Electric Co | 0 | — |
| Linde AG | 0 | — |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature, concentrated core and a thinner set of adjacent branches. The next step depends on whether the goal is defending a position or finding room to file.
Map freedom-to-operate against the leader's holdings
With one assignee holding 155 records against a field of 1,640, any new filing in rolling process control should be checked against that portfolio before drafting claims.
Explore assignee holdings in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches as they fill in
Sub-areas like in-line tolerance sensing and lubricant-property tuning show lower density now, but that can shift quickly once a filer stakes out early claims.
Set up monitoring in EurekaWatch for the 2025-2026 correction as data catches up
The apparent slowdown after 2021 will be partly reversed as publication lag resolves; re-check the trend once more recent years are complete.
Run a fresh trend query in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 100 companies by patent family count, with one assignee holding 155 records, well ahead of the field. The top five combined account for 19.9% of all 1,640 records in scope, and the top ten reach 28.3%, leaving most of the remaining records spread thinly across a long tail of smaller filers. This is a field with a clear leader but no tight cluster of co-equal rivals behind it.
Filing peaked in 2018 at 61 records and has since declined; across the last fully complete stretch, 2021 to 2024, filings fell from 48 to 32, a 33% drop. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a further slowdown. The honest read is a real pullback through 2024, with the most recent trend still unresolved.
Metal rolling, IPC subclass B21B, appears in 52.3% of the 1,640 records in scope, making it by far the densest claim area in this landscape. Lubricants, casting, welding/brazing and alloys each sit in the 5-7% range, and heat treatment and extrusion/drawing trail close behind. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages do not sum to 100% and should be compared independently rather than as slices of a pie.
The lower-density branches include in-line dimensional tolerance sensing for extrusion, lubricant-property tuning tied to hot rolling conditions, and integration points between casting and downstream rolling material feed. These sit well below the density of core rolling-process-control claims, which are concentrated under B21B. A first filing in one of these branches would need to combine a specific sensing or control mechanism with the manufacturing step it modifies, rather than restating a general process claim.
The United States receiving office leads with 407 records, followed by Japan at 248, the European Patent Office at 183, China at 174, the United Kingdom at 106 and Canada at 87. This ordering reflects where applicants have chosen to seek protection, not necessarily where the underlying research originates, and it is a useful starting point for freedom-to-operate checks in specific markets.
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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.