Electron Beam Melting Feedstock Patents: Trends & Gaps 2026
- Filing already peaked and is fading. Activity crested in 2019 at 25 filings and had fallen back to a filing rate around the 2022 midpoint of 8 by mid-decade, with no 2026 filings recorded yet in this partial year.
- Powder metallurgy and 3D-printing IPC codes dominate, but capacitor and sterilising codes cut across the same filings. B22F and B33Y cover the bulk of records, while H01G (capacitors) and A61L (sterilising) show the feedstock work is being claimed from anode and medical-device angles as much as from AM process angles.
- The most-cited records are about anode powder and 3D-printing metal powder, not machine hardware. The two highest-cited families both center on spherical powder composition and its use in capacitors, a signal that feedstock chemistry claims carry more downstream weight than apparatus claims.
What this landscape covers
Electron beam melting feedstock development sits at the intersection of powder metallurgy and additive manufacturing: how metal powder is produced, sized, sphericalised and recycled for use in electron beam powder bed fusion systems. The 55 patent families in this dataset span filings from 2015 through the 2026 cutoff, concentrated most heavily in B22F (powder metallurgy) and B33Y (additive manufacturing) classifications, with a smaller but consistent presence in alloy, sterilising, capacitor, plastics-shaping, electroplating and coating-apparatus codes.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months in most jurisdictions, so the apparent drop-off in the most recent years understates real activity; the 2019 peak and subsequent decline should be read against that lag rather than taken as a literal end to the field.
Filing trend and technology composition
The filing curve and IPC spread together show a field that expanded quickly, peaked, and has since been sustained by a smaller set of active filers rather than fresh entrants.
A short, sharp filing curve
Filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 25 in 2019, then eased back toward the 2022 midpoint of 8. With 2026 showing zero filings so far in a partial year, the trend reads as flat-to-declining rather than accelerating, though publication lag means the last one to two years are undercounted.
Powder metallurgy and AM codes lead, but capacitor and sterilising codes are notable
B22F (43 records) and B33Y (27 records) anchor the dataset, confirming that most filings are framed as powder metallurgy or additive-manufacturing process claims. C22C (alloys, 16) and A61L (sterilising, 14) show meaningful crossover into alloy design and medical-device sterilisation, while H01G (capacitors, 13) points to a distinct application cluster around spherical powder used in anode and capacitor construction rather than in AM builds themselves.
Shares are the percentage of the 55 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electron Beam Melting Feedstock Development with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited families
Methods and apparatuses for wide-spectrum consumption of output of atomization processes across multi-process and multi-scale additive manufacturing modalities
Filed by Divergent Technologies in 2023, this family addresses a practical feedstock problem: what to do with atomization output that does not meet the specification of the process that generated it. It describes matching characteristics of unused output material against the input parameters of other additive manufacturing processes, so off-spec powder from one atomization run can be routed to a process that can still use it.Abstract condensed from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US10943744B2 | Anodes containing spherical powder and capacitors | 25 |
| 2 | WO2019197376A1 | Metal powder for 3d-printing | 20 |
| 3 | US20190272958A1 | Anodes Containing Spherical Powder And Capacitors | 13 |
| 4 | US20220023941A1 | Metal powder for 3d-printing | 10 |
| 5 | US20200238432A1 | Powder supply device and additive manufacturing device | 9 |
| 6 | US20240165705A1 | Sintered titanium components and additive manufacturing methods thereof | 5 |
| 7 | US20220227240A1 | Energy unit cells for primary vehicle structure | 5 |
| 8 | JP1991504741A | Aluminum and aluminum base alloy and a device for executing the method for regenerating waste | 4 |
| 9 | US11508529B2 | Anodes containing spherical powder and capacitors | 3 |
| 10 | JP2018145467A | Titanium-based powder, titanium-based ingot obtained by fusing titanium-based powder, and titanium-based sint… | 3 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of prior influence, not of what matters most today.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once family counts, IPC codes and citation data are read together.
The field has cooled since its 2019 peak
A filing rate that fell from 25 in the peak year to 8 at the 2022 midpoint, with no 2026 filings recorded yet, suggests the initial wave of feedstock patenting has largely run its course. New entrants now face a claim landscape shaped mostly by filings from the 2018-2021 window.
