CFRP Fatigue & Delamination Patent Landscape 2026
Boeing leads a moderately concentrated field of 187 patent families, with China as the dominant filing jurisdiction and composites-shaping processes as the core technology route. Annual volume has eased from its 2019 peak, signalling a maturing space where differentiation increasingly lies in adjacent branches such as testing, laminates, and additive manufacturing.
Boeing leads a moderately concentrated field with a clear tier gap below the top three
Boeing holds the top position with 26 patent records, nearly double the second-ranked Toray Industries at 13, establishing a clear lead over the rest of the field. Hengshen and Nissin Kogyo share third place at 9 records each, while Illinois Tool Works and Giant Manufacturing Co. follow at 7 each.
The top five filers account for 20% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, indicating moderate overall concentration. A pronounced gap separates Boeing and Toray from the mid-tier cluster, which contains a diverse mix of Japanese brake and polymer specialists, Chinese materials producers, and U. S. research institutions.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Boeing Company | 26 | |
| 2 | Toray Industries, Inc. | 13 | |
| 3 | Nissin Kogyo Co., Ltd. | 9 | |
| 4 | Hengshen | 9 | |
| 5 | Illinois Tool Works Inc. | 7 | |
| 6 | Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 7 | |
| 7 | Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. | 6 | |
| 8 | Honda Motor Co., Ltd. | 6 | |
| 9 | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 6 | |
| 10 | Sumitomo Seika Chemicals Co., Ltd. | 6 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Shinshu University | 6 | |
| 12 | King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals | 6 | |
| 13 | Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation | 5 | |
| 14 | Changzhou Shenying Carbon Plastic Composite Materials Co., Ltd. | 5 | |
| 15 | GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 5 | |
| 16 | Inoac Corporation | 5 | |
| 17 | The Government of the United States of America | 4 | |
| 18 | Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. | 4 | |
| 19 | AWA Forged Composites LLC | 4 | |
| 20 | Florida State University Research Foundation, Inc. | 4 |
Boeing’s position, heavily anchored in plastics shaping and aerospace airframe classes, reflects a vertically integrated strategy protecting structural CFRP applications. The presence of multiple academic institutions and smaller niche players in the top 20 suggests the field retains room for specialist entrants, particularly in testing methodology and polymer formulation.
Filing counts for the most recent 18–24 months are subject to publication lag and likely understate actual activity; the apparent 2024–2025 softness should not be read as a structural retreat. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
A 2019 filing surge gave way to stable mid-range activity; shaping and polymer processing dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend reveals a spike in 2019 followed by a return to a narrower band, while the technology composition chart shows that composites-processing classes command the bulk of patent records, with testing and laminate branches holding meaningful but smaller shares.
Annual filing trend
Filings peaked sharply in 2019 then settled into a range of 14–22 records per year through 2025. The most recent two years carry publication-lag risk and should be treated as provisional. The overall pattern is consistent with a field that reached peak intensity around 2019 and has since normalised rather than expanded.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
B29C (Shaping of plastics) dominates by a wide margin, reflecting the field’s core focus on composite lay-up and curing processes. C08J (Polymer processing and solutions) and B32B (Layered products and laminates) form a secondary cluster. G01N (Material analysis and testing) is notable as the leading non-manufacturing branch, indicating sustained interest in fatigue characterisation methods. Additive manufacturing (B33Y) and nanotechnology (B82Y) appear at the lower end, signalling early-stage adjacent activity.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Preparation method and product of carbon fiber rei…
The disclosure discloses a preparation method and product of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites with a designable characteristic structure. The method includes: (a) choosing carbon fabrics as raw material, where a predetermined number of the fabrics are selected to deposit the reinforcement phase; (b) coating all carbon fabrics with resin matrix… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fiber-reinforced carbon and graphite articles and … | 67 |
| 2 | 基于应力比影响的碳纤维复合材料疲劳寿命评估方法 | 63 |
| 3 | Fiber-reinforced carbon and graphite articles and … | 62 |
| 4 | Light-weight vehicle wheels with carbon fiber inse… | 51 |
| 5 | Method for manufacturing a carbon fiber composite | 45 |
| 6 | Universal debonding test apparatus for carbon fibe… | 41 |
| 7 | Carbon fiber composite material and method of prod… | 32 |
| 8 | Cfrp plate material and method for preparation the… | 32 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural features—life-cycle stage, applicant concentration, collaboration patterns, and jurisdiction spread—shape the risk-return profile for new entrants and existing players alike.
Field is in decline phase: annual volume has eased from its 2019 peak
The lifecycle evidence places this field in a decline stage, with annual filings easing back from the 2019 peak. For R&D teams, this means core shaping and laminate process patents are densely occupied; incremental filings in B29C face a crowded prior-art landscape. Differentiation value is shifting toward performance characterisation, interface chemistry, and multi-material integration rather than foundational processing methods.
Lifecycle: DeclineModerate concentration with a pronounced leader gap; mid-tier is fragmented
Boeing’s record count is roughly twice Toray’s, and the top five hold 20% of the top-hundred filers’ combined output. Below that threshold the field fragments rapidly across Japanese tier-1 suppliers, Chinese materials producers, U.S. national labs, and universities. This fragmentation in the mid-tier means no single challenger has yet consolidated enough scope to mount a broad portfolio challenge to Boeing.
Concentration: ModerateTwo active co-filing partnerships anchor the collaboration network
The most active co-filing pair is Nissin Kogyo and Shinshu University, with 5 joint filings, linking a Japanese brake-component manufacturer with a materials-science research institution. Boeing and Washington State University share 4 co-filed records, pairing aerospace structural expertise with academic composites research. Both partnerships point to industry-academia models as the primary collaboration vehicle in this space.
