Copper Chromium Zirconium Electrode Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 25.4% of all 382 records sit with just five assignees, so the field reads as concentrated at the top with a long tail below it.
- Filing grew 150% from 2 records in 2021 to 5 in 2024 — the most recent complete year in this dataset.
- B23K welding claims dominate at 72.0% of records, while battery-adjacent H01M classes already carry 11.3%, pointing to where electrode design is migrating.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (5) — 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 382 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Copper chromium zirconium (CuCrZr) is the workhorse alloy for resistance welding electrodes because it holds hardness and conductivity better than pure copper under repeated thermal cycling. This landscape tracks 382 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine claims on the alloy system, electrode geometry, or the wear and dressing behaviour that determines electrode life. The scope also pulls in adjacent filings on cooling channel design, tip dressing methods, and softening-temperature control, since these are the levers assignees actually claim around the base alloy.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity — treat 2025 and 2026 as still filling in rather than as a genuine slowdown.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
The dataset spans receiving offices in Japan, the United States, Europe, Canada, the WIPO PCT route and Germany, with Japan and the US together accounting for the bulk of filings.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has since fluctuated
The peak year so far is 2017 at 21 records. Filing growth in the most recent complete window is positive: 2021's 2 records rose to 2024's 5, a 150% increase — read this against the trend rather than the raw 2025-2026 tail, which is still incomplete due to publication lag.
Welding claims dominate, but alloy and battery classes are substantial
B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) appears in 72.0% of the 382 records in scope, confirming that most filings are electrode- and process-centric rather than pure metallurgy. C22C (alloys) at 13.4% and H01M (batteries, cells and fuel cells) at 11.3% show two adjacent claim clusters worth watching: alloy composition tuning and battery-tab welding applications. Coating (C23C, 7.3%), non-ferrous treatment (C22F, 5.0%), implants (A61F, 4.5%), electroplating (C25D, 3.7%) and casting (B22D, 3.1%) round out smaller but active pockets. Since records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 382 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Copper Chromium Zirconium Resistance Welding Electrodes with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about copper chromium zirconium resistance welding electrodes and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US5844194A — Resistance welding electrode and method of manufacturing same
A resistance welding electrode for supplying a current to metal workpieces to weld the workpieces to each other includes an electrode body as an electrode matrix of a copper alloy and a plurality of filamentary members embedded in the electrode matrix parallel to the direction in which a current flows therethrough. The filamentary members have respective tip ends exposed as lands on a surface of a tip end of the electrode body. The filamentary members are made of a material having an electric conductivity different from that of the electrode matrix. The exposed tip ends of the filamentary members having a total area which is in the range of 0.5 to 40% of the entire area of the tip end of the electrode body.Filed by Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, published 1998-12-01.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6304787B1 | Cochlear electrode array having current-focusing and tissue-treating features | 374 |
| 2 | US20090255908A1 | Weld electrode for attractive weld appearance | 100 |
| 3 | US6862805B1 | Method of making a cochlear electrode array having current-focusing and tissue-treating features | 87 |
| 4 | US8222560B2 | Weld electrode for attractive weld appearance | 86 |
| 5 | US3909581A | Disposable resistance welding electrode | 79 |
| 6 | US8525066B2 | Electrode for spot welding | 65 |
| 7 | US20090302009A1 | Electrode for spot welding | 59 |
| 8 | US4588870A | Resistance welding electrode cap | 54 |
| 9 | US20090148756A1 | Lithium cell | 50 |
| 10 | US6008463A | Resistance welding electrode with guide pin | 50 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns in this dataset matter more than the raw counts: where filing is concentrated, what is growing, and what the citation table actually rewards.
The top of the field is tight, the rest is thin
Five assignees combined hold 97 of the 382 records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 42.4%. Below the leaders, the ranking thins into single- and few-filing entrants, which is where freedom-to-operate searches usually find room to work.
Growth is real but off a small base
Filings rose from 2 in 2021 to 5 in 2024. That is a genuine increase, not statistical noise, but the base is small enough that a handful of new filers could move the trend materially in either direction over the next reporting cycle.
The most-cited records are not all electrode-specific
The highest citation counts in this corpus belong to cochlear electrode array filings, not resistance welding electrodes — a reminder that citation volume favours older, broadly-worded filings across the search terms rather than the technology a reader may actually be scoping.
Battery-tab welding is pulling electrode claims sideways
Nearly one in nine records in this welding-electrode dataset also carries a battery-classification code, suggesting that electrode wear and tip-life claims originally written for automotive-body welding are being re-filed or adapted for battery-pack assembly.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to copper chromium zirconium resistance welding electrodes, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked list returned by the data endpoint covers 100 companies, from a leader filing 21 records down through a long tail. It is not a top-50 or top-100 cut of some larger population — it is the whole ranking the dataset returns.
One filer leads, but not by an overwhelming margin
The leading assignee's 21 records put it well ahead of individual peers, yet the top-5 share (25.4% of all 382 records) shows no single company controls the field outright.
The top ten together cover under half the field
At 42.4% of the 382 records in scope, the top 10 leave a majority of filings spread across the remaining 90 ranked companies, many with only a handful of records each.
Co-filing is limited and clusters around a few relationships
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pairing showing repeated joint filings between related corporate entities. Cross-company collaboration on this technology is otherwise uncommon.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| The Gillette Co. | 0 | — |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Zimmer Inc. | 0 | — |
| Outokumpu Oy | 0 | — |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | — |
| Huys Industries Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation) | 0 | — |
| Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation) | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
This landscape is a starting point for scoping, not a substitute for a full freedom-to-operate search.
Run a claims-level check on the leading assignees
Concentration at the top means the leading filers' independent claims are the ones most likely to constrain a new filing — check their claim scope before drafting around the core alloy or electrode geometry.
Open Eureka →Track the battery-adjacent overlap
The 11.3% overlap with H01M suggests electrode wear claims are migrating toward battery-pack assembly; monitor this boundary if your application sits near that intersection.
Explore in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 21 of the 382 records in scope, with the fifth-ranked company at 18 and the tenth at 10. Together the top five hold 25.4% of all records, and the top ten hold 42.4%. No single company dominates outright, but filing activity is clearly weighted toward a handful of established industrial names rather than spread evenly across the 100 ranked companies.
Filing grew from 2 records in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a 150% increase over that window, which is the most recent period this dataset can treat as complete. The 2017 peak of 21 records is still the high point in raw terms. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in activity.
This dataset captures both: claims specific to the copper chromium zirconium alloy system and broader resistance welding electrode claims covering geometry, cooling, and wear behaviour. The IPC composition shows B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) present in 72.0% of records, while C22C (alloys) appears in 13.4%, indicating most filings frame their claims around the welding process and electrode structure rather than the alloy composition alone.
Smaller IPC clusters in this dataset — coating and surface deposition at 7.3%, non-ferrous metal treatment at 5.0%, and electroplating at 3.7% of the 382 records — suggest lighter claim density around wear-resistant coatings and surface treatments for electrode tips compared to the crowded welding-process classes. Battery-tab electrode wear profiles are another area worth checking, given the emerging overlap with H01M battery classifications.
The most-cited record in this corpus is a cochlear electrode array filing at 374 citations, followed by other cochlear and general weld-electrode filings. High citation counts here reflect how the search terms overlap with unrelated electrode fields and favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations, not necessarily the patents most relevant to current CuCrZr resistance welding electrode design. Use citation rank as one signal among several, not as a standalone importance score.
Research Copper Chromium Zirconium Resistance Welding Electrodes in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole copper chromium zirconium resistance welding electrodes corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.