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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/laser-processing-and-applications-laser-surface-texturing-patent-landscape-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-08-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Laser Surface TexturingLaser surface texturing patents: who holds the claim space and where it is still open
A data-backed look at laser surface texturing patents: filing trends since 2017, the concentration of filings among leading assignees, dominant IPC classes and where claim space remains open.
389
Published Records
17%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-18%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth = 2021 (17 records) → 2024 (14); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 389 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What the laser surface texturing patent record shows
Laser surface texturing covers methods for modifying a surface's topology, roughness or optical/mechanical properties using a focused laser beam, rather than mechanical abrasion or chemical etching. The 389 records in scope, spanning filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, sit almost entirely inside B23K — the welding, soldering and cutting-by-laser classification — with smaller overlaps into plastics shaping, semiconductor processing, coatings and control systems. That single-class dominance is a useful signal on its own: the technology is still framed by patent examiners primarily as a laser-processing method, not as a surface-science or materials discipline in its own right.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has since receded, with the 2021-2024 span — the most recent period with a complete publication record — down 18%. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, years from 2025 onward will fill in as more applications are published; they should not yet be read as a continuation of that decline.
Filing activity by year, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The numbers
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 389 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how those records distribute across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry more than one classification, the subclass shares below sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Activity peaked at 41 records in 2017. The 2021-to-2024 window, the last stretch with a complete publication record, shows a decline of 18% (17 to 14 records) — a genuine slowdown in a maturing filing category rather than a gap in the data.
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.
IPC subclass composition
B23K accounts for 91.8% of the 389 records, confirming that laser surface texturing is examined predominantly as a laser-machining method. Plastics shaping (B29C, 8.0%), control systems (G05B, 6.2%), semiconductor devices (H01L, 5.9%), magnetic/optical storage (G11B, 5.7%) and coatings (C23C, 5.7%) each carry a modest secondary presence, with decorative surface finishing (B44C, 5.4%) the smallest of the tracked branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 389 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 Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative filing and most-cited prior art
Representative filing
Method of laser beam writing with shifted laser surface texturing
UNIVERSITY OF WEST BOHEMIA
Filed by University of West Bohemia, this record describes writing large arrays of small surface features using repeated linear-raster laser scanning with sequential shifting of the raster between passes. The shift sequence, spot spacing and scan speed together define the geometry of the resulting array of textured objects, giving fine control over pattern form without changing the laser source itself.Abstract condensed from the original filing.
Most-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5603853A | Method of high energy density radiation beam lap welding | 183 |
| 2 | US5744776A | Process and apparatus for laser preweakening an automotive trim cover for an air bag deployment opening | 149 |
| 3 | US20170129180A1 | Material processing methods and related apparatus | 145 |
| 4 | US6043452A | Method and device for processing arbitrary 3D shaped surfaces by means of a laser, in particular for polishin… | 102 |
| 5 | US5322988A | Laser texturing | 101 |
| 6 | US5478426A | Method and apparatus for ablative processing of elastomeric products | 96 |
| 7 | US5607607A | System and assemblage for producing microtexturized substratesand implants | 84 |
| 8 | US5645740A | System and assemblage for producing microtexturized substrates and implants | 83 |
| 9 | US20130020297A1 | Systems and methods of laser texturing of material surfaces and their applications | 76 |
| 10 | US20100044356A1 | Apparatus for removal of specific seed tissue or structure for seed analysis | 76 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of foundational status, not of current commercial weight.
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 Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the concentration and citation data mean for filing strategy
Read together, the assignee ranking, filing trend and citation table point to a field with one clear leader, a long tail of single or low-count filers, and a small set of foundational patents that still anchor prior-art searches.
Leadership
18 records
leading assignee
One clear leader, no runaway concentration
The top-ranked assignee holds 18 of the 389 records, but the top 5 combined reach only 16.7% and the top 10 only 26.5% of all records in scope. That leaves the majority of filing activity spread across a long tail of organisations with a handful of records each — a structure where a well-drafted claim in an uncrowded sub-branch still has room to stand out.
Based on the 100-assignee ranking returned for this dataset.
Filing trend
-18%
2021 to 2024
A real pullback after the 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 41 records in 2017 and have not returned to that level since. The 2021-2024 window, the most recent span with a complete publication record, is down 18% (17 to 14 records). Years after 2024 are still filling in given the typical 18-month publication lag and should not be read into this trend yet.
Peak year: 2017 at 41 records.
Technology mix
91.8%
of records in B23K
One dominant class, several thin adjacencies
B23K covers 91.8% of the 389 records, framing laser surface texturing squarely as a laser-machining discipline. Coatings, semiconductor processing, magnetic/optical storage and decorative finishing each sit in the 5-8% range — present, but far less contested than the core class.
Shares sum to over 100% because records can carry multiple IPC codes.
Prior art anchors
183 citations
top-cited record
Foundational patents still shape freedom-to-operate
The most-cited record in this corpus, on high-energy-density radiation beam lap welding, carries 183 citations; the next four most-cited records range down to 101. These older filings anchor prior-art searches across the field and are the first checkpoints for any new laser-texturing claim.
Citation counts favour older records within this searched corpus.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to laser processing & applications: laser surface texturing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
The numbers above establish the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific claims, specific assignees, and the branches that remain thinly claimed.
Map the white space by IPC branch
Coatings, decorative finishing and semiconductor-adjacent applications each carry a fraction of B23K's filing density. Confirming whether that reflects genuine technical difficulty or simply under-filing is the next step before drafting into one of these branches.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's recent filings
An 18-record leader with a modest 16.7% top-5 share suggests room to differentiate, but only if new claims are checked against that assignee's most recent filings rather than the historical peak year.
Run an assignee search in EurekaClear the foundational prior art
The most-cited records in this corpus, several dating back over a decade, remain the first checkpoints for novelty and freedom-to-operate on any new laser-texturing claim.
Check prior art in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about laser surface texturing patents
This dataset covers 389 published records filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, all counted as individual families in the assignee ranking. Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 41 records and has since declined, with the 2021-2024 span (the most recent period with a complete publication record) down 18%. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, more recent years will continue to fill in as additional applications publish.
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 100 companies, with the leading assignee holding 18 of the 389 records in scope. Concentration at the top is moderate rather than dominant: the top 5 assignees combined account for 16.7% of all records, and the top 10 for 26.5%. That leaves a substantial long tail of organisations with only one or a few filings each, which is typical for a processing technique used across many downstream industries.
The two overlap heavily at the classification level: 91.8% of the 389 records in this dataset carry the B23K subclass, which covers laser welding, soldering and cutting as well as laser-based surface processing. In practice, texturing claims describe modifying a surface's topology or roughness for a functional or optical effect, while welding claims describe joining materials. Because many filings combine both aspects in one specification, a prior-art search for texturing work should not exclude records classified primarily under welding language.
Beyond the dominant B23K class at 91.8% of records, the next most common secondary classes are plastics shaping (B29C, 8.0%), control and regulating systems (G05B, 6.2%), semiconductor devices (H01L, 5.9%), and magnetic or optical information storage together with coatings (G11B and C23C, both 5.7%). Decorative surface finishing (B44C) is the smallest tracked branch at 5.4%. These lower-density branches are worth checking individually since claim density there is far below the core class.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 41 records and have not returned to that level since. Looking at the most recent complete window, 2021 to 2024, filings fell 18% from 17 to 14 records, which is a genuine slowdown rather than a data gap. Years from 2025 onward are still under-counted because patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so those figures should not yet be read as confirming or reversing the trend.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Laser Processing & Applications: Laser Surface Texturing Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. 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.