The assignee ranking in this dataset is dominated by one manufacturer, whose record count of 439 is far ahead of the rest of the 63 ranked companies; fifth place sits at just 11 records. That gap means the leader’s portfolio effectively sets the boundary for layup mandrel, splice joint and one-piece barrel assembly claims. Any competitor or new entrant filing in this space should check that leader’s claims first rather than assume the field is evenly split.

Filing peaked at 37 records in 2019 and has since declined; the confirmed span from 2021 (21 records) to 2024 (2 records) shows a -90% drop, and 2024 is the most recent year in the dataset that can be treated as complete. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures will still rise as more filings publish, so it would be premature to call the trend beyond 2024 settled. Based on what is confirmed, though, filing activity has clearly cooled from its 2019 high.

This Boeing filing from 2017-03-30 covers composite layup tools for aircraft fuselage barrels, including methods of aligning and attaching a splice adaptor to a layup mandrel, and separately, methods of assembling two fuselage barrel sections around a splice ring. It sits among the most-cited records in this corpus and is representative of the layup-tooling and splice-joint claim territory that the leading assignee occupies. A freedom-to-operate review in this area should read its specific claim language rather than rely on the abstract alone.