Metallic Glass Characterization Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 47 families and has declined toward single digits by 2026, a pattern consistent with a technology whose core composition and processing claims were staked out early rather than one still being actively opened up.
- Alloy composition (C22C) accounts for 876 of the underlying records, dwarfing casting, powder metallurgy and coating routes combined — most of the contested claim space sits in what the alloy is, not how it is shaped or coated.
- The most-cited record in this corpus, US5288344A, has 760 citations and dates to the beryllium-bearing amorphous alloy era, meaning influence in this dataset skews toward foundational 1990s chemistry rather than recent filings.
A field defined early, revisited less often
Metallic glass characterization covers the patent activity around describing, testing and verifying the structure of amorphous alloys and bulk metallic glass — structural characterization, thermal analysis, and atomic structure analysis — rather than the alloys themselves in isolation. The dataset spans 1,442 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026, with the earliest activity in this window peaking in 2017. Composition claims under C22C dominate the technology mix, followed at a distance by casting, magnetic and powder-metallurgy applications, which shows that characterization work here is tightly coupled to alloy chemistry rather than to a separable measurement discipline.
Publication for the most recent filing years is still incomplete — publication typically lags filing by around 18 months — so the drop shown for 2025 and 2026 should be read as an undercount rather than a confirmed collapse in activity. Even allowing for that lag, the decline from the 2017 peak through the 2022 midpoint of 16 families points to a maturing rather than expanding filing pattern.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,442 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A 2017 peak followed by a steady decline
Filings ran at 47 in 2017, fell to 16 by the 2022 midpoint, and continue down toward single digits by 2026. Because the most recent one to two years are always undercounted at any given data cut-off, the true 2025–2026 level will sit somewhat higher once publication catches up, but the multi-year direction from 2017 onward is unambiguous.
Composition claims dominate the technology mix
C22C (Alloys) accounts for 876 of the tracked records, more than three times the next largest subclass, B22D (Metal casting) at 281. H01F (magnets, inductors and transformers), B22F (powder metallurgy), C21D (heat treatment) and C23C (coating) each carry a few hundred records, with B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) and B32B (layered products) trailing. The concentration in C22C indicates that most of the intellectual property is protecting what the alloy is made of, with processing and application claims layered on top rather than standing alone.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,442 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metallic Glass Characterization with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe records that still anchor citation networks
US20170173694A1 — Bulk metallic glass printer with shearing engine in feed path
A printer fabricates an object from a computerized model using a fused filament fabrication process and a bulk metallic glass. A shearing engine within a feed path for the bulk metallic glass actively induces a shearing displacement of the bulk metallic glass to mitigate crystallization, more specifically to extend processing time for handling the bulk metallic glass at elevated temperatures.Filed by Desktop Metal, Inc. in 2017, this record sits outside the dominant C22C composition cluster — it claims a processing mechanism (in-feed shearing to delay crystallization) rather than an alloy formulation, illustrating how additive-manufacturing entrants staked claims on handling equipment instead of chemistry.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5288344A | Berylllium bearing amorphous metallic alloys formed by low cooling rates | 760 |
| 2 | US5735975A | Quinary metallic glass alloys | 575 |
| 3 | US5368659A | Method of forming berryllium bearing metallic glass | 540 |
| 4 | US5618359A | Metallic glass alloys of Zr, Ti, Cu and Ni | 476 |
| 5 | US3856513A | Novel amorphous metals and amorphous metal articles | 394 |
| 6 | US20170027168A1 | Methods, products, and systems relating to making, providing, and using nanocrystalline (NC) products compris… | 302 |
| 7 | US6535824B1 | Sensor array-based system and method for rapid materials characterization | 278 |
| 8 | US20020032531A1 | Sensor array for rapid materials characterization | 269 |
| 9 | US20100084052A1 | Compositions of corrosion-resistant Fe-based amorphous metals suitable for producing thermal spray coatings | 209 |
| 10 | US20170092889A1 | Light-Emitting Element, Display Device, Electronic Device, and Lighting Device | 190 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings because they have had more years to accumulate references — treat these as markers of foundational influence, not as a ranking of current technical relevance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Three signals worth weighing before deciding where to file or who to watch.
Activity has cooled from its 2017 high
The 2022 midpoint of 16 families sits roughly a third of the 2017 peak, and the trajectory continues downward into 2026. Combined with the recency lag inherent in patent publication, this looks like a field where the foundational claim space was staked early and later entrants are filing narrower, incremental improvements rather than broad new compositions.
Composition claims crowd out process claims
More than 60% of the tracked records sit in the Alloys subclass, with casting, magnetics, powder metallurgy, heat treatment and coating each taking a smaller share. A new entrant proposing a genuinely novel base alloy is filing into the most contested part of the map; process and integration claims outside C22C carry comparatively more open space.
