Composite Wing Spar and Rib Assembly Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- A single leader holds 32 families while the next four ranked assignees sit far behind at fifth place with just 4 — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual tail.
- Filings peaked at 11 in 2021 and fell to 3 by 2024, a 73% decline over that span; treat 2025-2026 figures as still filling in, not as a real slowdown.
- B64C aeroplane structures dominate at 53.2% of records while polymer chemistry classes (C08K, C08G) and jig/tooling classes (B23Q, G05B) each sit under 15%, marking where claim density is thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 records) with 2024 (3) — 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.
What this patent set covers
Composite wing spar and rib assembly sits at the intersection of structural design and manufacturing process: how spars, ribs and skins are joined, shimmed, drilled and fixtured to hold tolerance across a large composite structure. The search set combines structural terms like wing box structure and wing rib with process terms like liquid shim, stringer runout, bonded joint and assembly jig, which pulls in both the load-bearing hardware and the tooling used to build it.
The 79 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate actual filing activity and should not be read as a decline.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 79 records: activity over time, and where those records sit across IPC subclasses. Because a record can carry several IPC codes, the class shares below add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Peak-then-pullback filing pattern
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2021, then fell to 3 by 2024 — a 73% drop across that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be treated as confirming a further slowdown.
Structure dominates over chemistry and tooling
B64C (aeroplanes and helicopters) covers 53.2% of the 79 records, more than double the next class, B64F (ground installations for aircraft) at 24.1%. Polymer-additive and condensation-polymer chemistry (C08K, C08G) and machine-tooling classes (B23Q, B23P) each sit under 15%, indicating the chemistry and fixturing sides of the problem are comparatively lightly claimed relative to the airframe structure itself.
Shares are the percentage of the 79 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Composite Wing Spar and Rib Assembly with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about composite wing spar and rib assembly and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this set
Wing assembly having discretely stiffened composite wing panels (US11643184B2)
The patent describes a wing assembly built around a stout wing rib positioned near a fuel tank's outboard end, sitting between front and rear spars, with additional outboard wing ribs defining an outboard wing bay. Upper and lower skin panels attach to the spars and ribs, and bead stiffeners spaced across the outboard bay reinforce the panels without conventional discrete stringers.Assigned to The Boeing Company, published 2023-05-09.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6419426B1 | Numeric controlled drilling jig-multiple-axis aerospace drilling machine | 44 |
| 2 | US5105515A | Wing spar assembly jig with adjustable clamp assemblies | 33 |
| 3 | US20020054795A1 | Numeric controlled drilling JIG-multiple-axis aerospace drilling machine | 24 |
| 4 | US3616075A | Fuselage jig | 21 |
| 5 | US20220033058A1 | Wing assembly having discretely stiffened composite wing panels | 16 |
| 6 | US20220033060A1 | Wing assembly having wing joints joining outer wing structures to center wing structure | 15 |
| 7 | US3669807A | Airplane tooling | 12 |
| 8 | US20150360764A1 | Structual Assembly Joint | 11 |
| 9 | WO2010116170A2 | Improved wing structure | 9 |
| 10 | US20080156941A1 | Methods and apparatus for aircraft structural length of service enhancement | 9 |
Citation counts favour older documents simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; read them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the IPC mix are read together.
One assignee, then a steep drop
The leading assignee holds 32 families against just 4 at fifth place among the 13 ranked companies. That gap is far wider than a gradual long tail — it points to one incumbent with a durable filing programme and a group of much smaller, intermittent filers behind it.
Activity has cooled from its 2021 peak
Filings rose to 11 in 2021 before falling to 3 by 2024. That decline is real over a comparable, complete window, but 2025-2026 figures should not be added to the story yet given the usual 18-month publication lag.
Structure claims outweigh chemistry and tooling
B64C airframe-structure classifications appear on over half the record set, while polymer chemistry (C08K, C08G) and machine-tooling classes (B23Q, G05B, B23P) each stay under 15%. Chemistry and fixturing angles are comparatively under-claimed relative to the structural hardware itself.
