LPBF Melt-Pool Feedback Control Patent Snapshot
The LPBF melt-pool feedback control space remains lightly populated at 26 patent families in scope, with Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC holding the single largest position and the United States leading jurisdiction filings. The field is still expanding on a multi-year basis, though annual volume has eased from its 2023 peak, and several new entrants signal widening institutional interest.
Lawrence Livermore leads a fragmented, early-stage field
Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC holds the top position in the applicant ranking, followed by a cluster of organizations each holding two patent records — NuTech Ventures, Guangxi University, Materialise NV, and Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc. No single applicant is visible in the space outright.
The top five filers account for 28% of the combined total across the ranked applicants visible in this query, indicating a low-concentration evidence snapshot where no entrenched incumbent can block the field through portfolio breadth alone. The tier gap between the leader and the rest is narrow, reflecting the nascent state of the technology.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC | 4 | |
| 2 | NuTech Ventures Ltd | 2 | |
| 3 | Guangxi University | 2 | |
| 4 | Materialise NV | 2 | |
| 5 | Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc | 2 | |
| 6 | Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 1 | |
| 7 | XIAN AEROSPACE MECHATRONICS & INTELLIGENT MANUFACT… | 1 | |
| 8 | Queen’s University | 1 | |
| 9 | RTX Corp | 1 | |
| 10 | K. Tamilselvan | 1 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | MTU Aero Engines GmbH | 1 | |
| 12 | Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 1 | |
| 13 | Shenzhen Zhongyihe Technology Co. Ltd | 1 | |
| 14 | Jiangsu Chromlebo Digital Technology Co. Ltd | 1 | |
| 15 | K. Sivaramakrishnan | 1 | |
| 16 | U. Sujan | 1 | |
| 17 | V. Skandhakumar | 1 | |
| 18 | S. Senthil Kumar | 1 | |
| 19 | K. Rajasuresh | 1 | |
| 20 | R. Elakkiyadasan | 1 |
Lawrence Livermore’s position as a national-security laboratory suggests defense and advanced-manufacturing process integrity are early demand drivers. The presence of multiple university technology-transfer offices (Virginia Tech IP, NuTech Ventures, Queens University) points to a pipeline still dominated by academic and government research, with limited deep-pocketed industrial incumbents yet.
The most recent 18–24 months of filings are under-counted due to standard patent-publication lag; apparent filing volumes for 2024–2026 should be treated as minimum floors rather than final totals. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Multi-year growth with a 2023 surge and a broadening IPC footprint
Annual filing activity shows a field that grew episodically from 2017 and reached a peak in 2023, with the recent-window count still above the prior-window baseline. The technology classification mix reveals a core anchored in additive manufacturing and powder metallurgy, with smaller but meaningful branches in sensing, imaging, and AI.
Annual filing trend
Filings grew from two records in 2017 to a spike of six in 2023, confirming multi-year expansion. The dip visible in 2024 and the partial 2025–2026 counts should not be read as a real decline — publication lag systematically under-counts the most recent years. The field is on a growth trajectory on a multi-year basis, though annual volume has eased from the 2023 peak.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
B33Y (additive manufacturing) and B22F (powder metallurgy) together account for the large majority of IPC records, confirming the core is process-level LPBF control. Secondary branches — B23K (welding/laser interaction), G01J (radiation and light measurement), G01K (temperature measurement), G06T (image data processing), and G06N (AI-based computing) — are each sparsely populated, marking them as adjacent or emerging sub-themes rather than established clusters.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Real-time control of laser power for laser powder …
An example feedback control system includes a laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) platform including a laser. The L-BPF platform is configured to print a target object with the laser. The feedback control system includes a sensing system configured to measure an operative thermal emission index (TEI) emitted during print of the target object by the L-PBF… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Error detection in additive manufacturing processes | 64 |
| 2 | 在线同轴闭环控制激光选区熔融/烧结打印机及打印方法 | 14 |
| 3 | Laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing in-… | 13 |
| 4 | Thermal stress and substrate damage reducing addit… | 8 |
| 5 | 一种选择性激光熔融3D打印机的熔池温度检测系统及方法 | 7 |
| 6 | Error detection in additive manufacturing processes | 7 |
| 7 | 一种同轴SLM实时监测与实时反馈控制装置及方法 | 5 |
| 8 | 面向激光选区熔化技术的熔池温度反馈控制方法及系统 | 4 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC
Holds 4 patent records, the highest in the ranking, with technology emphasis spanning B33Y10 (AM process methods), B33Y30 (AM apparatus), and B33Y50 (AM data and control) — indicating a systems-level approach covering process, hardware, and data layers simultaneously. No momentum data from the evidence window suggests a stable, maturing position rather than a recent surge.
patent records: 4NuTech Ventures Ltd
Holds 2 patent records with a technology focus on B22F10 (powder-bed AM process parameters) and B22F12 (AM apparatus for powder metallurgy), complemented by B33Y50 (AM data and control). Momentum is classified as a new entrant, meaning all recorded activity falls within the recent filing window — an indicator of a fresh, potentially accelerating position rather than a legacy portfolio.
patent records: 2Frequently asked questions
The evidence identifies 26 patent families in scope globally. This is a small corpus relative to broader additive-manufacturing topics, reflecting the specificity of closed-loop melt-pool control as a sub-field.
Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC leads the applicant ranking with 4 patent records, ahead of a second tier — NuTech Ventures, Guangxi University, Materialise NV, and Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc — each holding 2 patent records.
The field is in a Growth lifecycle stage: recent three-year filings sit above the prior three-year baseline by 14%. Annual volume has eased from the 2023 peak, but the most recent years (2024–2026) are under-counted due to publication lag, so apparent softness in those years should not be read as a real decline.
The United States leads with 11 patent records, followed by China with 9, Europe (EPO) with 4, WIPO (PCT) with 3, and India with 2. US and Chinese applicants together account for the majority of recorded activity.
The most-cited work in the evidence is titled ‘Error detection in additive manufacturing processes,’ which has accumulated 64 citations, far ahead of the second-ranked work — a Chinese-language patent on online coaxial closed-loop control for SLM/SLS printers — at 14 citations. This citation gap suggests one foundational reference anchors the field.
The most technically relevant sparse branches are G01J (radiation and light measurement, 2 patent records) and G06T (image data processing, 2 patent records). Both are direct enabling layers for melt-pool feedback control — optical sensing and machine-vision geometry analysis respectively — yet are sparsely protected relative to the visible process and apparatus codes.
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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.
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