Cold Heading Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- 52.6% concentration. The top 5 of 32 ranked assignees together hold 20 of the 38 records in scope — over half the field sits with a small group of filers.
- Filing has gone flat. Activity peaked at 5 records in 2019 and had fallen to zero at the 2022 midpoint, with the most recent year still undercounted by publication lag.
- Heat treatment overlaps forging claims. 39.5% of records also carry a C21D heat-treatment class alongside B21K forging claims, meaning die design alone rarely stands as prior art.
What this patent set covers
Cold heading and fastener forming patents in this dataset cover the forming of fastener blanks and related components through cold plastic deformation, with claims drafted around die life, material flow, work hardening, lubrication coating and dimensional accuracy. The search restricts to records classified under B21K1 (forged metal products), B21J5 (forging and hammering) or C21D8 (heat treatment of metals), so the scope is narrower than general metal forming and skews toward process-and-material claims rather than machine design.
38 published records fall within scope across the 2015-01-01 to 2026-07-31 window. Receiving-office activity is led by China, followed by Japan and the United States, with a smaller share routed through WIPO's PCT system, the EPO and India — a spread consistent with a mature process technology filed regionally rather than globally through a single gateway.
Trend and technology composition
The filing curve and the IPC breakdown together show a field that built claim density around 2019 and has not sustained it since, while technical attention splits fairly evenly between forming and downstream heat treatment.
A single peak, then a decline to flat
Filings rose to a peak of 5 records in 2019, then fell back; the 2022 midpoint shows zero, and growth across the window reads as flat or declining rather than resurgent. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in this trend is understated and should not be read as the field ending.
Forging and heat treatment dominate, alloys and pumps trail
B21K (forged metal products) appears in 57.9% of the 38 records, well ahead of C21D heat treatment at 39.5% and C22C alloys at 28.9%. B23P general metal working and F04B positive-displacement pumps each sit at 23.7%, with B21J forging/hammering and F03C hydraulic engines both at 21.1% and B21B metal rolling at 13.2% — since records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to well over 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 38 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cold Heading and Fastener Forming with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cold heading and fastener forming and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this set
US6802916B2 — Selectively cold worked hydraulic motor/pump shoe
A method of manufacturing a wear-resistant shoe upsets one end portion of a cylindrical member to work-harden it to substantial depth, machines the portion to finished dimensions, and surface-hardens a face of the machined portion. The cylindrical member may be rod stock upset or swaged to axially reduce and radially increase the dimensions of the worked end, with a hollow region formed in the opposite end and its periphery crimped about a rounded end.Filed by Honeywell International Inc., published 2004-10-12.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5493833A | Welding stud and method of forming same | 38 |
| 2 | JP1991193823A | Production of high strength stainless steel bolt for structural use | 32 |
| 3 | EP2199422A1 | Low-carbon precipitation-strengthened steel for cold heading applications | 19 |
| 4 | WO1993022082A1 | Welding stud and method of forming same | 19 |
| 5 | JP2003113422A | Thermally tempered steel wire superior in cold heading characteristic | 13 |
| 6 | US20030000603A1 | Selectively cold worked hydraulic motor/pump shoe | 13 |
| 7 | US6802916B2 | Selectively cold worked hydraulic motor/pump shoe | 9 |
| 8 | CN105312465A | 冷墩机四工位滚子成型工艺 | 8 |
| 9 | CN102439186A | 高强度、高韧性钢线材及其制造方法 | 5 |
| 10 | EP1409196B1 | Selectively cold worked hydraulic motor/pump shoe | 5 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older records by construction; treat them as a signal of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the citation table are read together: concentration at the top, a stalled filing curve, and older art still doing the heavy lifting on citations.
Filing sits with a small group
The top 5 of 32 ranked assignees hold 20 of the 38 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 30 records, or 78.9% of the field. A long tail of single- or double-filing entrants makes up the rest.
Activity has not held its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 5 records in 2019 and dropped to zero by the 2022 midpoint. None of the tracked leading assignees show filings in the most recent year, though publication lag means recent activity is likely undercounted.
