Composite Repair Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- A robotics-heavy leader. The top filer sits at 14 records against a field where fifth place holds just 1, with recent-year momentum flat across the ranked assignees.
- Business-process claims outnumber materials claims. G06Q (business/admin data processing) appears in 21.9% of the 32 records in scope, ahead of laminate composition classes like B32B at 9.4%.
- Peak filing was recent, not historic. Filings rose to 10 in 2022, the highest year on record, with 2017 starting at just 1 filing.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 32 published records at the intersection of composite repair techniques — scarf repair, patch design, adhesive bondline control — and the inspection methods used to qualify a bonded joint, including kissing bond detection and residual strength assessment. The scope spans aerospace structural repair as well as adjacent fields such as wind turbine blade maintenance, reflecting that the same bonding and inspection problem recurs anywhere a composite structure is repaired rather than replaced.
Filing activity runs from 2015 through the middle of 2026, with the most recent year understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Reading the trend and the assignee ranking together matters more than reading either alone: a small ranked field with one clear leader and a long tail says more about where competitive pressure sits than the raw filing count does.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 32 records from different angles: one tracks filing activity by year, the other breaks the field down by IPC subclass. Because a single record can carry more than one IPC class, the subclass shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Filings climbed unevenly from a single record in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2022, the highest year in the dataset. The 2026 figure reads as zero only because the year is partial and recent filings have not yet published.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B29C (shaping of plastics) leads at 31.3% of the 32 records in scope, followed by G06Q (business, commerce & admin data processing) at 21.9% and a tie between B25J (manipulators & robots) and B64F (ground installations for aircraft) at 18.8% each. F03D (wind motors) at 15.6% confirms that wind turbine blade repair is a meaningful adjacent filing target, not a rounding error.
Shares are the percentage of the 32 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Composite Repair and Bonded Joint Assessment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about composite repair and bonded joint assessment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this landscape
Joint autonomous repair verification and inspection system (US20230052634A1)
An autonomous or semi-autonomous cell inspects composite parts, verifies repairs, and carries out repairs using an industrial robot that automatically attaches to interchangeable inspection and repair end effectors. The cell can be fitted with fixtures for a rotorcraft blade, rotating it so the robot can access the entire surface, and it tracks inspection data for parts in a database over the repair lifecycle.Filed by Wichita State University, published 2023-02-16.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090234616A1 | Automatic Repair Planning and Part Archival System (ARPPAS) | 67 |
| 2 | US20230052634A1 | Joint autonomous repair verification and inspection system | 20 |
| 3 | US8617694B1 | Discretely tailored multi-zone bondline for fail-safe structural repair | 18 |
| 4 | US20230146701A1 | Surface preparation end effector for industrial robot system and inspection and repair processes | 9 |
| 5 | US20230131624A1 | Surface analyst end effector for industrial robot | 8 |
| 6 | US20230146116A1 | Laser shearography end effector for industrial robot system | 5 |
| 7 | US20180118375A1 | Methods and Systems for Assessing Damage to a Structure and Determining Repair Information | 5 |
| 8 | US20240257079A1 | System and methods for using machine learning to make intelligent recycling decisions | 4 |
| 9 | US20140076481A1 | Discretely Tailored Multi-Zone Bondline for Fail-Safe Structural Repair | 4 |
| 10 | US9393768B2 | Discretely tailored multi-zone bondline for fail-safe structural repair | 2 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older, earlier-published records; treat them as a signal of influence rather than a ranking of current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the trend, the IPC mix and the citation table are read together: a robotics-and-inspection cluster, a business-process layer sitting on top of the physical repair work, and a citation record that still points back to older structural-repair patents.
Repair automation is a distinct filing lane
B25J (manipulators & robots) and B64F (aircraft ground installations) each cover 18.8% of the 32 records, and the two most-cited recent filings both describe robotic end effectors for surface preparation and inspection rather than new adhesive chemistry. That suggests the automation layer around composite repair is now a more active filing target than the repair material itself.
Data and workflow claims sit alongside the physical repair
G06Q (business, commerce & admin data processing) is the second-largest class in the set, ahead of laminate-composition class B32B at 9.4%. Read against the top-cited record ARPPAS, an automatic repair planning and archival system, this points to a filing pattern where the repair workflow and decision logic are claimed as carefully as the bonding process itself.
