EMAT Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 56.5% concentration. The top 5 of 19 ranked assignees hold 35 of 62 records in scope — over half the field sits with a small group of filers.
- Filing peaked in 2017. At 16 records, then tapered; the most recent year is partial and understates true activity given publication lag.
- G01N dominates, H03H barely registers. Material analysis & testing classes cover 77.4% of records, while impedance-network filings sit at just 6.5%.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 62 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the EMAT patent record shows
Electromagnetic acoustic transducers generate and detect ultrasonic waves without a liquid couplant, which makes them attractive for high-temperature or dry-surface inspection in pipelines, rail and pressure vessels. The patent record in scope spans 62 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, covering coil and magnet geometry, guided-wave mode control and signal-processing claims layered on top of the core transduction hardware. Filing is not evenly spread: a handful of assignees account for more than half of the records, and the technical claims cluster heavily around material testing rather than the transducer electronics themselves.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2026 figure in the trend chart is necessarily incomplete and should not be read as a drop-off in real activity. The peak year on record, 2017, is the more reliable reference point for how dense filing got in this field's most active period.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two charts below use the full 62-record scope: one tracks filings by year, the other breaks records down by IPC subclass. Because a single record can carry more than one IPC class, the composition shares add up to more than 100% — that is expected and does not indicate double-counting of records.
Filings by year
Activity rose to a peak of 16 records in 2017 before tapering; treat the final year as partial given the standard publication lag.
IPC subclass composition
G01N (material analysis & testing) touches 77.4% of the 62 records in scope, far ahead of B06B (mechanical vibration generation) at 33.9% and H03K (pulse technique & logic circuits) at 17.7%. Downhole-adjacent classes like E21B and G01V each sit under 10%, marking smaller but distinct application niches rather than noise.
Shares are the percentage of the 62 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electromagnetic acoustic transducers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the corpus
Staggered Magnet Array (SMA) Based Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT)
A staggered magnet array (SMA) based electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) system and method for controlling the direction of the ultrasonic waves in the electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) using staggered magnet array (SMA) configurations, is disclosed herein. The EMAT device proposed herein comprises at least one conductive racetrack coil and at least two magnet arrays wherein the magnet array comprises of permanent magnets, where each magnet is oriented according to a specific configuration to produce ultrasonic waves in order to form an ultrasonic beam by shifting the position of the magnet arrays up or down creating a SMA configuration.Filed by Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), published 2023-01-19.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050120803A1 | Laser system and method for non-destructive bond detection and evaluation | 109 |
| 2 | US7770454B2 | Laser system and method for non-destructive bond detection and evaluation | 41 |
| 3 | US20030205088A1 | Electromagnetic acoustic transducer with recessed coils | 29 |
| 4 | US20180100387A1 | Downhole electromagnetic acoustic transducer sensors | 27 |
| 5 | US6951133B2 | Electromagnetic acoustic transducer with recessed coils | 26 |
| 6 | WO2002040986A1 | Electromagnetic acoustic transducer with recessed coils | 20 |
| 7 | US20070074572A1 | Electromagnetic acoustic transducers for use in ultrasound inspection systems | 19 |
| 8 | US6933932B2 | Acoustic wave sensor with EMAT drive | 17 |
| 9 | US20190227037A1 | Systems and methods for generating ultrasonic waves, exciting special classes of ultrasonic transducers and u… | 15 |
| 10 | US7426867B2 | Electromagnetic acoustic transducers for use in ultrasound inspection systems | 14 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations; read this as a signal of historical influence, not of which claims matter most today.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, trend and IPC composition are read together: a concentrated top tier, a dated activity peak, and claim density that sits mostly outside the transducer hardware itself.
Half the field sits with a small group
With the leader at 10 records and fifth place at 5, the gap between the top of the ranking and the rest is steep. A new entrant filing broad transducer-geometry claims is filing into space the leading few assignees have already staked out.
Activity has not returned to its 2017 level
The trend since the peak has tapered toward the present, though the final year in scope is partial due to publication lag and should not be read as an actual decline in filing intent.
Most claims sit in the inspection application, not the transducer
B06B (mechanical vibration generation) covers only 33.9% of records, and H03H (impedance networks & filters) just 6.5% — signal-conditioning and impedance-matching claims are comparatively thin relative to inspection-method claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electromagnetic acoustic transducers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee ranking returned by the data endpoint covers 19 companies and research institutes — this is the full ranking, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Ownership above the leader is concentrated, but the presence of individual inventors and university filers among the ranked names points to activity outside the largest corporate labs as well.
A single filer sets the pace
The leading assignee's 10 records give it a clear lead over fifth place at 5, though the gap narrows quickly further down the ranking.
A long tail of smaller filers
Below the top tier, record counts fall off fast; several ranked assignees, including university and individual-inventor entries, hold only a handful of filings each.
Recent-year activity is quiet across the board
None of the assignees checked for recent-year momentum show filings in the latest year in scope, consistent with the partial 2026 figure and typical publication lag rather than a sign the field has gone cold.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ITROBOTICS | 0 | — |
| TEXZEC INC | 0 | — |
| Baker Hughes Holdings LLC | 0 | — |
| Quest Integrated LLC | 0 | — |
| PASSARELLI FR JR | 0 | — |
| Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Beijing University of Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-cited records
The most-cited filings cluster around recessed-coil transducer designs and laser-based bond detection; any new hardware claim should be checked against these before drafting.
Explore citation mapProbe the under-claimed branches
Impedance-matching and signal-processing claims are comparatively thin relative to inspection-method claims — a targeted search of adjacent IPC classes can confirm how open this space really is.
Run a white space searchTrack the ranked leaders' next filings
With over half of all records held by five assignees, watching their continuation and new filings is a more efficient signal than scanning the full corpus.
Set up assignee trackingCommon questions about EMAT patents
It is a structured view of the published patent filings covering electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology, built by pulling records that match specific technical terms such as couplant-free operation, transduction efficiency and guided wave mode into one dataset. In this scope there are 62 published records spanning 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. The landscape groups those records by assignee, filing year and IPC classification so a reader can see who is filing, when activity peaked, and which technical sub-areas carry the most claims.
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 19 companies and institutes, with the leading assignee holding 10 of the 62 records in scope. The top 5 assignees together account for 35 records, or 56.5% of the field, while the top 10 account for 53 records, or 85.5%. Below that top tier, filing counts drop quickly to a long tail of assignees with only a few records each, including university and individual-inventor filers.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 16 records within this dataset's scope. The years since show a tapering trend toward the present, but the most recent year is partial: patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the low count shown for the latest year reflects that lag rather than a genuine drop in R&D activity. A reliable read on current momentum needs another filing cycle or two of data before conclusions can be drawn.
Material analysis and testing (IPC class G01N) appears in 77.4% of the 62 records in scope, making it by far the most heavily claimed application area. Mechanical vibration generation (B06B) follows at 33.9%, and pulse technique and logic circuits (H03K) at 17.7%. Because a single patent can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, and they show where claim density sits rather than where the technology is most mature.
Based on the IPC composition, impedance networks and filters (H03H) and geophysics-adjacent classes (G01V) each cover only around 6.5% of the 62 records in scope, well below the dominant material-testing and vibration-generation classes. That gap suggests impedance-matching circuit design, downhole-specific magnet configurations, and signal-processing claims tied to EMAT data are comparatively under-claimed relative to the core inspection use case, though a full freedom-to-operate check against the highest-cited records is still needed before filing.
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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.