Electron-Beam Powder-Bed Preheating Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (84 records) with 2024 (87) — 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 832 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Electron-beam powder-bed preheating sits at the intersection of additive manufacturing process control and powder metallurgy: how a build chamber is brought to temperature before or during fusion, and how that thermal management affects cracking, residual stress and microstructure in the finished part. The dataset in scope spans 832 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from assignees ranging from aerospace primes to specialist EBM equipment makers.
Filing activity peaked in 2022 at 125 records and has since settled into a lower but still active band; because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend chart are undercounts rather than evidence of a slowdown. The technology composition below shows where preheating claims overlap with turbine, valve and alloy work, and where they stand largely alone.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 832-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records fall into.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose from 51 in 2017 to a peak of 125 in 2022, then eased; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a 4% net increase (84 to 87), the most recent comparison unaffected by publication lag. Treat 2025 and 2026 counts as still filling in rather than a genuine decline.
IPC subclass composition
B33Y (additive manufacturing) and B22F (powder metallurgy) each cover roughly half the 832 records, confirming these are core classes rather than peripheral ones. Turbine-adjacent classes (F01D, F02C) and valve technology (F16K) sit near or under 8% of records, marking areas where preheating claims are still comparatively sparse.
Shares are the percentage of the 832 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Pre-heating methods for performing electron beam powder bed fusion
Electron beam powder bed fusion may be performed using waste powder from laser beam powder bed fusion by pre-heating a build chamber using stepped increases of electron beam current. To perform the pre-heating without smoking the powder, a plurality of predetermined interim temperatures are determined between an ambient, resting temperature and a predetermined preheated temperature. A build plate within the chamber is exposed to a plurality of streams of electrons, one at a time, each with a progressively increasing current, applied as the actual temperature approaches each interim target.Filed by The Boeing Company, published 2023-11-02 as US20230347414A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20220134435A1 | Systems and methods for powder bed additive manufacturing anomaly detection | 58 |
| 2 | US20180193916A1 | Additive manufacturing method and materials | 50 |
| 3 | US20190039183A1 | Method and system for powder bed fusion additive manufacturing of crack-free aluminium alloys | 43 |
| 4 | US20170364058A1 | Controlled thin wall thickness of heat exchangers through modeling of additive manufacturing process | 42 |
| 5 | US20160313005A1 | Additive manufactured combustor heat shield with cooled attachment stud | 40 |
| 6 | US20160298751A1 | Additive manufactured gear for a geared architecture gas turbine engine | 37 |
| 7 | US20210362242A1 | Rapid material development process for additive manufactured materials | 35 |
| 8 | US20200078861A1 | Spherical Tantalum Powder, Products Containing The Same, And Methods Of Making The Same | 29 |
| 9 | WO2020096951A1 | Three-dimensional additive casting | 27 |
| 10 | US20210016348A1 | Spherical Tantalum-Titanium Alloy Powder, Products Containing The Same, And Methods Of Making The Same | 23 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings by construction; read them as a signal of influence on later art, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
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Three read-outs from the ranking, the trend and the class composition that matter for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
The field is led, not fragmented
The leading assignee alone accounts for 203 records, and the top five combined reach 425 of the 832 records in scope. That concentration drops off quickly outside the leading group — tenth place holds only 14 — pointing to a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
Growth has flattened, not reversed
Filings rose from 84 in 2021 to 87 in 2024, essentially flat after the 2022 peak of 125. Recent-year figures for several leading assignees show sharp year-on-year declines, but with publication lag still working through 2025-2026 data this reads as reporting delay rather than confirmed retreat.
Core classes dominate, peripheral classes are thin
Additive manufacturing (B33Y) and powder metallurgy (B22F) classes each touch roughly half of all 832 records, confirming preheating art sits squarely in core AM process claims. Turbine, gas-turbine and valve classes each stay under 8%, suggesting these downstream applications are comparatively under-claimed relative to the core process.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metal additive manufacturing — electron-beam powder-bed preheating patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to where claim space is dense and where it is thin; the next step is testing a specific claim or filer against the full record set.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leading assignee
With one filer holding 203 of 832 records, any new preheating process claim in aerospace or engine applications should be checked against that portfolio first.
Explore in EurekaTest claim drafts against under-claimed branches
Turbine, valve and gas-turbine adjacent classes each sit under 8% of records; a claim targeting one of these branches has more room to clear prior art.
Explore in EurekaWatch the next 18 months of publications
Because publication lags filing by roughly a year and a half, the 2025-2026 filing counts will keep rising as more records surface.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 203 of the 832 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked filer at 30 records. The top five assignees combined account for 51.1% of all 832 records, so the field is concentrated at the top but not dominated by a single monopoly position. Beyond the top ten, which together hold 61.9% of records, filing activity drops into a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each.
Filings rose steadily from 51 in 2017 to a peak of 125 in 2022, then settled to a lower level; comparing the last two complete years, 2021 and 2024, shows a net increase of 4% (84 to 87 records). Figures for 2025 and 2026 are lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly eighteen months rather than a genuine drop in filing. Treat any apparent recent decline in the trend chart with that lag in mind.
The core classes are B33Y (additive manufacturing, covering 54.1% of the 832 records) and B22F (powder metallurgy, 50.4%), confirming this is squarely process-control art within additive manufacturing rather than a niche application. Secondary classes include B29C (plastics shaping, 18.5%) and C22C (alloys, 12.7%). Turbine and valve-related classes such as F01D, F16K and F02C each sit under 8%, indicating those downstream applications are less densely claimed.
US20230347414A1, filed by The Boeing Company and published 2023-11-02, covers a method of preheating a powder-bed fusion build chamber using stepped, progressively increasing electron beam current across a series of predetermined interim temperatures, specifically applied to waste powder recycled from laser beam powder bed fusion. The stepped approach is designed to raise chamber temperature without causing the powder to smoke. Anyone building an EBM preheating process that steps current in defined temperature increments, particularly using reclaimed laser-PBF powder, should review this claim scope closely.
The clearest gaps sit in classes with record shares under 10% of the 832-record corpus: turbine cooling integration (F01D), gas-turbine combustor coupling (F02C) and valve-body thermal profiling (F16K) are all comparatively under-claimed relative to the dominant B33Y and B22F process classes. This does not mean these areas are technically easy, only that fewer competing claims currently occupy them. A first claim drafted around alloy-specific interim temperature staging or waste-powder thermal reuse, both narrow relative to the core preheating art, is a reasonable starting point for new filings.
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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.