Automated Electronics Disassembly Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 30 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the automated electronics disassembly patent record actually covers
Automated electronics disassembly sits at the intersection of robotics, control systems and materials recovery: the underlying task is separating a product — a vehicle module, a circuit assembly, an electric machine — into recoverable streams without a person doing the teardown by hand. The 30 records in scope were retrieved with a search string built around Automated, Electronics and Disassembly as co-occurring terms, so the corpus captures disclosures that explicitly frame the problem this way rather than every robotics or recycling patent in general.
The technology composition skews toward vehicle hardware and printed-circuit assemblies rather than purpose-built recycling lines, which matters for anyone scoping freedom-to-operate: a filing that reads as e-waste equipment may in practice be competing against automotive mechanism patents that were never marketed as recycling technology.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The figures below are drawn directly from the 30 records in scope and the IPC classes attached to them; a single record can carry more than one class, so composition shares add to more than 100%.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then dropped to zero by 2024
Annual counts run from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2021, then to 0 by 2024 — a -100% swing over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the apparent drop should not be read as the field cooling; it is a data-lag artefact until at least one more filing year publishes.
Vehicle and circuit-board classes dominate the class mix
B60R (vehicles, parts and accessories) appears on 36.7% of the 30 records, well ahead of H05K (printed circuits and assemblies) at 20.0% and G05D (control of non-electric variables) at 16.7%. Robotics-specific class B25J appears on only 10.0% of records, and packaging and material-handling classes (B65D, B65G) sit at 6.7% each — evidence that dedicated conveying and sorting hardware is thinly claimed relative to the mechanisms that move or house electronics.
Shares are the percentage of the 30 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electronic-Waste Recycling: Automated Electronics Disassembly Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records and one representative filing
US20200195101A1 — Automated recovery of rare earth permanent magnets from electric machines
The filing, assigned to UT-Battelle, describes identifying electric machines in a mixed product stream, diverting unrecognised units to a robot training station, and using a rotary platform to simultaneously disassemble multiple machines and remove permanent magnets for sorted recycling.Published 2020-06-18. Abstract shortened from the original filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US9272667B2 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 83 |
| 2 | US9511717B2 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 61 |
| 3 | US20150123374A1 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 44 |
| 4 | US4967146A | Semiconductor chip production and testing processes | 43 |
| 5 | US8508956B2 | Modular shielded electronics enclosure | 17 |
| 6 | US11198395B2 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 13 |
| 7 | US20210300250A1 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 7 |
| 8 | WO2015065811A1 | Automated retractable vehicle step | 7 |
| 9 | AU2010282150A1 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 7 |
| 10 | US20120281368A1 | Modular shielded electronics enclosure | 6 |
Citation counts favour older filings in any searched corpus; a high count signals influence within this dataset, not present-day commercial relevance.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the class mix are read together: concentration at the top, a stalled-looking trend that is really a data-lag effect, and a technology mix weighted toward adjacent hardware rather than dedicated recycling equipment.
A handful of assignees hold most of the claim space
The top 5 assignees together account for 70.0% of all 30 records in scope, and the top 10 reach 86.7%. With a single leader holding 11 records, most of the remaining 27 ranked assignees are single- or double-filing entrants — a long tail rather than a second tier of active competitors.
The 2021 peak has not been sustained — but read it with caution
Filings ran from 2 in 2017 up to a peak of 4 in 2021, then to 0 by 2024, a -100% change over that span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-26 figures are not yet complete, so this should be read as the last fully-settled trend point rather than proof the field has stopped.
Vehicle hardware classes outweigh dedicated recycling classes
B60R (vehicle parts and accessories) attaches to more records than any other class, ahead of H05K printed-circuit assemblies at 20.0% and G05D control systems at 16.7%. Classes aimed squarely at sorting or conveying — B65D and B65G — sit at only 6.7% each, suggesting the material-handling side of e-waste disassembly is comparatively open.
Filing activity is concentrated in the US and India
The United States receives the largest share of filings at 14, followed by India at 6; Europe, WIPO and Canada each receive single-digit counts. A filer targeting broad enforceability outside these two jurisdictions currently faces a thinner prior-art screen.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electronic-waste recycling: automated electronics disassembly patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps for anyone deciding whether to file, license or design around existing claims in this space.
Map the white space in material handling
Conveying and sorting classes B65D and B65G each cover only 6.7% of records, well below the vehicle and circuit-board classes. A first filing on automated sorting or conveying logic for mixed electronics streams would face a comparatively light prior-art screen.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the leader's filing cadence, not just its count
One assignee holds 11 of 30 records; tracking whether that filer resumes activity after the 2021 peak will show whether the apparent 2024 drop is a real pause or simply unpublished pending applications.
Track assignee activity in EurekaRe-run the trend once 2025-26 data settles
Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the most defensible read on momentum will not be available until the 2025 filing year is substantially complete.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaFrequently asked questions
It is concentrated at the top: the five largest assignees together account for 70.0% of all 30 records in scope, and the top ten reach 86.7%. A single leader holds 11 of the 30 records, meaning most of the remaining ranked assignees appear only once or twice. This pattern points to a field where a small number of filers set the boundaries of the claimed technology, with a long tail of narrower, single-filing entrants around them.
The trend rose from 2 filings in 2017 to a peak of 4 in 2021, then fell to 0 by 2024, a -100% change over that three-year window. However, publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in the underlying data are still incomplete and should not be read as a real decline yet. The 2024 figure is the most recent point that can be treated as settled, and it shows the field pausing rather than accelerating after its 2021 peak.
Vehicle-related hardware, class B60R, appears on 36.7% of the 30 records in scope, more than any other IPC subclass, followed by printed circuit and assembly class H05K at 20.0% and control systems class G05D at 16.7%. Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these figures add to more than 100% of the total. The pattern suggests that a meaningful share of the disclosed disassembly mechanisms originated in automotive component design rather than purpose-built recycling equipment.
Material-handling classes for containers and conveying — B65D and B65G — each cover only 6.7% of the 30 records, the lowest shares in the dataset alongside peptide-related class C07K. Robotics-specific class B25J sits at just 10.0%. Together this suggests the physical sorting, conveying and multi-arm manipulation side of automated disassembly is thinner ground than the vehicle-hardware and circuit-board mechanisms that dominate current filings.
US20200195101A1, assigned to UT-Battelle and published 2020-06-18, describes a system for recovering rare-earth permanent magnets from electric machines: it identifies machines in a mixed product stream, routes unrecognised units to a robot training station, and uses a rotary platform to disassemble multiple machines simultaneously before sorting the recovered magnets. It is a representative example of how the corpus frames automated disassembly as an identification-plus-robotic-routine problem rather than a single fixed mechanism, which is useful context when scoping claims around magnet or rare-earth recovery specifically.
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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.