Hot Forming Tools and Wear Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing nearly tripled in three years. Annual filings rose from 9 in 2021 to 25 in 2024, a 178% increase, after a quieter stretch following the 2018 peak of 46.
- The top of the field is concentrated but not locked. The five leading assignees hold 38.8% of all 818 records and the top ten hold 49.6% — leaving roughly half the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Coatings and laminates dominate the claim space. B32B layered products (31.9%) and C08J polymer processing (25.8%) lead the technology mix, ahead of battery-related H01M filings (15.9%) — a sign the tooling problem now overlaps heavily with cell manufacturing.
Filing growth compares 2021 (9 records) with 2024 (25) — 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 818 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Hot forming tool wear sits at the intersection of tool steel metallurgy, coating science and thermal management. The search underlying this page combines hot stamping tool and die wear terminology with the failure-mode vocabulary that actually shows up in claims and specifications — thermal fatigue, coating adhesion, cooling channel design, tool steel selection, and the maintenance and cost language that signals a production-line concern rather than a lab curiosity. The result is 818 published records spanning 2015 through mid-2026.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown. The dataset also captures a wider footprint than tool steel alone: a meaningful share of records sit in layered-product and polymer-coating classes, reflecting how hot forming tooling problems now bleed into battery casing and optical component manufacturing.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 818 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight today.
Filings rebuilt sharply after a post-peak lull
Filings peaked at 46 in 2018, cooled to 9 by 2021, then climbed back to 25 in 2024 — a 178% rise over that three-year span. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional given publication lag.
Coatings and laminates outweigh pure tool-steel claims
B32B (31.9% of records) and C08J (25.8%) lead, with C09D coatings (15.4%) and C23C surface deposition (8.3%) rounding out the coating side. H01M battery classes (15.9%) show how much of this field now overlaps with cell and pack manufacturing rather than classic stamping dies.
Shares are the percentage of the 818 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hot Forming Tools and Wear with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hot forming tools and wear and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited records
US10562092B2 — Tool for hot stamping and method for making the tool
A tool for hot stamping metal sheets, formed at least partially of a base block and a functional layer, is proposed. The functional layer comprises cooling channels and multiple functional layers, which building upon each other create the connection to the base block. The cooling channels are designed as a cooling channel array and are produced in a laser sintering method.Filed by Magna International, granted 2020-02-18.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7339715B2 | Processes for the production of electrophoretic displays | 932 |
| 2 | US7910175B2 | Processes for the production of electrophoretic displays | 285 |
| 3 | US20040260050A1 | Preparation of solvent-resistant binder for an imageable element | 228 |
| 4 | US20040226820A1 | Processes for the production of electrophoretic displays | 163 |
| 5 | US6773653B2 | In-mold labeling method | 147 |
| 6 | US20060147177A1 | Fluoropolymer coating compositions with olefinic silanes for anti-reflective polymer films | 135 |
| 7 | US20080023332A1 | Processes for the production of electrophoretic displays | 99 |
| 8 | WO2010000666A1 | Aluminium brazing sheet material | 98 |
| 9 | US6511701B1 | Coatings and methods | 90 |
| 10 | US20110244185A1 | Biaxially oriented polylactic acid film with reduced noise level | 74 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns worth acting on before drafting claims or scoping freedom-to-operate in this space.
Half the field sits with a long tail
The five leading assignees account for 38.8% of all 818 records and the top ten reach 49.6%. That leaves just over half the field spread across 90-plus other assignees in the ranking, many with only a handful of filings — a sign that niche coating and cooling-channel approaches still have room to establish position.
The rebound is recent and steep
After the 2018 peak of 46 filings, activity dropped to 9 by 2021 before rebuilding to 25 in 2024. That +178% swing suggests renewed investment in tool coating and thermal management rather than a maturing, slowing field.
