Magnesium Alloy Heat Treatment Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing has cooled sharply. Annual filings dropped from a peak of 166 in 2017 to 30 in the most recent (partial) year, with the 2022 midpoint at 124 confirming a steady decline rather than a single-year dip.
- China dominates the filing map. 1,447 of the tracked records came through the China receiving office, more than four times the next-largest office (United States, 342), concentrating both the prior art and the competitive risk there.
- Even the most active recent filers are pulling back. Chongqing University leads recent-year momentum at just 4 filings, down 56% year over year, and every other tracked assignee shows flat or negative momentum into the latest year.
Filing growth compares 2021 (137 records) with 2024 (165) — 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 2,859 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A mature claim space with a shrinking filing rate
Magnesium alloy heat treatment — solution treatment, aging treatment and precipitation hardening applied to wrought and cast magnesium alloys — sits at the intersection of core metallurgy IPC classes C22F and C22C and the downstream processing classes for casting, extrusion, rolling and forging. The dataset covers 2,859 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search string that ties composition claims to specific thermal-treatment steps rather than to alloy chemistry alone. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2026 figure in every trend line understates real activity for that year.
The filing curve peaked in 2017 and has declined through the 2022 midpoint to a much smaller 2026 count, a pattern more consistent with a saturated, well-mapped claim space than with an emerging one. China's receiving office accounts for roughly half of all records, ahead of the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and the WIPO PCT route combined at a fraction of that volume each — a geographic concentration that matters for anyone deciding where freedom-to-operate risk is highest.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,859-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density behind that volume.
A decade of decline from a 2017 peak
Filings ran at 166 in 2017, held near 124 by the 2022 midpoint, and have fallen to 30 in the most recent, still-partial year — a trajectory that points to consolidation of the core claim space rather than continued expansion.
Concentrated in two core subclasses, spread across six more
C22F (non-ferrous metal treatment, 2,475 records) and C22C (alloys, 2,422) anchor the dataset, but meaningful volume also sits in casting (B22D, 487), extrusion and drawing (B21C, 255), rolling (B21B, 248), general metal heat treatment (C21D, 218), sterilising and disinfecting (A61L, 167 — biomedical magnesium alloys) and forging (B21J, 106).
Shares are the percentage of the 2,859 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Magnesium Alloy Heat Treatment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about magnesium alloy heat treatment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and the newest filing
US20260159923A1 — High-strength, high-thermal-conductivity magnesium alloy sheet
A preparation method for a high-strength and high-thermal-conductivity magnesium (Mg) alloy sheet includes the steps of: annealing a rare-earth magnesium alloy sheet at 170° C.; rolling the annealed rare-earth magnesium alloy sheet with rolls preheated to 120° C., to obtain a rolled rare-earth magnesium alloy sheet with a thickness of 1.8 mm; quenching the rolled rare-earth magnesium alloy sheet and cooling the sheet to room temperature; and performing an aging treatment on the quenched rare-earth magnesium alloy sheet at 90° C. for 24 to 48 hours, and air-cooling the sheet to room temperature to obtain the high-strength and high-thermal-conductivity magnesium alloy sheet.Filed by Taiyuan University of Technology, published 2026-06-11 — the specific temperature and time windows in the anneal-roll-quench-age sequence are the elements a design-around needs to clear.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5073207A | Process for obtaining magnesium alloys by spray deposition | 121 |
| 2 | US5902424A | Method of making an article of manufacture made of a magnesium alloy | 96 |
| 3 | CN1676646A | 高强度耐热镁合金及其制备方法 | 88 |
| 4 | JP2005113235A | High strength magnesium alloy, and its production method | 88 |
| 5 | CN101463441A | 含稀土高强度耐热镁合金及其制备方法 | 79 |
| 6 | WO2009001516A1 | Magnesium alloy plate | 76 |
| 7 | JP2005298885A | Magnesium or magnesium alloy sheet having excellent plastic workability and its production method | 76 |
| 8 | JP2003027172A | Aluminum-alloy sheet for structural purpose having fine structure, and its manufacturing method | 76 |
| 9 | US5409555A | Method of manufacturing a forged magnesium alloy | 74 |
| 10 | WO2004001087A1 | Creep resistant magnesium alloy | 73 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a measure of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
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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Three signals from the filing and citation data that matter more than the raw record count.
The core process window is already well-claimed
A near six-fold drop in annual filings between the 2017 peak and the latest tracked year, with the 2022 midpoint still at 124, indicates that the dominant solution-treatment and aging-treatment parameter combinations have largely been staked out. New filings increasingly narrow to specific alloy-plus-process combinations rather than broad treatment claims.