Older welding-stud art still anchors the field
The most-cited record, US5493833A on welding stud forming, carries 38 citations, well ahead of newer entrants. High citation counts here reflect age and searchability more than current relevance to new filings.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cold heading and fastener forming, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where they overlap
The ranked assignee list spans industrial manufacturers, individual inventors and at least one university research body, with a handful of recurring co-filing pairs suggesting close collaboration rather than independent parallel filing.
A single filer leads by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee holds 9 records, well ahead of the fifth-place and tenth-place assignees, who each hold 2. That gap between first place and the rest of the top ten is the clearest sign of a dominant filer rather than an even spread.
Co-filing clusters around named inventors
Eight co-assignee pairs appear in the data, the strongest being a pair of individual inventors filing together three times, alongside two other pairs each appearing twice around a Korean steel producer.
No leading assignee shows fresh filings
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the top-ranked filer and the university research body, shows zero filings in the latest year. Combined with the flat post-2019 trend, this points to a field where activity has cooled rather than shifted between competitors.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Pohang Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (POSCO) | 0 | — |
| OGAWA KAZUYA | 0 | — |
| OGAWA HIROSHI | 0 | — |
| Suzhou Yugao Fastening Systems Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| National University Corporation Gifu University | 0 | — |
| Meihoku Industry Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Baotou Iron & Steel (Group) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single conclusion — each of these narrows toward a decision a filing team would actually need to make.
Map claim boundaries around the top-cited welding-stud art
US5493833A and its related family carry the highest citation counts in the set; a freedom-to-operate check should start there before drafting new forming-process claims.
Explore prior art in EurekaTrack whether the flat trend reverses post-2022
With the midpoint year at zero and publication lag still working through, the next 12-18 months of filings will show whether this is a cooling field or a reporting gap.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaReview the lubrication and dimensional-accuracy sub-areas
These sit alongside the dominant B21K forging claims but carry lower individual class shares, suggesting room for narrowly scoped filings.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on cold heading patents
Within this 38-record dataset, filing is concentrated: the top 5 of 32 ranked assignees together hold 20 records, or 52.6% of the field, and the single top-ranked assignee alone holds 9 records. The next tier, from fifth to tenth place, holds only 2 records each, showing a steep drop-off after the leader. This pattern means a freedom-to-operate review should weight the leading assignee's portfolio heavily rather than treating the field as evenly distributed among many small filers.
Yes, based on the trend data available. Filings peaked at 5 records in 2019 and had fallen to zero by the 2022 midpoint, with no recovery visible among tracked leading assignees in the most recent year. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the very latest year is likely undercounted, so this should be read as a cooling trend rather than a confirmed stop. Anyone relying on this signal for a go/no-go filing decision should re-check the trend again once another 12-18 months of publications have cleared.
Heat treatment overlaps forging heavily: C21D heat-treatment claims appear in 39.5% of the 38 records, second only to B21K forged-metal-products claims at 57.9%. Alloy composition (C22C) appears in 28.9% of records, and general metal working (B23P) and positive-displacement pumps (F04B) each appear in 23.7%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these figures overlap rather than sum to 100%, which signals that most filings bundle a forming claim with a materials or treatment claim rather than filing forming alone.
US6802916B2, assigned to Honeywell International Inc. and published in 2004, claims a method of manufacturing a wear-resistant hydraulic motor/pump shoe by upsetting one end of a cylindrical member to work-harden it, machining it to finished dimensions, and surface-hardening a face of the machined portion. Its scope is tied specifically to that upsetting-then-machining-then-surface-hardening sequence for shoe components, not to cold heading or work hardening generally. Work outside that specific component and process sequence, such as fastener blanks formed by different upset geometries, would need a separate claim-by-claim comparison rather than being assumed blocked.
The lower-share IPC classes in this dataset point to under-claimed ground: B21B metal rolling appears in only 13.2% of records despite its process adjacency to cold heading, and lubrication coating and dimensional-accuracy claim language appear less often than work-hardening or die-life language in the search terms. Combined with the flat post-2019 filing trend and the absence of recent filings from tracked leaders, this suggests room for narrowly scoped claims around in-process sensing or coating chemistry rather than broad forming-method claims, which sit on denser prior art.
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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.