Copper Recycling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Copper Recycling and Secondary Smelting Patents
One filer dominates the ranking. the leader holds 36 records against a fifth-place figure of 4 and a tenth-place figure of 1 — a steep drop rather than a gradual taper. Filing activity rose to a peak of 35 records in 2018, then declined through the years that follow. The trend shows 0 for both 2017 and the most recent year in the data; growth rate is not stated here because fewer than four complete years remain once publication lag is accounted for.
- 1AURUBIS BEERSE36
- 2METALLO BELGIUM25
- 3MITSUBISHI MATERIALS CORP15
- 4THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIV IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK5
- 5TRANSTAR GRP4
See the full copper recycling and secondary smelting analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most copper recycling and secondary smelting patents?
One assignee leads this dataset clearly, with 36 records against a fifth-place count of just 4 and a tenth-place count of 1. That gap is steep rather than gradual, which typically means the leader’s early filings staked out much of the core claim territory in anode furnace refining and impurity removal. The ranking covers 15 companies in total, which is the full set the data endpoint returns for this search, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Anyone filing new claims in this space should check that leader’s portfolio specifically before assuming open ground.
What technology areas dominate copper recycling patent filings?
C22B, the IPC subclass covering metal extraction and refining, appears in 93.6% of the 94 records in scope, making it by far the largest single category. Alloys (C22C) and furnace and kiln design (F27B) each sit at 7.4%, with welding/brazing, solid waste disposal, furnace accessories, catalytic processes and coke distillation trailing further behind at low single-digit shares. Because records can carry more than one IPC class, these percentages are read against the 94-record total individually, not as a partition that sums to 100%.
Why does the filing trend show zero in the most recent years?
Patent applications typically publish around 18 months after filing, so any trend built from publication dates will always understate the most recent one to two years. The peak year in this dataset so far is 2018 with 35 records, and the years closest to the 2026-07-31 data cut-off show 0 records — that reflects the publication pipeline, not a real halt in R&D activity. Readers should treat the last two years of any patent trend as provisional and expect the counts to rise as later filings work through to publication.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Copper Recycling and Secondary Smelting covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.