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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/corrosion-and-degradation-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Metals & MetallurgyCorrosion and degradation patents: who holds the claim space and where it is still open
- Filing is concentrated but not locked up. the ranked leader holds 264 records and the top 5 combined account for 13.7% of all 5,688 records in scope — a real edge, not a monopoly.
- Volume has cooled slightly, not collapsed. filings ran 135 in 2021 to 126 in 2024, a 7% dip over that span, with 2025–2026 figures still filling in under publication lag.
- Corrosion & metal removal dominates the IPC mix. C23F appears on 33.7% of records, more than double the next class, C09K materials at 18.5%.
5,688
Published Records
14%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-7%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (135 records) with 2024 (126) — 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 5,688 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 5,688 published records filed against a search string combining metal and alloy corrosion or degradation with process contexts such as molten metal handling, reduction furnaces, alloy impurity control and corrosion-rate measurement. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-08-31 data cut-off, and it captures both the chemistry of corrosion inhibition and the process engineering used to measure or prevent it in industrial metal handling.
Filing activity peaked at 178 records in 2019 and has since settled into a lower but still active band, with a documented 7% decline from 2021 to 2024. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always understate true filing volume; treat 2025 and 2026 as provisional rather than declining.
Filing volume by year, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 5,688-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses when a single record can carry more than one class.
A cooling but active filing curve
From a 2019 peak of 178 records, filings eased to 126 by 2024 — a 7% drop from the 135 filed in 2021. The curve does not show collapse; it shows a mature field where volume has stabilised rather than accelerated.
Corrosion measurement and removal lead the class mix
C23F (corrosion and metal removal) sits on 33.7% of all records, roughly 1.8x the share of the next class, C09K materials at 18.5%. G01N analysis and testing (10.4%) and C02F water treatment (10.3%) form a secondary tier, with coatings (C23C, C09D) and alloys (C22C) each in the 5-6% range — evidence that measurement and prevention chemistry, not alloy design itself, carries the bulk of claim activity.
Shares are the percentage of the 5,688 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A representative filing and the most-cited prior art
Representative Record
High temperature electrochemical characterization of molten metal corrosion (US8173007B2)
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
A system and method for high-temperature in-situ determination of corrosion characteristics of a molten metal on an alloy under study, operating within an insulated furnace. A graphite crucible holds a molten-salt electrolyte with a reference electrode formed from the same metal; a beta-alumina crucible within it holds the molten metal under test, with a measuring electrode formed from the alloy under study immersed in it, using standard electrochemical measurement techniques.Filed by West Virginia University, published 2012-05-08 — an academic-origin filing rather than an industrial one, which is notable given how much of this field is otherwise held by process and chemicals companies.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20060229711A1 | Degradable implantable medical devices | 430 |
| 2 | US5981454A | Post clean treatment composition comprising an organic acid and hydroxylamine | 335 |
| 3 | US6465403B1 | Silicate-containing alkaline compositions for cleaning microelectronic substrates | 245 |
| 4 | US6585933B1 | Method and composition for inhibiting corrosion in aqueous systems | 227 |
| 5 | US6660072B2 | Reduced-corrosion inkjet inks and methods for making same | 213 |
| 6 | US6572789B1 | Corrosion inhibitors for aqueous systems | 211 |
| 7 | US5997812A | Methods and apparatus for the application of combined fields to disinfect fluids | 203 |
| 8 | US6156661A | Post clean treatment | 201 |
| 9 | US20020077259A1 | Stabilized alkaline compositions for cleaning microlelectronic substrates | 185 |
| 10 | US5242602A | Spectrophotometric monitoring of multiple water treatment performance indicators using chemometrics | 182 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within this searched 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.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data means for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the filing trend, class composition and citation data that matter for a freedom-to-operate or whitespace assessment.
Concentration
13.7% of 5,688 records
top 5 combined share
Leadership is real but leaves room
The ranked leader holds 264 records out of 5,688, and the top 5 combined take 13.7% of all records in scope. That is a meaningful lead, not a chokehold — the remaining records in the ranked leaderboard and the long tail below it show the field is still open to a well-targeted filing strategy.
Based on the 100-company assignee ranking
Momentum
-7% (2021→2024)
three-year filing change
Volume has settled, not stalled
Filings moved from 135 in 2021 to 126 in 2024, a 7% decline over that span, after a 2019 peak of 178. Several of the largest historical filers show zero filings in the latest tracked year, but that pattern is consistent with publication lag rather than a genuine pullback.
2024 is the most recent complete filing year
Technology mix
33.7% of 5,688 records
C23F corrosion & metal removal share
Prevention and measurement outweigh alloy design
C23F alone touches a third of all records, well ahead of C09K materials at 18.5% and G01N testing at 10.4%. Alloy composition itself (C22C) sits at just 6.0%, suggesting most claim activity is going into inhibiting or measuring corrosion rather than redesigning the base metal.