Drilling-jig patents anchor prior art
The most-cited record in the set is a numerically controlled multi-axis drilling jig, followed closely by a related filing and an older wing-spar assembly jig. Jig and fixture patents from outside the recent filing window still shape how new bonded-joint and fastener-hole claims must be drafted around.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to composite wing spar and rib assembly, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list is short — 13 companies — with one clear leader and a mix of aerospace primes, tooling specialists and individual inventors behind it. Momentum across the tracked leaders has gone quiet in the latest year, which is consistent with publication lag rather than a genuine pullback.
A single large aerospace filer sets the pace
The top assignee's 32 families outnumber the rest of the ranked field combined many times over, reflecting a sustained internal programme across wing structure and assembly tooling rather than opportunistic filing.
A handful of aerospace and tooling specialists hold small, defensible positions
Assignees ranked from second through the low single digits include a mix of established aerospace manufacturers and tooling-focused firms, each with a handful of families rather than a broad portfolio.
Named inventors filing jointly appear alongside corporate assignees
Several of the strongest co-assignee pairings are individual named inventors rather than companies, filing repeatedly together across three shared families each. This suggests small teams or consultancies working specific tooling or jig problems outside the large primes.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Airbus Operations Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| The Boeing Company | 0 | — |
| ADVANCED INTEGRATED TECH INC | 0 | — |
| ThyssenKrupp Drauz Nothelfer GmbH | 0 | — |
| AMERICAN AVIATION CORP | 0 | — |
| RAMLAOUI HASAN I | 0 | — |
| LIU KO WEI | 0 | — |
| GUZMAN HUGO | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures here describe the shape of the field; deciding where to file or challenge requires drilling into specific claims and assignees.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 32 of the 79 families, any new bonded-joint or liquid-shim filing should be checked against that portfolio specifically before checking the rest of the field.
Run a freedom-to-operate searchTrack the under-claimed tooling and chemistry branches
B23Q, G05B, C08K and C08G each sit under 15% of records, well behind the structural B64C classification. These branches are worth monitoring for new entrants before they harden into dense prior art.
Monitor emerging filingsRead the most-cited jig patents before drafting fixture claims
Drilling-jig and assembly-jig patents dominate the citation table despite being older filings. New fixture or jig claims should map explicitly against these before submission.
Explore cited prior artCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 32 families, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 4. The ranking covers 13 companies total returned by the dataset, so it should be read as the full set of ranked filers in scope rather than a top-50 or top-100 list. This gap between the leader and everyone else suggests a long-running, deliberate filing programme rather than sporadic activity.
No — filings peaked at 11 in 2021 and had fallen to 3 by 2024, a 73% decline over that three-year window, which is the most recent period that can be treated as complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a confirmed further drop. Anyone tracking this space should expect the 2025-2026 figures to revise upward as more records publish.
B64C, the aeroplane and helicopter structures classification, appears on 53.2% of the 79 records in scope, making it by far the densest single class. B64F, covering ground installations for aircraft, follows at 24.1%. Polymer chemistry classes and machine-tooling classes each stay under 15%, meaning claim density there is comparatively lower even though those areas are directly relevant to bonded joints and liquid shim processes.
US11643184B2, assigned to The Boeing Company and published 2023-05-09, claims a wing assembly with a stout wing rib near a fuel tank's outboard end sitting between front and rear spars, plus additional outboard ribs defining an outboard wing bay. Upper and lower skin panels attach to the spars and ribs, and bead stiffeners spaced within the outboard bay reinforce the panels. It is a structural-configuration patent rather than a process patent, so it constrains rib and stiffener layout choices more than manufacturing method choices.
The gap sits in the lower-density classes relative to B64C and B64F: liquid shim cure-cycle control, fastener-hole delamination detection, interference-fit fastener installation tooling, and assembly jig thermal compensation all show far fewer records than the core structural classifications. These are process and tooling refinements adjacent to the dense structural claims, and they carry markedly less prior art to design around.
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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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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.