Wind turbine blade repair is a real second market
F03D (wind motors) appears in 15.6% of the 32 records, confirming that composite repair claim strategies drafted for aerospace are being mirrored, or independently filed, for wind turbine blades. A filing strategy scoped only to aircraft structures would miss this adjacent activity.
The most-cited record predates the recent robotics wave
The most-cited document in this set, ARPPAS, an automatic repair planning and archival system, carries 67 citations, well ahead of the next entries. Because citation counts favour older records in a searched corpus, this reflects long-standing influence on repair planning concepts rather than current filing activity.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to composite repair and bonded joint assessment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and how concentrated the field is
The ranking returned by this dataset covers 9 companies, from a leader at 14 records down to a fifth-place entrant at 1. That gap between first and fifth is the clearest signal in this landscape: one organisation has built a sustained filing programme while the rest of the ranked field have filed only a handful of records each.
One organisation dominates the ranked field
The leading assignee holds 14 of the records captured in the ranking, far ahead of the fifth-ranked entrant's single record. Recent-year momentum for this leader reads flat rather than growing, consistent with a mature filing programme rather than a fresh push.
A long tail of single- and few-filing entrants
Beyond the leader, the ranked field thins quickly to entrants holding only one or a few records each, including individual inventors alongside university and corporate assignees. This pattern is typical of a field still being explored rather than one locked up by a small set of incumbents.
Co-filing is limited and inventor-driven
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, each linking the same small group of individual inventors rather than corporate joint ventures. This suggests most of the ranked filers are working independently rather than through formal co-development arrangements.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Boeing | 0 | -100% |
| Wichita State University | 0 | — |
| Vestas Wind Systems A/S | 0 | -100% |
| University of North Carolina | 0 | — |
| Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources | 0 | -100% |
| WESTERMAN EVERETT A | 0 | — |
| SYNCRETEK | 0 | — |
| KELLER RUSSELL L | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and ranking here describe what has already published; the next steps are about testing specific claim ideas against this prior art and tracking the assignees most likely to move next.
Stress-test a draft claim against the closest prior art
Run a candidate repair-patch or bondline-inspection claim against the most-cited records in this set to see how closely existing claim language already covers it.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the leader's next filings
Set an alert on the top-ranked assignee's filing activity, since a flat recent-year trend can turn back up once publication catches up with filing.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaMap the wind-turbine adjacency separately
Because F03D filings sit alongside aerospace-focused classes, treat wind blade repair as its own sub-search rather than assuming aerospace claim strategies transfer directly.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
This dataset captures 32 published records matching composite repair and bonded joint assessment search terms, covering filings from 2015 through mid-2026. The count includes both aerospace-specific structural repair filings and adjacent applications such as wind turbine blade repair. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the true number of filed applications in the most recent one to two years is understated in this figure.
The ranking returned by this dataset covers 9 companies and individuals, with the leading assignee holding 14 records against a fifth-place entrant with just 1. That is a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one, indicating a single organisation with a sustained filing programme surrounded by a long tail of occasional filers, including universities and individual inventors. Recent-year momentum for the leader reads flat, so the gap has not been widening in the latest available data.
A kissing bond is a bonded joint defect where two surfaces are in contact but have little or no adhesive strength between them, making it very difficult to detect with standard visual or basic ultrasonic inspection. It shows up in this patent set because reliable detection of kissing bonds is one of the core technical problems bonded joint assessment patents try to solve, alongside adhesive bondline thickness control and surface preparation. It remains one of the sub-areas in this landscape without a single dominant filer, which points to open claim space for improved detection methods.
Yes. G06Q, the IPC subclass covering business, commerce and administrative data processing, appears in 21.9% of the 32 records in this landscape, making it the second-largest class after B29C (shaping of plastics) at 31.3%. The most-cited record in the dataset, an automatic repair planning and archival system, is itself built around workflow and data-tracking claims rather than new adhesive or laminate chemistry. This means a freedom-to-operate review in this space needs to check repair-workflow and data-management claims, not just materials and bonding method claims.
Partially. F03D, the wind motors IPC subclass, appears in 15.6% of the 32 records in this dataset, showing that a meaningful share of filings address wind turbine blade repair specifically, often alongside or independently of aerospace-focused claims. The underlying bonding, surface preparation and inspection problems overlap between the two applications, but the records are not identical, so a search or freedom-to-operate check for one industry should not assume it fully covers the other.
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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.