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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/heavy-rare-earth-free-magnet-alloy-design-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Rare Earth ProcessingHeavy rare earth free magnet alloy design patents: who holds grain boundary diffusion and dysprosium-free claims
- 33.6% concentration. The top 5 assignees together hold 232 of 691 records in scope — a third of the field sits with a handful of filers.
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak. Grants rose to 90 in 2020, then filings fell from 50 in 2021 to 22 in 2024, a 56% drop over that span.
- H01F and C22C dominate the claim map. 59.0% of records touch magnet/inductor structures (H01F) and 29.8% touch alloy composition (C22C), leaving coating (C23C, 10.6%) and heat treatment (C21D, 3.9%) comparatively open.
691
Published Records
34%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-56%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (50 records) with 2024 (22) — 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 691 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Heavy rare earth free magnet alloy design covers the methods used to hit coercivity and thermal stability targets in Nd-Fe-B magnets without relying on dysprosium or terbium additions. The search string spans grain boundary diffusion, dysprosium free magnet and cerium substituted magnet approaches, matched against coercivity, anisotropy field and dual-alloy processing claims. The 691 records in scope run from 2015 through the partial 2026 year, giving a decade-long view of how the field has moved from bulk composition changes toward surface and grain-boundary engineering.
Filing activity here is shaped by supply-chain pressure on dysprosium and terbium rather than by a single breakthrough. That makes the technology composition data as informative as the assignee ranking: where classes cluster shows which physical route — bulk alloy substitution, powder metallurgy, or post-sinter diffusion coatings — is absorbing the claim volume.
Filing activity and technology mix, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 691 records: the filing trend by year, and the IPC subclasses those records carry.
Filings rose to a 2020 peak, then declined
Annual filings climbed from 45 in 2017 to a peak of 90 in 2020, then fell — 50 in 2021 down to 22 in 2024, a 56% decline over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not be read as a continued drop.
H01F and C22C carry the bulk of the claim volume
H01F (magnets, inductors and transformers) appears in 59.0% of the 691 records, and C22C (alloys) in 29.8%. B22F (powder metallurgy) sits at 22.9%, while C23C (coating and surface deposition) and C21D (heat treatment) trail at 10.6% and 3.9% respectively — the smaller shares mark where fewer claims currently sit, not where the technology is easier.
Shares are the percentage of the 691 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about heavy rare earth free magnet alloy design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaKey Patents
A representative claim in this space
Representative record
AU2021100764A4 — Method for Improving Coercivity and Thermal Stability of Sintered Nd-Fe-B Magnet
NANCHANG HANGKONG UNIVERSITY
The method derusts and degreases a sintered Nd-Fe-B magnet, pickles it and removes acid stains, then deposits a first non-rare-earth metal film by magnetron sputtering before performing grain boundary diffusion via microwave heating and tempering. The sequence targets coercivity and thermal stability gains without heavy rare earth additions.Filed by Nanchang Hangkong University, dated 2021-04-22.
View full recordMost-cited records in the dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7544398B1 | Controlled nano-doping of ultra thin films | 434 |
| 2 | US20170027168A1 | Methods, products, and systems relating to making, providing, and using nanocrystalline (NC) products compris… | 303 |
| 3 | US6306524B1 | Diffusion barrier layer | 180 |
| 4 | JP2010114200A | Method of manufacturing rare-earth magnet | 141 |
| 5 | US20040023453A1 | Supercritical fluid-assisted deposition of materials on semiconductor substrates | 139 |
| 6 | JP1989117303A | Permanent magnet | 134 |
| 7 | US6586330B1 | Method for depositing conformal nitrified tantalum silicide films by thermal CVD | 127 |
| 8 | US20120172648A1 | Defect engineering in metal oxides via surfaces | 121 |
| 9 | US20040257717A1 | Coupled ferromagnetic systems having modified interfaces | 121 |
| 10 | US20110057756A1 | Rare Earth Composite Magnets with Increased Resistivity | 120 |
Citation counts favour older documents that have had more time to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence rather than of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for R&D and IP strategy
Three read-outs from the concentration, trend and technology data above.
Concentration
33.6%
of 691 records held by top 5 assignees
A third of the field sits with five filers
The leader alone holds 109 records, and the top 5 combined account for 232 of 691 records in scope. That level of concentration means freedom-to-operate work in grain boundary diffusion and dual-alloy processing should start with those portfolios rather than a broad novelty search.
Based on the assignee ranking of 100 companies.
