Metal 3D Print Support Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
Metal Additive Manufacturing Support-Structure Optimization Patents
One filer holds 145 of 197 records. concentration at the top is extreme, with a long tail of academic and industrial filers behind it. Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 84 in 2023, with the 2021-to-2024 span alone showing 143% growth (7 to 17 records). The 2025 and 2026 figures are not yet complete and should not be read as a slowdown.
- 1强力价值链网络投资组合2019有限公司73.6%
- 2STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC20.8%
- 3通用电气公司3.6%
- 4得克萨斯大学体系董事会1.0%
- 5上海交通大学1.0%
See the full metal additive manufacturing — metal-print support-structure optimization patent landscape analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in metal 3D print support-structure optimization?
Within the 197 records in this dataset, one filer — the Strong Force TX/VCN Portfolio entities — holds 145 records, an outsized share of the field. General Electric and two university systems (University of Texas System and Shanghai Jiao Tong University) round out the ranked assignees at much lower volumes. This is a heavily concentrated field rather than one with many mid-size competitors, so freedom-to-operate analysis should start with the leading filer’s claim scope.
Is patent filing in this space growing or slowing down?
Filings grew 143% from 2021 to 2024, rising from 7 to 17 records, with the highest single year so far being 2023 at 84 published records. Because patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in the trend are still incomplete and will continue to rise as more records publish. Treat any apparent dip in the most recent one or two years as a data-lag artifact, not a real slowdown.
Are these patents mostly about the physical support structures or about software?
The IPC composition points strongly toward software and data-platform claims: G06Q (business/commerce data processing) appears on 73.1% of the 197 records and G06N (AI-based computing) on 37.1%, both well ahead of B33Y, the additive-manufacturing-specific class, at 19.8%. That means a large portion of this claim space is written around cloud platforms, predictive models and fleet management applied to additive manufacturing, rather than narrow mechanical topology-optimization algorithms for supports themselves.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Metal Additive Manufacturing — Metal-Print Support-Structure Optimization Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.