Classes overlap; shares sum above 100%
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Cross-assignee filing
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Ares Corp | WARD BILLY W | 20 |
| Ares Corp | PERCIVAL RANDALL G | 20 |
| Ares Corp | HILL RAYMOND | 18 |
| Ares Corp | FARKAS III LOUIS S | 16 |
| Ares Corp | NOTTE IV JOHN A | 12 |
| Dorf Ketal Chemicals (India) Private Limited | SUBRAMANIYAM MAHESH | 11 |
| Ares Corp | NOTTE JOHN A IV | 8 |
| Ares Corp | GROHOLSKI ALEXANDER | 8 |
The dataset records 10 co-assignee pairings, with the strongest pairs linked to the same corporate entity and named individual inventors rather than joint ventures between separate companies — a sign that most work here is filed in-house rather than co-developed.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted by record volume. Filing is led by oilfield-services and water-treatment chemical suppliers, with steel and industrial-metals producers filing at meaningfully lower volumes further down the ranking.
Leader
264 records
top-ranked assignee
A chemicals and oilfield-services tilt at the top
The leading assignees by volume are concentrated in corrosion-inhibitor chemistry and oilfield/water-treatment services rather than primary metals production, which tracks with the IPC mix favouring C23F and C09K over C22C alloy claims.
Rank 1 of 100 in the assignee ranking
Tenth place
77 records
rank 10 filing volume
A steep but not sudden drop-off
Volume falls from 264 at the top to 114 at fifth place and 77 at tenth, a gradual taper rather than a cliff. The top 10 combined account for 20.9% of all 5,688 records, leaving roughly four-fifths of filings spread across the rest of the ranking and unranked filers.
Top 10 combined: 1,188 records
Momentum
0 in latest year
several top-ranked assignees
Zero-filing years read as lag, not exit
Multiple historically large filers show zero records in the latest tracked year, including some of the largest cumulative filers in the ranking. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this is most plausibly a reporting gap rather than firms leaving the space.
Compare against 2024 as the last complete year
Recent-year filing momentum
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Ecolab USA Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Dorf Ketal Chemicals (India) Private Limited | 0 | — |
| Baker Hughes Co | 0 | — |
| Nalco Co | 0 | — |
| BetzDearborn Inc | 0 | — |
| The Dow Chemical Co | 0 | — |
| Ares Corp | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, whitespace filing, or tracking a competitor.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leading assignees
With the top 5 holding 13.7% of all records, a targeted FTO search against the ranked leaders and their cited prior art is more efficient than a blanket search across all 5,688 records.
Run an FTO check in EurekaScope a filing into the under-claimed branches
Molten-metal sensing and alloy-impurity control in reduction furnaces show lower filing density than the core inhibitor-chemistry cluster, and may offer more room for a defensible first claim.
Explore whitespace in EurekaTrack momentum before assuming exit
Several top filers show zero records in the latest year; confirm whether that is publication lag or an actual pullback before adjusting a competitive-watch list.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
The assignee ranking in this dataset is led by companies in corrosion-inhibitor chemistry and oilfield or water-treatment services, with the top-ranked assignee holding 264 of the 5,688 records in scope. The top 5 assignees combined account for 13.7% of all records, and the top 10 account for 20.9%, which means leadership is real but the field is far from consolidated. Steel and primary-metals producers appear in the ranking but generally at lower volumes than the chemicals-oriented leaders.
Filing peaked at 178 records in 2019 and has since eased, with 135 records in 2021 falling to 126 in 2024 — a 7% decline over that three-year span. That is the most reliable read available, because 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication. The honest characterisation is a mature, stabilising field rather than one in retreat or in fast growth.
C23F, covering corrosion and metal removal, appears on 33.7% of the 5,688 records in scope, making it by far the largest single class. C09K materials for miscellaneous applications follow at 18.5%, with G01N material analysis and testing and C02F water treatment each around 10%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and they should be read against the full record count rather than against each other as a closed pie.
US8173007B2, assigned to West Virginia University and published in 2012, claims a specific furnace-based electrochemical setup for testing molten-metal corrosion on an alloy: a graphite crucible with a molten-salt electrolyte and matched reference electrode, and a beta-alumina crucible holding the molten metal under test with an immersed measuring electrode. It is significant as an academic-origin filing in a field otherwise dominated by industrial and chemicals assignees. Anyone building an in-situ high-temperature corrosion test rig with this crucible-within-crucible architecture should review its claims closely rather than assume the space is unclaimed.
Relative to the dense C23F inhibitor-chemistry cluster, sub-areas such as molten-metal in-situ electrochemical sensing, alloy-impurity control inside reduction furnaces, and corrosion-rate prediction tied directly to alloy composition tuning show lower filing density. These are process- and measurement-adjacent branches rather than core inhibitor chemistry, which is where most of the top assignees' volume sits. A first claim there would likely need to tie a specific sensing or control method to a named alloy or furnace condition rather than claim a broad inhibitor composition, since that broader ground is already heavily filed.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Corrosion & Degradation Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.