Freedom-to-operate risk clusters in one jurisdiction
China's receiving office carries roughly half of all tracked records, well ahead of the United States (342), Europe (320) and Japan (273). Any commercialisation plan that includes China-based manufacturing or sourcing should treat this corpus as the first clearance search, not a secondary one.
Joint filing is rare and institution-specific
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset at all, and the strongest ones — Kobe Steel, Ltd. with Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., and with Kumamoto University, each at 21 co-filings — point to long-running bilateral university-industry or supplier-OEM relationships rather than a broad collaboration norm across the field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to magnesium alloy heat treatment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is still active, and who has stopped
Recent-year momentum figures matter more here than cumulative counts: they show which organisations are still investing in this claim space today.
Even the leader is filing less
Chongqing University tops the recent-year momentum table with only 4 filings, itself down 56% year over year. No tracked assignee is expanding its filing rate into the latest year.
University filers are retreating fastest
Jilin University dropped from a larger prior-year base to just 3 filings in the latest year, a 79% fall. Several other university and corporate assignees — Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., Kobe Steel, Ltd. — show zero filings in the latest year entirely.
One assignee anchors most of the joint filing
Kobe Steel, Ltd. appears in both of the two strongest co-assignee pairs in the dataset, alongside Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Kumamoto University, each at 21 shared filings. That makes it the connective node in an otherwise sparsely collaborative field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Chongqing University | 4 | -56% |
| Jilin University | 3 | -79% |
| Central South University | 1 | -67% |
| Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 0 | -100% |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Biotronik SE & Co. KG | 0 | — |
| POSCO | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is clearance, design-around, or spotting open claim space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check weighted to China
With half of all records filed through the China receiving office, any clearance search that treats jurisdictions equally will under-weight the actual risk. Prioritise China-originated families in the C22F/C22C intersection before expanding elsewhere.
Explore assignee filings in EurekaMap the anneal-roll-quench-age sequence claims
Recent filings, including US20260159923A1, narrow claims to specific temperature and time windows within an established process sequence. A design-around needs to identify which windows remain open rather than challenging the sequence itself.
Compare claim scope in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches for new entrants
Forging-integrated aging and extrusion-die thermal profiling show thinner IPC volume than the core treatment classes. A first-mover filing there faces less prior art density than in solution treatment or aging treatment proper.
Track white space in EurekaCommon questions about magnesium alloy heat treatment patents
The filing trend in this dataset shows a peak of 166 records in 2017, falling to 124 by the 2022 midpoint and down to 30 in the latest tracked year. This pattern is more consistent with a claim space that has already been mapped out — core solution-treatment and aging-treatment parameter windows are well covered by existing families — than with a technology losing relevance. New filers increasingly need to combine specific alloy compositions with narrow process windows to find open claim space, which naturally produces fewer, more targeted filings rather than broad foundational ones.
China accounts for 1,447 of the 2,859 tracked records, more than four times the next-largest office, the United States, at 342. Europe (320) and Japan (273) follow, with Australia and the WIPO PCT route each around 74. For companies planning manufacturing, sourcing or sales in China, this concentration means the China-filed portion of the corpus should be the starting point for any freedom-to-operate review, not an afterthought after a US or European search.
Solution treatment heats an alloy to dissolve secondary phases into a single solid solution, typically followed by rapid cooling to retain that dissolved state at room temperature. Aging treatment then reheats the alloy to a lower temperature for an extended period, allowing controlled precipitation of fine second-phase particles that increase strength — this is precipitation hardening. Both steps appear together throughout this dataset's search terms and in representative filings such as US20260159923A1, which specifies particular temperatures and hold times for each stage.
Recent-year momentum in this dataset is led by Chongqing University with 4 filings, though even that figure is down 56% year over year. Other tracked assignees, including Jilin University, Central South University, and several corporate names, show comparable or steeper declines, and some — Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Kobe Steel, Ltd. — recorded zero filings in the latest year. The picture is one of broad-based pullback rather than a single company or university pulling ahead.
IPC volume is heavily concentrated in C22F (2,475 records) and C22C (2,422), with much thinner coverage in adjacent processing classes such as forging (B21J, 106) and rolling (B21B, 248) relative to their casting and extrusion counterparts. That imbalance suggests under-claimed combinations, such as forging-integrated aging schedules or rolling-pass quench sequencing, where fewer families currently compete for claim scope. Confirming actual openness still requires a targeted search against the specific process parameters intended for a new filing.
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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.