Layered products lead, batteries are rising fast
B32B laminate claims and C08J polymer processing claims together touch more than half the dataset by count, but H01M battery-related classes already reach 15.9% of records — evidence that hot forming tool wear research is increasingly framed around battery casing and cell-adjacent manufacturing, not just automotive body panels.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hot forming tools and wear, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The leader board is concentrated at the very top but thins quickly — most of the ranked assignees hold only a handful of records each, and recent-year momentum has cooled even for several established filers.
One filer holds a clear lead
The top-ranked assignee holds 139 records, well ahead of fifth place at 30 and tenth place at 15. That gap suggests a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a single burst of activity.
Recent-year activity has slowed among top filers
Multiple assignees in the leading group show sharp latest-year declines or zero filings recorded, including drops of -88% and -100% year over year. Given publication lag, some of this reflects filings still working through the pipeline rather than a genuine pullback.
Inventor pairing signals a concentrated R&D team
The strongest co-assignee pairing appears 22 times, far ahead of the next pairing at 3 — a pattern consistent with a single dedicated engineering group rather than broad cross-company collaboration in this dataset.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| LG Energy Solution Ltd | 1 | -88% |
| Mitsubishi Plastics Inc | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Corp | 0 | — |
| PPG Industries Ohio Inc | 0 | -100% |
| 3M Innovative Properties Co | 0 | — |
| FUJITA MASATO | 0 | — |
| KAWASAKI TAISHI | 0 | — |
| Toray Plastics (America) Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy, or scouting acquisition targets.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on cooling channel claims
US10562092B2 and similar filings tie cooling channel geometry to specific manufacturing methods like laser sintering. Any new tool design should be checked against these claims before committing to a fabrication route.
Explore in EurekaTrack the battery-tooling overlap as it grows
H01M classes already reach 15.9% of records in a dataset originally scoped around hot stamping dies. Monitoring this overlap early could reveal which battery manufacturers are quietly building tooling patent positions.
Explore in EurekaWatch the long tail for emerging entrants
With roughly half of all records held outside the top ten assignees, new entrants with narrow coating or steel-selection claims are worth periodic re-screening rather than a one-time review.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about hot forming tool and wear patents
The ranking of 100 assignees in this dataset shows a clear leader with 139 records, followed by a steep drop to fifth place at 30 records and tenth place at 15. The five leading assignees together hold 38.8% of all 818 records, and the top ten hold 49.6%. That leaves just over half the field distributed across many smaller filers, so leadership at the very top does not mean the field is closed to new entrants.
Filings are rebuilding after a lull: annual counts fell from a 2018 peak of 46 to just 9 in 2021, then climbed back to 25 by 2024, a 178% increase over that three-year span. The 2025 and 2026 figures in the trend data are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by about 18 months, so they should not be read as a decline. Based on the 2021-to-2024 trajectory, the field is in an active growth phase rather than a mature or shrinking one.
H01M, the battery and cell class, accounts for 15.9% of the 818 records in this dataset even though the search was built around hot stamping tool and die wear terminology. This reflects genuine technical overlap: coating adhesion, thermal fatigue and cooling channel problems in metal-forming tools share underlying materials science with battery casing and cell-manufacturing tooling. Anyone filing in either space should check the other for adjacent claims.
Relative to the dominant B32B laminate (31.9%) and C08J polymer processing (25.8%) classes, areas like cooling channel array geometry, laser-sintered tool inserts, and coating adhesion specifically at battery-casing interfaces show comparatively lower filing density in this dataset. That does not guarantee an area is unpatented, but it suggests fewer entrenched claims to design around. A targeted prior-art search on these narrower terms is a reasonable next step before drafting.
US10562092B2, granted 2020-02-18 to Magna International, claims a hot stamping tool built from a base block and functional layer containing cooling channels arranged as an array, produced using a laser sintering method. It is the representative filing in this dataset and illustrates how cooling channel geometry and the additive manufacturing method used to produce it are being claimed together. Anyone designing a similar tool should review its specific claim language on channel arrangement and the base-to-functional-layer connection before finalizing a fabrication approach.
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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.