Duplex Stainless Steel Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Duplex Stainless Steel Fabrication Patents: Who Holds the Claims
Top five hold half the field. the five leading assignees combine for 531 of 1,070 records in scope (49.6%), with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants beneath them. Filings peaked at 57 in 2017 and have since settled into a lower, steadier band; the 2021-2024 window shows no net change (29 to 29, 0%). Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the thin totals for 2025 and 2026 are an artefact of that lag and should not be read as the technology cooling off.
- 1OUTOKUMPU OY184
- 2SANDVIK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AB163
- 3NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION97
- 4NIPPON STEEL STAINLESS STEEL CORP45
- 5POHANG IRON & STEEL CO LTD42
See the full duplex stainless steel fabrication 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 duplex stainless steel fabrication patents
How concentrated is patent ownership in duplex stainless steel fabrication?
It is moderately concentrated. The five leading assignees in this dataset hold 531 of 1,070 records in scope, or 49.6%, and the top ten combine for 62.1% (665 records). That leaves close to 40% of the field spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so the space is not closed to new entrants, particularly outside the core alloy composition claims held by the largest steelmakers.
Is patent filing activity in duplex stainless steel still growing?
Filing volume has been flat rather than growing or shrinking over the most recent complete window: 29 records in 2021 versus 29 in 2024, a 0% change. Totals for 2025 and 2026 look much lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, not an actual drop in activity. The historical peak in this dataset was 2017, at 57 filings.
Which parts of duplex stainless steel fabrication have the most patent coverage?
Alloy composition claims (IPC class C22C) appear in 78.2% of the 1,070 records in scope, making it by far the densest area. Heat treatment of metals (C21D) follows at 31.5%. Welding, soldering and brazing (B23K) covers only 12.2% of records, and powder metallurgy (B22F) just 3.0%, indicating the fabrication-process side of the field carries comparatively lighter claim density than the underlying alloy chemistry.
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 Duplex Stainless Steel Fabrication 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.