Collaboration: ActiveChina leads filings by volume; the U.S. and EPO form a strong second tier
China accounts for the largest share of patent records among all jurisdictions, followed by the United States and Europe via the EPO. Japan, India, and WIPO (PCT) represent a meaningful third tier. South Korea, Canada, Germany, and Australia have a smaller but present footprint. The China-led filing pattern reflects both domestic CFRP industry growth and the activity of Chinese universities and materials companies visible in the applicant ranking.
Geography: China-ledGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Nissin Kogyo Co., Ltd. | Shinshu University | 5 |
| The Boeing Company | Washington State University | 4 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Boeing anchors aerospace structural applications; Toray is a new entrant building momentum in processing and laminates
The top two applicants hold distinctly different technology emphases and trajectories: Boeing is a long-standing incumbent with a declining filing rate, while Toray enters the ranking as a new filer with a multi-branch composites strategy.
The Boeing Company
Boeing leads with 26 patent records, focused on plastics shaping (B29C 70), aerospace airframe structures (B64C 1), and plastic product indexing (B29L 31). This portfolio maps directly to structural CFRP components for commercial and military aircraft. However, Boeing’s recent filing trend shows a steep decline of approximately 80% versus the prior three-year period, suggesting that foundational position-building in core shaping and airframe classes may be largely complete.
patent records: 26Toray Industries Inc.
Toray ranks second with 13 patent records and is classified as a new entrant in the recent filing window, indicating its current activity represents a fresh push rather than a continuation of prior filings in this scope. Toray’s technology emphasis spans plastics shaping (B29C 70), layered laminates (B32B 27), and polymer processing and solutions (C08J 5), reflecting a broad composites-materials strategy that could underpin licensing or supply-chain positioning across multiple end-use sectors.
patent records: 13| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| The Boeing Company | 2 | ▼ -80% |
| Toray Industries, Inc. | 5 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served adjacent branches worth monitoring: laminates engineering and material testing methods
The technology composition reveals several IPC branches that sit adjacent to the dominant shaping and polymer-processing core but carry meaningfully lower patent density relative to their technical relevance to fatigue and delamination. These are observations of relative sparsity; they warrant further analysis before being treated as validated entry opportunities.
B32B · Layered products & laminates
With 66 patent records and a 7% share of the branch distribution, layered-product engineering is the largest under-served adjacent branch relative to the B29C shaping core. For CFRP fatigue and delamination, inter-ply interface design and hybrid laminate architectures are technically central to delamination resistance, yet the patent density here trails the processing classes considerably. Teams with expertise in resin film interlayers, woven-ply architectures, or thermoplastic toughening could find room to file differentiated claims if they can navigate the existing Toray and Giant Manufacturing Co. positions in B32B 27.
Search this in Eureka →G01N · Material analysis & testing
G01N carries 52 patent records and a 6% share, making it the leading non-manufacturing branch in the corpus. Illinois Tool Works and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals concentrate their activity here, but the branch remains sparse relative to its importance: standardised fatigue test protocols, in-situ delamination detection, and acoustic emission methods are all active research areas with limited patent coverage. Entry paths exist for instrumentation companies and NDT specialists, though the academic character of current filers suggests that commercial claim boundaries may still be loosely defined.
Search this in Eureka →How leading applicants differ across technology routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | B29C 70 · Shaping of plastics | C08J 5 · Polymer processing & solutions | C08K 7 · Use of additives in polymers | G01N 3 · Material analysis & testing | B29L 31 · Plastic products (index) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Boeing Company | Strong · 18 | Moderate · 8 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 11 |
| Nissin Kogyo Co., Ltd. | Absent | Strong · 12 | Strong · 9 | Absent | Absent |
| Toray Industries, Inc. | Strong · 10 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation | Strong · 4 | Strong · 6 | Absent | Absent | Moderate · 2 |
| Shinshu University | Absent | Strong · 6 | Strong · 4 | Absent | Absent |
| Hengshen (Jiangsu Hengshen Co., Ltd.) | Strong · 9 | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Shanghai Kingfa Science & Technology Development Co., Ltd. | Absent | Strong · 4 | Strong · 4 | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The landscape covers 187 patent families in scope. Filing activity peaked in 2019 and has since settled into a lower annual range, consistent with a maturing field.
The Boeing Company leads with 26 patent records, focused on composites shaping processes and aerospace airframe structures. Toray Industries ranks second with 13 patent records and is classified as a new entrant in the most recent filing period.
China leads all jurisdictions by patent record count, followed by the United States and Europe via the EPO. Japan, India, and PCT (WIPO) form a meaningful third tier, with South Korea and Canada also present.
B29C (Shaping of plastics) dominates by a wide margin, reflecting core composites lay-up and curing processes. C08J (Polymer processing and solutions) and B32B (Layered products and laminates) form a secondary cluster, while G01N (Material analysis and testing) is the leading non-manufacturing branch.
Yes. The most active co-filing partnership is Nissin Kogyo and Shinshu University with 5 joint filings, followed by Boeing and Washington State University with 4 joint filings. Both are industry-academia models linking component manufacturers or aerospace primes with materials research institutions.
The B32B (Layered products and laminates) and G01N (Material analysis and testing) branches have meaningfully lower patent density relative to the dominant B29C shaping class, despite their direct technical relevance to delamination resistance and fatigue characterisation. These branches represent under-served areas that warrant further competitive analysis before being treated as validated entry points.
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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.
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