Cylindrical Cell Joining and Welding Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Welding claims dominate. B23K covers 85.9% of the 1,238 records in scope, meaning most protection sits on the weld process itself rather than the battery cell design around it.
- Leadership is present but not locked in. The top 5 assignees account for 16.4% of all records and the top 10 for 28.2% — concentrated at the front but with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Filing has cooled from its 2022 peak of 105. 2021-to-2024 volume is down 9%, though publication lag means the most recent one or two years understate real activity.
Filing growth compares 2021 (82 records) with 2024 (75) — 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 1,238 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Cylindrical cell joining and welding sits at the intersection of laser and ultrasonic process engineering and battery pack assembly. The search scope combines terms for cylindrical cell current collector, laser welding and ultrasonic joining with process-control language — joint resistance, spatter, particle generation control, inline inspection, cycle time and process window — to isolate manufacturing-grade filings rather than general cell chemistry work.
The 1,238 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from receiving offices led by the United States, Europe and China. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, the technology composition below is read against the full record total, not against a class-only denominator.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 1,238 records: annual filing volume, and the IPC subclasses that carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 58 in 2017 to a peak of 105 in 2022, then eased to 75 by 2024 — a 9% pull-back over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the roughly 18-month publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
IPC subclass composition
B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) covers 85.9% of records, far ahead of H01M (batteries and cells) at 8.9% and H01S (lasers) at 3.1%. The remaining classes — material analysis, plastics shaping, dimensional measurement, optics and connectors — each sit under 3%, indicating that claim activity is heavily weighted toward the weld process rather than the surrounding cell or inspection hardware.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,238 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Cylindrical Cell Joining and Welding with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cylindrical cell joining and welding and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Laser welding system and laser welding control method
A laser welding system that measures the temperature distribution of the molten weld pool, analyzes convection state from that distribution, and adjusts laser irradiation conditions in response — an in-process feedback loop rather than a fixed weld recipe.Filed by Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha, published 2022-12-01 as US20220379404A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160039045A1 | Methods and Systems for Characterizing Laser Machining Properties by Measuring Keyhole Dynamics Using Interfe… | 239 |
| 2 | US5317471A | Process and device for setting a thermal trip device with bimetal strip | 149 |
| 3 | US6204469B1 | Laser welding system | 129 |
| 4 | WO2014138939A1 | Methods and systems for characterizing laser machining properties by measuring keyhole dynamics using interfe… | 118 |
| 5 | US5866870A | Enhanced laser beam welding | 92 |
| 6 | US20150027168A1 | Laser welding transparent glass sheets using low melting glass or thin absorbing films | 89 |
| 7 | US5001324A | Precision joint tracking laser welding system | 88 |
| 8 | US4224499A | Laser welding aluminum to copper | 87 |
| 9 | JP2016030280A | Method and apparatus for laser welding of metal foil | 84 |
| 10 | US5245155A | Single point powder feed nozzle for use in laser welding | 78 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat them as a measure of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once filing volume, technology mix and citation weight are read together.
Leadership without lock-up
The top 5 assignees hold 16.4% of all 1,238 records and the top 10 hold 28.2%. That leaves the large majority of filings spread across a long tail of automakers, cell makers and equipment suppliers — no single party controls the weld process claim space.
Claims cluster on the joint, not the cell
B23K appears on 85.9% of records versus 8.9% for H01M battery classes. Filers are protecting weld parameters, tooling and process control rather than cell chemistry or architecture — the joining step itself is the contested ground.
Cooling from a 2022 peak
Filings peaked at 105 in 2022 and eased to 75 by 2024, a 9% decline over that complete-year window. Several of the most active assignees show flat or negative year-over-year filing in the most recent tracked year, though publication lag makes the very latest years an unreliable read on real activity.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cylindrical cell joining and welding, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and what is still open
Automakers and cell makers anchor the ranked leaders, but laser and welding equipment specialists hold distinct positions further down the list, and several branches of the process remain lightly claimed.
Automaker-led, cell-maker-backed
The leading assignee's 60 records sit well ahead of fifth place at 34 and tenth place at 26 — a real gap at the top, but not one wide enough to call the field settled. Cell makers and a dedicated laser systems supplier both appear among the ranked leaders alongside vehicle OEMs.
Laser suppliers file alongside OEMs
Laser system suppliers appear in the same ranking as automakers and battery makers, reflecting that weld process IP is generated as much by equipment vendors as by cell integrators. Their filings tend to sit on beam control and monitoring rather than pack-level assembly.
Limited but pointed collaboration
Only eight co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest links tying an automaker to an in-house parts supplier. Collaborative filing is the exception rather than the norm in this field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. | 1 | -75% |
| Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha | 0 | — |
| Jaguar Land Rover Ltd. | 0 | — |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | — |
| LG Energy Solution Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Corelase Oy | 0 | — |
| Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| JFE Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking or claim drafting.
Check freedom to operate on weld process claims
With 85.9% of records carrying a B23K class, a freedom-to-operate review for any new joining process should start there rather than with battery-specific classes.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack the ranked leaders' recent filing moves
Several top assignees show flat or declining year-over-year filing in the latest tracked year; confirming whether that is a real pull-back or a publication-lag artefact matters before assuming they have stopped investing.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaDraft around the under-claimed branches
Inline monitoring and post-weld verification sub-areas carry far fewer filings than the weld process core, and may offer more open claim space for a new entrant.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions
The ranked leader holds 60 records in this dataset, with the top 5 assignees combining for 16.4% of all 1,238 records and the top 10 for 28.2%. That leaves a long tail of automakers, cell makers and equipment suppliers each holding smaller counts. No single company controls a majority of the filed claim space, so competitive tracking needs to look beyond just the top names.
The dataset does not split laser versus ultrasonic filings as a standalone figure, but the IPC composition shows B23K welding, soldering and brazing classes on 85.9% of the 1,238 records, far ahead of any other class. That weighting reflects the search scope's focus on weld process control terms such as joint resistance and spatter, which are more commonly associated with laser welding literature in this corpus.
Filings peaked at 105 in 2022 and eased to 75 by 2024, a 9% decline over that complete-year window. This should not be read as the technology cooling down: publication lags actual filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are still filling in and understate real recent activity. The 2021-to-2024 window is the most reliable recent comparison available.
US20220379404A1, filed by Toyota, claims a laser welding system that measures the temperature distribution of the molten weld pool, analyzes its convection state, and adjusts the laser irradiation condition based on that analysis. It is a closed-loop, in-process control method rather than a fixed weld parameter set, which narrows its blocking effect to systems that actually sense and react to molten pool behaviour during welding rather than any laser weld on a battery cell.
Sub-areas such as inline keyhole depth monitoring, spatter particle capture systems, and post-weld joint resistance verification carry noticeably fewer filings than the core B23K weld process classes. These sit adjacent to the dense filing areas rather than inside them, making them worth checking for open claim space before assuming a new process step is already covered.
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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.