Powder claims double as capacitor claims
Thirteen records classified under H01G show that spherical metal powder claims are being filed with capacitor and anode applications in mind, not only AM builds. Anyone filing pure powder-composition claims should check capacitor-industry prior art, not just AM prior art.
The most influential claims are about powder, not machines
The two most-cited families in this dataset both concern spherical powder used in capacitor anodes rather than melt-pool control or build hardware. That weighting suggests feedstock composition claims have drawn more downstream attention than process-apparatus claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electron beam melting feedstock development, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is uniformly flat: none of the leading filers show activity in the latest year, consistent with the broader decline in filing volume. That leaves an open field for a new filer willing to claim the under-served branches below.
No leading assignee is currently active
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including university and corporate filers, shows zero filings in the latest year. This is a dormant-leader pattern rather than a single dominant player still pushing volume.
Co-filing is rare and thin
Only one co-assignee pairing appears with meaningful strength in this dataset, an academic-industry link. Joint filing is not yet a common strategy in this niche, which leaves room for deliberate co-development partnerships to stand out.
Filing is concentrated in the US, with Israel a distinct second
The United States receives the largest share of filings, with Israel a clear second ahead of Europe, PCT, India and Thailand. A filer targeting only EPO or PCT routes would be missing where most current protection actually sits.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Global Advanced Metals USA, Inc. | 0 | — |
| TANIOBIS GmbH | 0 | — |
| Divergent Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (IHI) | 0 | — |
| Indian Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| University of Utah Research Foundation | 0 | — |
| Indian Institute of Technology Bombay | 0 | -100% |
| Eaton Intelligent Power Limited | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a mature but thinly-populated claim space with specific openings rather than a wide-open field.
Check capacitor and medical prior art before filing powder-composition claims
Because H01G and A61L codes overlap substantially with the core powder-metallurgy filings, a composition claim written only against AM prior art risks missing blocking art from the capacitor and sterilisation literature.
Explore the IPC breakdownTarget recyclability and off-spec routing claims
Powder recyclability and cross-process reuse of atomization output are represented by only a handful of filings relative to the core 43-record B22F cluster, leaving room for narrowly drafted claims in this branch.
Review the white space chipsCommon questions on this landscape
It refers to the design, production and reuse of metal powder specifically for electron beam powder bed fusion systems, covering particle sphericity, size distribution, alloy composition and recyclability of unused or off-spec powder. In this dataset the majority of filings sit under B22F (powder metallurgy) and B33Y (additive manufacturing) IPC codes, with meaningful crossover into alloys, sterilising and capacitor classifications. Practically, a feedstock patent search in this space needs to cover both AM-specific art and adjacent industrial-powder art.
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 25 families and had declined to around 8 by the 2022 midpoint, with no filings yet recorded for 2026. That pattern indicates the field is contracting rather than growing, though publication lag of roughly 18 months means the most recent one to two years are likely undercounted. A practitioner should treat the apparent 2024-2026 drop with some caution rather than as a confirmed end to activity.
Citation data in this dataset points to spherical powder and capacitor-anode families as the most-cited, ahead of powder-supply and build-apparatus patents. Recent-year momentum across the tracked leading assignees, spanning corporate, university and government-linked filers, shows no active filings in the latest year, meaning current influence rests on older, already-cited families rather than fresh filings. Citation counts also structurally favour older records, so newer high-value filings may not yet show up prominently.
The clearest gaps sit in powder recyclability and cross-process reuse of off-spec atomization output, sterilisation of medical-grade powder, and electroplating-based powder finishing, all of which appear as smaller IPC clusters relative to the core B22F and B33Y volume. These branches are technically specific enough to support a defensible first claim rather than a broad, easily-challenged one. Filers should also note the capacitor-anode cluster under H01G, which is thinner than the AM-core cluster but has produced this landscape's most-cited families.
No single assignee shows current filing momentum: every tracked leading assignee, including corporate and academic filers, recorded zero filings in the latest year. Co-assignee filing is also rare, with only one meaningful co-filing pair identified in the dataset. That combination, a cooled filing rate and no dominant active filer, suggests the space is open to a new entrant willing to file deliberately in the under-claimed branches rather than compete head-on in the crowded B22F core.
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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.
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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.