Laser Annealing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Laser Annealing Patents for Advanced Devices
46.8% of all 340 records sit with just five assignees, so most of the claim space around melt-laser and nanosecond annealing is already staked out at the top. Filings rose to a peak of 16 in 2021, then declined to 2 by 2024, an -88% drop over that span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the true recent trend will only firm up in later data pulls.
- 1APPLIED MATERIALS INC56
- 2SEMICON ENERGY LAB CO LTD40
- 3TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD26
- 4INTEL CORP19
- 5SOLEXEL INC18
See the full laser annealing for advanced devices analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most laser annealing patents for advanced devices?
The dataset’s assignee ranking shows a single leader with 56 records, well ahead of a fifth-place assignee at 18 and a tenth-place assignee at 8. Together, the top five assignees hold 46.8% of all 340 records in scope, and the top ten extend that to 60.9%. This concentration means most new filers are building around an already-claimed core rather than entering open territory.
Is laser annealing patent filing activity growing or slowing down?
Filing activity peaked at 16 records in 2021 and had fallen to 2 by 2024, an 88% decline over that three-year span, based on the last year of data treated as complete. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those years should not yet be read as a continuation of the decline. On the evidence available through 2024, though, the slowdown is real rather than a lag artefact.
What technology areas dominate laser annealing patents?
H01L, the core semiconductor devices classification, appears in 80.9% of the 340 records in scope, making it by far the largest single category. H10P and H10D each cover roughly a quarter of records, while process-adjacent classes such as B23K (welding, soldering and brazing), G02B, G02F and G03F each sit under 15%. Because a record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and the low shares in the adjacent classes point to where laser-anneal technique claims have not yet been fully extended.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Laser Annealing for Advanced Devices covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.