Gear Heat Treatment Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 62.5% of all 16 records sit with just five assignees, yet the ranked leader holds only 2 records — concentration without a dominant single filer.
- C21D heat treatment appears in 75.0% of records while C23C coating/surface deposition reaches 50.0%, showing most claims combine a bulk process step with a surface-engineering step.
- Filing peaked in 2025 at 4 records with every jurisdiction of origin routed through China, and the most recent year (2026) is too fresh to read as a trend.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 16 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of carburized gear steel and gear heat treatment, narrowed to documents that specifically address carburizing depth, residual stress, surface hardness, distortion control, pitting resistance or shot peening. These are the process controls that decide whether a case-hardened gear survives contact fatigue and bending fatigue in a reducer under real load, not general gear-design filings.
The scope is narrow by design: 16 published records, all originating from Chinese applicants and filed with a Chinese receiving office. That makes this a regional rather than global picture of the art, concentrated on the metallurgical and process-engineering side of gear manufacture rather than gearbox architecture.
Filing trend and technology composition
Sixteen records is a small corpus, so read the trend and the IPC mix as directional signals about where claim activity clusters, not as a mature statistical base.
A short, recent filing history
Recorded activity starts at 2 filings in 2017 and rises unevenly to a peak of 4 in 2025; 2026 shows 0 so far, which reflects publication lag rather than a stop in filing. With fewer than four complete years once that lag is accounted for, no growth rate can be stated reliably.
Heat treatment plus coating dominates the class mix
C21D (heat treatment of metals) appears in 75.0% of the 16 records and C23C (coating and surface deposition) in 50.0%, confirming that most inventive work pairs a thermal process with a surface treatment step. Corrosion-related C23F reaches 18.8%, while computational branches — G06F and G16C, each at 12.5% — signal a smaller but present move toward simulation-assisted process design. Forging (B21J), general metalworking (B23P) and alloy composition (C22C) each sit at a single record, 6.3% of the total.
Shares are the percentage of the 16 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Gear Materials and Heat Treatment for Reducers with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about gear materials and heat treatment for reducers and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Laser shock peening to raise wear resistance of carburized gear steel surfaces
The filing combines carburizing heat treatment with high-power short-pulse laser shock peening on a gear steel sample. The plasma shockwave induced during peening drives plastic deformation at the surface, converting unstable retained austenite to martensite and correcting abnormal microhardness distribution. The stated result is a high-amplitude residual compressive stress field within the carburized layer, a gradient nanostructure, and an increased effective hardening depth aimed at contact-fatigue and heavy-load wear resistance.Filed 2025-11-21 · assignee rendered separately
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN105734251A | 一种齿轮热处理工艺 | 10 |
| 2 | CN118114562A | 航空钢螺旋锥齿轮渗碳淬火工艺参数优化方法及系统 | 9 |
| 3 | CN109055944A | 锥齿轮热处理双排连续渗碳、压淬生产线及其生产工艺 | 7 |
| 4 | CN107964660A | 一种从动齿轮热处理方法 | 4 |
| 5 | CN108193043A | 一种小模数内花键齿轮热处理方法 | 3 |
| 6 | CN120290856A | 一种齿轮的热处理工艺 | 2 |
| 7 | CN208917314U | 锥齿轮热处理双排连续渗碳、压淬生产线 | 2 |
Citation counts favour older filings inside any searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on later work, not a ranking of current importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the IPC mix and the citation table are read together.
Concentrated but not dominated
The top five assignees together account for 62.5% of all 16 records in scope, yet the leading assignee holds only 2 records. That is a field where several small, specialised filers each hold a modest position rather than one company controlling the claim space.
Heat treatment rarely stands alone
Three in four records touch heat treatment of metals (C21D), and half also carry a coating or surface-deposition class (C23C). The overlap suggests that carburizing or quenching claims are increasingly bundled with a defined surface-finishing step rather than filed as a bare thermal process.
