Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. the five leading assignees hold 53.9% of all 141 records in scope, and the top ten hold 72.3% — a narrow set of firms controls most of the claim space.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. 2020 was the high point at 15 records, and the complete-year trend fell 36% from 2021 (11) to 2024 (7).
- Claims cluster in two IPC classes. H01L (semiconductor devices) touches 61.0% of records and C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) touches 48.2% — most filings sit at that intersection.
Filing growth compares 2021 (11 records) with 2024 (7) — 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 141 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Lead-free piezoelectric ceramics research has centred on two chemical families as substitutes for lead zirconate titanate: potassium sodium niobate systems and bismuth sodium titanate systems, both defined by their behaviour near a morphotropic phase boundary. Patent activity in this scope spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, covering compositions, sintering and densification routes, and the depolarization-temperature and aging-of-properties problems that separate lab-scale piezoelectric constants from field-stable devices.
The 141 records in scope split across compound and device claims, with clustering visible in both the assignee ranking and the IPC composition. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity — read 2024 as the last complete year, not 2025 or 2026.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 141 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, the composition shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 15 in 2020, then eased back; the last complete year, 2024, sits 36% below 2021's 11 filings. 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publications catch up with filing dates.
IPC subclass composition
H01L (semiconductor devices) appears in 61.0% of the 141 records and C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) in 48.2%, with H10N (other electric solid-state devices) close behind at 40.4%. B41J (typewriters & printers) at 20.6% reflects piezoelectric actuator use in inkjet printheads — a distinct commercial track from bulk ceramic composition work.
Shares are the percentage of the 141 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lead-free piezoelectric ceramics and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
US10246376B2 — Lead-free piezoceramic material based on bismuth sodium titanate (BST)
The patent claims a bismuth sodium titanate parent composition system combined with barium titanate and, alternatively, strontium titanate, calcium titanate, or bismuth potassium titanate, with compositional ratios defined by explicit bounds on x, y and z. The distinguishing feature is the addition of a phosphorus-containing material to reach a defined phosphorus concentration window, filed as a densification and property-stabilisation additive rather than a new base chemistry.Filed by PI Ceramic; granted 2019-04-02.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US8076257B1 | High temperature ceramic dielectric composition and capacitors made from the composition | 76 |
| 2 | US20030001131A1 | Piezoelectric ceramic material | 47 |
| 3 | JP2009117785A | Substrate with piezoelectric thin film | 45 |
| 4 | US20090075066A1 | Piezoelectric element | 42 |
| 5 | US20090096328A1 | Substrate with a piezoelectric thin film | 27 |
| 6 | WO2012044309A1 | Lead-free piezoelectric material based on bismuth zinc titanate-bismuth potassium titanate-bismuth sodium tit… | 26 |
| 7 | CN101186502A | 一种铌酸钾钠基无铅压电陶瓷的制备方法 | 25 |
| 8 | EP1253122A1 | Piezoelectric ceramic material | 25 |
| 9 | CN105819856A | 铌酸钾钠基无铅透明铁电陶瓷材料及其制备方法 | 20 |
| 10 | CN114262228A | 铌酸钾钠基无铅压电陶瓷及其制备方法和应用 | 19 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — treat this as a signal of historical influence, not of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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The dataset points to a field where claim space around core BNT and KNN compositions is well-occupied, while device-integration and processing-additive claims still have room.
A narrow leadership group, not a fragmented field
Five assignees hold more than half of all records in scope, and ten hold nearly three-quarters. That concentration means a new entrant is filing directly adjacent to a small number of well-defended portfolios, not into open space.
Activity has eased from its 2020 peak
Filings peaked in 2020 at 15 records and have declined across the last complete filing years. This reads as claim space filling in around established compositions rather than a shrinking field — high filing density in the earlier years means much of the core chemistry is already claimed.
Device integration outweighs raw ceramics claims
H01L (semiconductor devices) touches more records than C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) at 48.2%, showing that a majority of filings frame the ceramic as part of a device stack — actuator, sensor or capacitor — rather than as a standalone material claim.
Filing is spread across three major offices
The United States, Europe and China each carry a substantial share of filings, with India and PCT filings well behind. A freedom-to-operate check limited to a single jurisdiction will miss most of the record set.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lead-free piezoelectric ceramics, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground
The ranked leaders together account for most of the record set, but recent-year momentum has flattened across the named assignees tracked here — none show fresh filings in the latest year, consistent with the broader cooling in the trend data.
A single firm well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee holds 24 of the 141 records in scope, roughly three times the fifth-place count of 7 — a gap wide enough that closing it through organic filing alone would take sustained multi-year investment.
A tighter cluster below the leader
Positions five through ten sit close together, between 7 and 5 records each, suggesting a group of firms filing at a similar pace rather than a single clear second-place challenger.
Co-filing is rare in this field
Only two co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, both involving the same corporate assignee paired with different named inventors. Most filings here are single-assignee efforts rather than joint ventures or cross-licensed development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Kyocera Corporation | 0 | — |
| Konica Minolta, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Hitachi Cable, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| TDK Corporation | 0 | — |
| SABIC Global Technologies B.V. | 0 | — |
| Niterra Co., Ltd. (formerly NGK Spark Plug) | 0 | — |
| Seiko Epson Corporation | 0 | — |
| Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next checks rather than a single conclusion.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the leader's portfolio
With 24 of 141 records, the leading assignee's claim boundaries are the first thing to map before filing anything adjacent to bismuth sodium titanate or potassium sodium niobate compositions.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches for a first-filing position
Processing additives, crystal-growth routes and pressure-sensing integration sit below the dominant IPC clusters and may still offer open claim space.
Analyze white space in EurekaTrack the next 12–18 months of publications
2025 and 2026 filings are still emerging under publication lag; re-checking the trend once those years complete will show whether the 2021–2024 decline is a plateau or a longer-term shift.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 48 companies across 141 records, and it is heavily top-weighted: the leading assignee alone holds 24 records, while the top five combined hold 53.9% of all records in scope. Fifth place holds 7 records and tenth place holds 5, showing a fairly tight cluster below the leader. Anyone entering this space should expect to file adjacent to a small number of well-established portfolios rather than into an open field.
Filings peaked at 15 records in 2020 and the last complete filing year, 2024, shows a 36% decline from 2021's 11 records to 2024's 7. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of continued decline. The honest read is that activity has eased from its 2020 high, not that the field has stopped moving.
H01L (semiconductor devices) appears in 61.0% of the 141 records in scope and C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) in 48.2%, meaning a majority of filings frame the ceramic material as part of a device stack rather than as a standalone composition. H10N (other electric solid-state devices) follows at 40.4%. These three classes overlap heavily, so the densest claim space sits where composition, sintering process and device integration all intersect.
US10246376B2 claims a bismuth sodium titanate parent composition combined with specific co-formers (barium, strontium, calcium or bismuth potassium titanate) plus a phosphorus-containing additive within a defined concentration window, used for densification and property stabilisation. It does not block bismuth sodium titanate chemistry generally, only the specific phosphorus-additive approach at the claimed concentration range. A workable design-around would use a different densification additive, a different concentration window, or a different co-former combination outside the claimed ratios.
The smaller IPC classes in this dataset — crystal growth methods (6.4% of records), electric machine applications (3.5%) and force/pressure sensing integration (2.8%) — carry far fewer filings than the dominant semiconductor-device and bulk-ceramic classes. Compound classes like C01G (compounds of other metals) at 7.1% also sit well below the core clusters. These lower-density branches are worth checking for a first-filing position, particularly where they combine with the under-claimed processing-additive space seen in the representative patent.
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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.