Metal AM Directed-Energy Deposition Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (820 records) with 2024 (718) — 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 7,759 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families that combine directed energy deposition or closed-loop deposition feedback control with metal additive manufacturing — the class of processes that build or repair metal parts by melting wire or powder feedstock under sensor-driven control, rather than the open-loop powder bed fusion process alone. The scope spans 2015 through the mid-2026 data cut-off, drawing on 7,759 published records.
The field reads as aerospace-and-orthodontics-adjacent rather than purely industrial: the same closed-loop deposition claims that cover turbine blade repair also cover dental appliance fabrication, because both rely on layer-by-layer metal or polymer build-up under real-time feedback. That overlap shapes where the claim space is dense and where it is thin.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 7,759-record corpus: activity over time, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend: a 2019 peak, then a plateau
Filings ran from 671 in 2017 to a peak of 1,075 in 2019, and 2021 (820) to 2024 (718) shows a 12% decline over that span — the only period long enough past the ~18-month publication lag to read cleanly. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as a continued drop.
Technology composition: additive and powder metallurgy dominate
B33Y (additive manufacturing) touches 46.8% of the 7,759 records and B22F (powder metallurgy) 29.9%, confirming this is fundamentally a powder- and layer-based field. B29C (plastics shaping, 25.0%) and A61C (dentistry, 7.4%) point to the orthodontic-aligner cluster riding on the same claim language as metal parts; C22C (alloys, 11.0%), B23K (welding/brazing, 9.0%), F01D (turbines, 3.8%) and G06F (data processing, 3.7%) mark the industrial and software-control branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 7,759 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 — Closed-Loop Directed-Energy Deposition Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about metal additive manufacturing — closed-loop directed-energy deposition patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited records
Methods for Fabricating Strain Wave Gear Flexsplines Using Metal Additive Manufacturing
Methods for the fabrication of metal strain wave gear flexsplines using a specialized metal additive manufacturing technique are provided. The method allows the entire flexspline to be metal printed, including all the components: the output surface with mating features, the thin wall of the cup, and the teeth integral to the flexspline. The flexspline may be used directly upon removal from the building tray.Filed by California Institute of Technology, published 2018-09-13 as US20180257141A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170007359A1 | Direct fabrication of orthodontic appliances with variable properties | 360 |
| 2 | US20170007366A1 | Direct fabrication of aligners for arch expansion | 340 |
| 3 | US20220304679A1 | Method of using a powered stapling device | 339 |
| 4 | US20170007367A1 | Direct fabrication of aligners for palate expansion and other applications | 334 |
| 5 | US20170007365A1 | Direct fabrication of aligners with interproximal force coupling | 320 |
| 6 | US20170007368A1 | Direct fabrication of attachment templates with adhesive | 318 |
| 7 | US20220304683A1 | Surgical instrument articulation joint arrangements comprising multiple moving linkage features | 294 |
| 8 | US20220304715A1 | Joint arrangements for multi-planar alignment and support of operational drive shafts in articulatable surgic… | 293 |
| 9 | US20170007386A1 | Systems, apparatuses and methods for substance delivery from dental appliance | 275 |
| 10 | US20170007360A1 | Systems, apparatuses and methods for dental appliances with integrally formed features | 275 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence, not current importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the concentration, composition and citation data above.
A lead cluster, not a single dominant owner
The leader holds 666 records and fifth place holds 175 — a steep drop-off inside the top five, then a long tail through the rest of the 100 ranked companies. Top 10 combined reach 31.9% of all records, meaning more than two-thirds of the field sits outside any concentrated hand.
Additive and powder metallurgy claims are the densest ground
Nearly half of all records touch B33Y and almost a third touch B22F, and because a record can carry both, the two subclasses substantially overlap. New filings aimed squarely at generic powder-fed additive claims are entering the most crowded part of the map.
A plateau after the 2019 peak, not a collapse
Filings peaked at 1,075 in 2019 and eased to 718 by 2024, a 12% decline across that three-year window. Given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence the field is shrinking further.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metal additive manufacturing — closed-loop directed-energy deposition patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to next questions rather than final answers — each one is worth running through Patsnap Eureka against the live claim set.
Map the aligner-versus-industrial claim boundary
A61C and F01D both draw on the same closed-loop deposition language; a freedom-to-operate check should separate orthodontic-specific claims from general metal-part claims before assuming either blocks the other.
Explore claim scope in EurekaWatch whether the 2021-2024 plateau continues
Once 2025 filings finish publishing, re-run the trend to see whether the 12% decline extends or was a temporary dip tied to a handful of large filers pulling back.
Track filing trends in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches for a first filing
Sensor-fusion and multi-material control claims sit well below the density of core additive and powder-metallurgy claims — a narrow, specific first claim there faces less crowded prior art.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The leading assignee holds 666 of the 7,759 records in scope, well ahead of the rest of the top five, which combined reach 1,812 records (23.4% of the field). That leader's most-cited filings are orthodontic appliance patents rather than industrial metal parts, which is a reminder that a keyword-defined field like this one pulls in adjacent applications that share the same closed-loop deposition claim language. Industrial names such as General Electric, Boeing, BAE Systems and Divergent Technologies sit just behind in the top ten, which together account for 31.9% of all records.
Filings peaked at 1,075 in 2019 and the cleanest recent comparison — 2021 (820) to 2024 (718) — shows a 12% decline over three years. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they understate real activity and should not be read as a continued fall. The honest read is a plateau after a 2019 peak, not a clear downward trend.
A61C (dentistry and oral hygiene) reaches 7.4% of the 7,759 records because aligner and appliance fabrication use the same closed-loop, layer-by-layer deposition and feedback-control claim language as metal directed-energy deposition, even though the end product is often a polymer aligner rather than a metal part. The leading assignee in this dataset built much of its portfolio in that overlap. Anyone scoping freedom-to-operate in industrial metal AM should check whether a blocking claim is actually aimed at dental applications before assuming it applies.
Relative to the dense core of B33Y (46.8% of records) and B22F (29.9%), subclasses like F01D (turbine applications, 3.8%) and G06F (data processing and control software, 3.7%) are thin. That points to in-situ sensor fusion for melt-pool monitoring, adaptive multi-material control software, and alloy-specific feedback control as areas with meaningfully less claim density than generic additive or powder-metallurgy filings. A narrowly drafted first claim in one of these branches faces less crowded prior art than a claim written against the core additive process itself.
It is moderately concentrated but far from a monopoly: the top 5 assignees hold 23.4% of all 7,759 records and the top 10 hold 31.9%, leaving more than two-thirds of the field spread across the remaining 90 companies in the 100-company ranking and unranked filers. That is a meaningful lead cluster at the very top — the leader alone holds 666 records against 175 at fifth place — but it is not a field where a handful of firms control the claim space outright.
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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.