Older process patents still anchor the field
The most-cited record in this set is a general gear heat-treatment process filing, cited 10 times, ahead of more recent optimisation-method filings cited 9 and 7 times. Heavily cited older filings mark foundational process claims that newer work builds on or designs around, not necessarily the strongest current position.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to gear materials and heat treatment for reducers, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
Seventeen companies make up the entire ranked list this dataset returns — there is no larger pool being trimmed. Momentum in the latest year is flat across the assignees tracked, consistent with a corpus still catching up to publication lag rather than a field going quiet.
A narrow lead, not a moat
The top-ranked assignee holds 2 records, only one ahead of fifth place at 2 and two ahead of tenth place at 1. That gap is too thin to call a dominant position — it is a lead among near-equals.
Joint filings cluster around one hub
The strongest co-assignee links all involve the same automotive axle/gearbox manufacturer paired separately with a rare-earth materials developer, a research university and a heat-treatment specialist, each pairing appearing twice. That pattern points to a single filer coordinating with different technical partners rather than a broad collaboration network.
No assignee shows recent-year momentum
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum shows 0 filings in the latest year, a pattern consistent with publication lag across a small, recent corpus rather than an active pullback from the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Zhengzhou Huawei Gear Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Jiangyin Yongxing Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Harbin Huilong Automotive Axle Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Harbin Yifeng Rare Earth Materials Development Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Harbin Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| Jilin Pulete Heat Treatment Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Qingdao Santongde Metal Products Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Chongqing Chenyu Machine Tool Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with several specialised filers, a thin publication history and a handful of underused IPC branches. The next step depends on what decision is on the table.
Check freedom-to-operate against the cited core
Before committing to a carburizing-plus-surface-treatment process, review the most-cited records directly — they mark the process claims newer filings have had to work around.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the co-filing hub
The strongest joint-filing pattern centres on one manufacturer working with separate specialist partners. Watching that hub's future publications may surface new partnerships before they are widely visible.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaTest claim language in the under-claimed branches
Computational and simulation-assisted process design (G06F, G16C) sit at 12.5% of records each — thin enough that a well-drafted first claim there faces less prior art than a bare heat-treatment claim.
Draft and check claims in EurekaCommon questions about gear heat treatment patents
In this 16-record dataset, the leading assignee holds only 2 records, with fifth place also at 2 and tenth place at 1 — so no single company dominates the field. The top five assignees combined account for 62.5% of all 16 records, and the top ten account for the entire dataset. This is a field of specialised filers holding small, roughly equal positions rather than one company controlling the claim space.
Carburizing depth and residual stress are treated together in this corpus because the depth of the carbon-enriched case directly shapes the residual compressive stress profile that resists contact fatigue and pitting. Filings in this set frequently pair a heat-treatment step (C21D, in 75.0% of records) with a coating or surface step (C23C, in 50.0% of records), reflecting that depth control and stress control are engineered jointly rather than as separate process stages.
The representative record in this dataset uses laser shock peening rather than conventional shot peening, combined with carburizing, to raise surface wear resistance and induce a gradient nanostructure. The broader search terms cover both distortion control and shot peening, but the citation table is topped by general heat-treatment process patents rather than peening-specific ones, suggesting peening claims are still a smaller, newer slice of the field.
Patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2026 figure in this dataset understates real filing activity for that period. The peak year on record so far is 2025 at 4 filings; treat 2026's low count as an artefact of the data cut-off, not evidence that filing has slowed.
Based on the IPC composition, computational and simulation-assisted branches — G06F and G16C, each at 12.5% of records — carry far less claim density than the core heat-treatment and coating classes at 75.0% and 50.0%. Alloy composition (C22C) and forging integration (B21J) also sit at a single record each, 6.3% of the total. These thinner branches are the more realistic entry points for a new claim than the crowded C21D/C23C 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.
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.