Metal AM Residual-Stress Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (10 records) with 2024 (6) — 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.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity specifically directed at controlling or mitigating residual stress, thermal distortion, and print-stress artifacts in metal additive manufacturing — laser and electron-beam powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition, and related metal 3D-printing processes. The scope excludes general additive-manufacturing filings that do not address thermal stress control directly, so the 29 records here are a narrow, purpose-built slice rather than a survey of metal AM as a whole. Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition and powder-bed re-coater heat management are the two clearest recurring claim families in the set.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, with the United States as the dominant receiving office ahead of Europe, WIPO/PCT, Australia, Canada and India. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, any read of the final one or two years in the trend should be treated as provisional, not as a real slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 29-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend: a 2020 peak, then a measured pull-back
Filing rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 10 records in 2020, held near that level into 2021, then declined to 6 by 2024 — a 40% drop over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the publication lag and should not be read as continued decline.
IPC composition: welding and 3D-printing classes dominate
B23K (welding, soldering & brazing) appears in 79.3% of the 29 records and B33Y (additive manufacturing) in 69.0%, with B22F (powder metallurgy) at 51.7%. B22D (metal casting), B29C (plastics shaping) and C22C (alloys) each sit under 14%, marking them as thinner branches rather than empty ones — a record can carry more than one class, so these figures sum past 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 29 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metal Additive Manufacturing — Additive Residual-Stress Mitigation Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe most-cited filings in this set
Powder bed fusion re-coaters with heat source for thermal management (US20210154771A1)
Techniques for pre-heating the powders of a layer deposited on the powder bed during a 3-D print process are disclosed. A re-coater includes a heat source that pre-heats the deposited layer as a leveling member smooths it onto the powder bed, and may reheat the bed following selective fusing by an energy beam. Consistent pre-heating and re-heating directly at the powder bed surface is claimed to reduce damage, cracks, dimensional flaws, and other artifacts from excessive thermal gradients.Filed by Divergent Technologies, Inc.; published 2021-05-27; cited 9 times in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20210154732A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 15 |
| 2 | US20210276096A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 10 |
| 3 | US20210154771A1 | Powder bed fusion re-coaters with heat source for thermal management | 9 |
| 4 | WO2021099459A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 4 |
| 5 | US12048965B2 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 3 |
| 6 | CA3160960A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 2 |
| 7 | US20250187075A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 1 |
| 8 | US20250065404A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 1 |
| 9 | WO2022242873A1 | Mount system, pin support system and a method of directed energy deposition for producing a metal workpiece t… | 1 |
| 10 | EP4061567A1 | Distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat this as a signal of influence on later filers, not of current commercial weight.
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Three read-throughs from the ranking, the trend and the citation table, translated into what they change for someone about to file.
One filer set the claim boundaries early
With the leader holding 21 records against a fifth-place filer holding just 1, most of the documented claim space around distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition and powder-bed re-coater heat management was staked out by a single applicant. New entrants should expect to design around that filer's specific mechanisms rather than the technology generally.
Activity cooled from its 2020 peak, not yet clear if this continues
Filing peaked at 10 records in 2020 and declined to 6 by 2024. Because 2025-2026 publications are still arriving under the normal 18-month lag, this reads as a pull-back from a peak rather than confirmed abandonment of the space.
Thermal/process-heat routes dominate over casting-adjacent routes
Welding and brazing classifications (B23K) and additive-manufacturing classifications (B33Y) cover the large majority of records, while metal casting (B22D) and alloy composition (C22C) claims are comparatively rare. Filers approaching stress mitigation through alloy chemistry rather than process heat control are working in a thinner part of the field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metal additive manufacturing — additive residual-stress mitigation patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this next
This landscape narrows to a single research question. Two natural extensions follow from it.
Broaden to metal AM process control generally
This dataset excludes general metal AM filings that do not directly address thermal stress. A wider process-control search would show how residual-stress claims sit relative to the full metal AM patent volume.
Explore adjacent landscapesTrack the leading assignee's continuation filings
With one filer holding the majority of records and a change in recent-year momentum, watching for continuations or new families from both the incumbent and the newer filer is the most direct way to see where the space moves next.
Set up assignee monitoringQuestions practitioners ask about this space
It is heavily concentrated at the top: one assignee holds 21 of the 29 records in the ranked set, while the fifth-ranked filer holds only 1. The ranking itself covers just 6 companies, so this is a narrow field rather than a broad competitive landscape. A new entrant should assume the dominant filer's specific mechanisms — distortion mitigation in directed energy deposition and powder-bed re-coater heat management — are already claimed, and plan a design-around rather than a head-on filing.
Filing peaked at 10 records in 2020, and the most recent span that can be treated as complete shows a decline from 10 records in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a 40% drop. Filings from 2025 onward are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so it is too early to call this a permanent slowdown. The honest read is a pull-back from a 2020 peak, not a confirmed exit from the field.
US20210154771A1 covers a powder bed fusion re-coater with an integrated heat source that pre-heats each deposited powder layer during leveling and can reheat the bed after selective laser or beam fusing, aimed at reducing cracks and dimensional flaws from thermal gradients. It is cited 9 times in this dataset and was filed by Divergent Technologies, Inc. Anyone building a re-coater with in-line pre-heating or post-fusion reheating should review its claims closely for overlap; alternatives that manage stress via alloy composition or post-process treatment rather than in-line re-coater heating sit further from this claim's core.
Welding, soldering and brazing classifications (B23K) appear in 79.3% of the 29 records and additive-manufacturing classifications (B33Y) in 69.0%, meaning most claims manage stress through process heat control during deposition or fusion rather than through material chemistry. Powder metallurgy (B22F) claims cover 51.7% of records, reflecting powder-bed-specific approaches like re-coater heating. Metal casting, plastics shaping and alloy composition classes are each under 14% of records, marking them as comparatively open.
The thinnest branches by IPC coverage are alloy-composition-based stress relief (C22C, 3.4% of records), metal casting-adjacent distortion control (B22D, 13.8%), and polymer/metal hybrid approaches (B29C, 10.3%) — all far behind the welding- and powder-bed-heavy core. A first claim in these areas, for example an alloy formulation engineered specifically to reduce residual stress during powder bed fusion rather than a process-heat modification, would sit outside the dominant filer's core claim territory documented here.
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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.