Momentum
-56%
filing change, 2021 to 2024
Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak, but the reason matters
Annual filings dropped from 50 in 2021 to 22 in 2024. Several leading assignees show 0 filings in the latest year, some down 100% year-on-year — but recent-year counts are understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so this reads as a plateau after the 2020 peak rather than a firm decline.
2024 is the most recent year treated as complete.
Technology mix
10.6%
of records touch C23C coating & surface deposition
Coating and heat-treatment classes are comparatively open
H01F (59.0%) and C22C (29.8%) absorb most of the claim volume, largely bulk composition and magnetic-structure claims. C23C coating work and C21D heat treatment, at 10.6% and 3.9%, carry far fewer records — that is where grain-boundary diffusion process claims still have room.
Class shares sum to more than 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to heavy rare earth free magnet alloy design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gate sits for new entrants
The ranking covers 100 companies drawn from the 691 records in scope — not a curated top list, but the full set the data endpoint returns.
Leader
109
records
One filer well ahead of the rest
The leading assignee holds 109 records against 23 at fifth place and 13 at tenth — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
Compare against the top 5 combined share of 33.6%.
Co-filing
54
shared records, strongest pair
Co-assignee links cluster around a few known partnerships
Only 6 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset. The strongest pair shares 54 records, and two more pairs share 16 and 3 records respectively — evidence of a small number of stable joint-development relationships rather than broad industry collaboration.
6 co-assignee pairs identified in total.
Geography
300
US-directed filings
Filing offices skew toward the US and Europe
The United States receives 300 filings, EPO 173, WIPO/PCT 43, Germany 33 and Japan 27 — a filing pattern concentrated in the jurisdictions with the largest magnet-consuming automotive and electronics industries.
Receiving-office counts, not family counts.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Fujian Changting Golden Dragon Rare Earth Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Xiamen Tungsten Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Yantai Dongxing Magnetic Materials Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Yantai Zhenghai Magnetic Material Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Proterial, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Dyson Technology Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Corporation | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this
The landscape points to two practical next steps depending on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate or looking for open claim space.
Map the leader's claim boundaries
With 109 records concentrated at the top, understanding exactly what the leading assignee's grain boundary diffusion and dual-alloy claims cover is the first step before designing around them.
Explore assignee portfolios in Eureka →Test claim language in the under-claimed classes
C23C coating and C21D heat-treatment classes carry far fewer records than H01F or C22C — draft and stress-test claim language there before committing R&D spend.
Run a claim search in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on heavy rare earth free magnet patents
In this dataset, it means an Nd-Fe-B or related sintered magnet formulation and processing method that achieves coercivity and thermal stability targets without adding dysprosium or terbium. Claims typically substitute cerium, use grain boundary diffusion of non-heavy-rare-earth elements, or refine microstructure through dual-alloy powder methods. The search string used here specifically pairs those routes with coercivity, anisotropy field and thermal stability language, so the 691 records in scope are process- and composition-focused rather than end-use claims.
The assignee ranking is concentrated: the leader holds 109 of 691 records, and the top 5 combined account for 232 records, or 33.6% of the field. That drop-off from leader to fifth place (23 records) shows a leader-plus-long-tail structure rather than several evenly matched competitors. Anyone assessing freedom to operate should look closely at the top few portfolios first, since they hold a disproportionate share of the claim space.
Filings peaked at 90 in 2020 and have since declined to 22 in 2024, a 56% drop over that three-year window. However, patent publication typically lags actual filing by about 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset are necessarily incomplete and should not be read as continued decline. The more reliable read is that filing activity has settled below its 2020 peak rather than that the technology is being abandoned.
The technology composition data shows H01F (magnets and inductors, 59.0% of records) and C22C (alloys, 29.8%) carrying the bulk of claim volume, while C23C coating and surface deposition sits at only 10.6% and C21D heat treatment at 3.9%. That gap suggests coating-process claims and heat-treatment sequencing around grain boundary diffusion are comparatively under-claimed relative to bulk composition and structural claims, making them worth checking before assuming freedom to operate is blocked.
AU2021100764A4, filed by Nanchang Hangkong University in April 2021, claims a specific sequence: derusting, pickling, magnetron sputtering of a non-rare-earth metal film, then grain boundary diffusion via microwave heating and tempering. It does not claim the general concept of dysprosium-free grain boundary diffusion, only this particular process sequence and film deposition method. Anyone using a different deposition technique or a different tempering method would need a separate freedom-to-operate check against this and the wider set of grain boundary diffusion claims in the dataset.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Heavy Rare Earth Free Magnet Alloy Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.