Laser Arc Hybrid Welding Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
A patent landscape of laser arc hybrid welding covering 712 records: leading filers, filing trends through 2024, technology composition across IPC classes, and the most-cited prior art.
Filing growth = 2021 (17 records) → 2024 (30); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 712 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the laser arc hybrid welding patent record shows
Laser arc hybrid welding combines a focused laser beam with a conventional arc process in a single weld pool, aiming for the speed of laser welding with the gap-bridging tolerance of arc welding. The patent record for this specific technique spans 712 published records from 2015 through the current data cut-off, concentrated almost entirely under B23K, the welding, soldering and brazing classification. Filing activity peaked in 2020 at 84 records before settling into a lower but still-growing pace through 2024.
Ownership of the field is moderately concentrated: the leading assignee alone accounts for 55 records, and the top five combined hold 24.6% of all records in scope. Beyond that group, filing activity thins into a long tail of companies with single-digit counts, which is where much of the process-specific and material-specific innovation is happening.
Filing trends and technology composition
The figures below cover all 712 records in scope, drawn from the receiving offices and IPC subclasses attached to each filing.
A growth phase visible in the complete-year data
Annual filings ran from 12 in 2017 up to a peak of 84 in 2020, then eased before rising again: 2021 to 2024 shows a 76% increase, from 17 to 30 records. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so they should not be read as a slowdown.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Concentrated in welding, branching into vehicles and materials
B23K covers 99.3% of the 712 records, confirming this is a tightly defined process area rather than a broad field. The next largest classes — B62D (motor vehicles, 6.2%), C22C (alloys, 4.6%), B21D (sheet-metal working, 4.2%) and B22F (powder metallurgy, 2.8%) — show where hybrid welding claims extend into specific downstream applications and materials, since a single record can carry more than one class.
Shares are the percentage of the 712 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Joining, Welding & Brazing: Laser Arc Hybrid Welding Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about joining, welding & brazing: laser arc hybrid welding patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a representative claim
Head and method for laser arc hybrid welding — US8344283B2
The patent describes a welding head that splits a single incoming laser beam into two split beams, focuses both on the base material, and combines this with coaxial arc discharge to weld aluminum steel sheets at high speed while forming satisfactory beads.Filed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; issued 2013-01-01.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100314362A1 | Weld defect detection systems and methods for laser hybrid welding | 187 |
| 2 | US20200269340A1 | Active Laser Vision Robust Weld Tracking System and Weld Position Detection Method | 153 |
| 3 | US20100326962A1 | Welding control system | 117 |
| 4 | US20100159265A1 | Butt weld and method of making using fusion and friction stir welding | 76 |
| 5 | US20070251927A1 | Laser Hybrid Welding Method and Laser Hybrid Welding Torch Using a Zinc and/or Carbon and/or Aluminum-Contain… | 62 |
| 6 | US20080057341A1 | Wire, flux and process for welding steel having a high nickel content | 60 |
| 7 | US20090050609A1 | Welding torch with a fixing element for the gas nozzle, said element being capable of extension; process cont… | 55 |
| 8 | EP1878531A1 | Laser arc hybrid welding method for surface coated metal parts, the surface coating containing aluminium | 53 |
| 9 | US20130193124A1 | Dual fillet welding methods and systems | 52 |
| 10 | US6034343A | Hybrid welding apparatus | 52 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation patterns mean for freedom to operate
Three signals matter most for a team deciding where to file or where to license: how tight the ownership concentration is, how old the influential prior art is, and how thin the co-filing network is.
The top of the field is settled, the rest is open
A leader with 55 records and a fifth-place holder at 27 shows a real gap between the top tier and everyone else, but 75.4% of records sit outside that top five. New entrants are not competing against a single dominant blocker so much as a dense but fragmented prior-art base.
The most-influential prior art predates the current filing wave
The five most-cited records were all published between 2007 and 2013, well before the 2020 filing peak. That gap is typical of citation data inside a searched corpus: older records accumulate citations simply by being available longer, so treat these counts as a signal of influence on foundational technique, not of what is commercially active today.
Co-filing is rare and mostly intra-group
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across all 712 records, and the strongest pairing reaches 15 shared records. This is a field where companies mostly file alone; cross-organisation joint filings are the exception rather than the norm.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to joining, welding & brazing: laser arc hybrid welding patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| L'Air Liquide SA pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude | Soudure Autogene Francaise | 15 |
| JFE Steel Corporation | Eichi-Ichi Corporation | 10 |
| L'Air Liquide SA pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude | Air Liquide Welding France | 6 |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | Shinko Special Steel Tube Co., Ltd. | 5 |
| L'Air Liquide SA pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude | L'Air Liquide (French subsidiary/local entity) | 3 |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | Daihen Corporation | 2 |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | SHINKO YOSETABU SERVICE | 2 |
| Daihen Corporation | SHINKO YOSETABU SERVICE | 2 |
Ten identified co-filing pairs, concentrated among a small number of related corporate entities rather than spread across the industry.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or R&D scoping.
Map the white space in adjacent IPC branches
B62D, C22C, B21D and B22F each carry a modest share of records relative to B23K's near-total coverage, suggesting under-claimed combinations of hybrid welding with specific vehicle structures, alloys and powder-based materials.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch the long tail, not just the leader
With 75.4% of the 712 records held outside the top five assignees, competitive monitoring needs to track the wider field of single- and few-filing entrants, not only the largest holder.
Build a monitoring set in EurekaRe-check the 2025-2026 filing count later
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent two years in this dataset will keep rising as more records publish; treat current figures as a floor, not a ceiling.
Track filing trends in EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset ranks 100 companies by patent family count, with the leading assignee holding 55 records and the fifth-place holder at 27. The top five combined account for 24.6% of all 712 records in scope, which is a moderate concentration rather than a single dominant player. Most of the field, however, sits outside this top group in a long tail of companies with far fewer filings, so a full competitive picture needs to look past just the leaders.
Filings grew 76% between 2021 and 2024, rising from 17 to 30 records in the most recent window that can be treated as complete. The overall peak so far was 84 records in 2020. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual slowdown, so those recent years should not yet be read as a decline.
Almost all records, 99.3% of the 712 in scope, sit under B23K, the classification for welding, soldering and brazing, confirming this as a tightly defined process technology. Smaller shares extend into B62D for motor vehicles (6.2%), C22C for alloys (4.6%), B21D for sheet-metal working (4.2%) and B22F for powder metallurgy (2.8%). Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read as overlapping application areas rather than mutually exclusive segments.
US8344283B2, assigned to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and issued in 2013, describes a welding head that splits an incoming laser beam into two focused beams combined with coaxial arc discharge, targeting high-speed welding of aluminum steel sheets with good bead quality. It is treated here as a representative record because it illustrates a core structural approach — beam splitting plus coaxial arc — that recurs across the broader corpus. Anyone designing a hybrid welding head should check its claim scope specifically around dual-beam splitting and coaxial arc combination.
The most-cited record in the dataset is US20100314362A1, covering weld defect detection for laser hybrid welding, with 187 citations, followed by a vision-based weld tracking system at 153 citations. Both of the top two cited records concern quality monitoring and tracking rather than the joining process itself, which suggests inspection and control technology has been more heavily built upon than the core welding technique. These citation counts favour older, longer-available records, so they indicate foundational influence rather than current commercial weight.
Research Joining, Welding & Brazing: Laser Arc Hybrid Welding Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole joining, welding & brazing: laser arc hybrid welding patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.