Influence still traces back to beryllium-era chemistry
The top-cited records in this corpus — US5288344A, US5735975A, US5368659A and US5618359A — all describe beryllium-bearing or Zr-Ti-Cu-Ni metallic glass alloys from the 1990s. Their continued citation weight signals that later filings still build on, or design around, that original compositional family rather than replacing it outright.
A small, tightly linked inventor cluster
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest connections — Poole Joseph C with Prest Christopher D, and both with Scott Matthew S — recur across multiple pairings. This points to a compact team whose work has been reassigned or re-filed under different corporate vehicles over time rather than a broad, distributed inventor base.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metallic glass characterization, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| POOLE JOSEPH C | PREST CHRISTOPHER D | 91 |
| POOLE JOSEPH C | SCOTT MATTHEW S | 70 |
| PREST CHRISTOPHER D | SCOTT MATTHEW S | 70 |
| POOLE JOSEPH C | STRATTON DERMOT J | 61 |
| PREST CHRISTOPHER D | STRATTON DERMOT J | 61 |
| SCOTT MATTHEW S | STRATTON DERMOT J | 61 |
| POOLE JOSEPH C | STEVICK JOSEPH | 41 |
| PREST CHRISTOPHER D | STEVICK JOSEPH | 40 |
The recurrence of the same three names across the strongest co-assignee pairs suggests concentrated ownership history is worth checking before assuming the current listed assignee is the sole rights holder.
Who is filing, and where the momentum has gone quiet
Recent-year filing counts for the most prominent names in this corpus all read zero at the latest data cut-off, consistent with the field-wide slowdown rather than any single company exiting.
No active filer shows recent-year output
Names including Nanosteel, Crucible Intellectual Property, Apple, and the individual inventors Poole, Prest and Scott all show zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the publication lag, this likely reflects filings still in the pipeline rather than a confirmed halt, but it means recent competitive activity cannot be read directly off the assignee table yet.
A core team behind Crucible-linked filings
Poole Joseph C, Prest Christopher D and Scott Matthew S appear together across the strongest co-assignee pairs in the dataset, historically associated with Crucible Intellectual Property's bulk metallic glass portfolio. Anyone assessing freedom to operate in commercial-scale amorphous alloy processing should check this cluster's family status individually rather than assuming lapsed activity.
Consumer electronics pulled metallic glass into casing and hinge claims
Apple's presence among the tracked assignees reflects the period when bulk metallic glass was explored for device housings and mechanical components, a use case distinct from the structural and aerospace alloy work driving the C22C composition cluster. That application-specific filing activity has also gone quiet in the latest year.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NanoSteel Company | 0 | — |
| Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC | 0 | — |
| POOLE JOSEPH C | 0 | — |
| PREST CHRISTOPHER D | 0 | — |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | — |
| SCOTT MATTHEW S | 0 | — |
| STRATTON DERMOT J | 0 | — |
| ALLIED CHEM CORP | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing trend and IPC breakdown answer what has already been claimed. Two follow-on questions matter more for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
Check family status on the core inventor cluster
Poole, Prest and Scott's strongest co-filings anchor a large share of the citation-weighted portfolio. Confirming which of those families remain in force, and under which current assignee, changes the freedom-to-operate picture more than the aggregate filing count does.
Run a family status check in EurekaModel a first claim in the under-claimed branches
In-line thermal analysis and non-beryllium quinary characterization sit outside the dense C22C cluster with thinner recent coverage. Drafting a first claim there starts from a cleaner prior-art position than filing directly into alloy composition.
Draft a claim scope in EurekaCommon questions about metallic glass characterization patents
In this dataset it refers to filings combining metallic glass, amorphous alloy or bulk metallic glass terminology with structural characterization, thermal analysis or atomic structure analysis language. That combination captures patents about testing, measuring and verifying the structure of amorphous alloys, rather than every patent that merely mentions a metallic glass composition. It is a narrower slice than the full metallic glass literature, which is why the total here is 1,442 families rather than a much larger number.
The trend in this corpus shows a peak of 47 families in 2017, a midpoint of 16 in 2022, and a continued decline toward single digits by 2026. High filing density in the composition subclass, C22C, suggests the core alloy chemistry space was claimed relatively early, leaving later entrants with less unclaimed compositional territory to file into. Part of the recent-year drop is also a publication-lag artefact, since patents filed in 2025 and 2026 have not all published yet at this data cut-off.
The most-cited records in this corpus trace back to foundational beryllium-bearing and Zr-Ti-Cu-Ni amorphous alloy patents from the 1990s, including US5288344A with 760 citations. Among recent assignees, a cluster of individual inventors — Poole, Prest and Scott — appears repeatedly in the strongest co-assignee pairs, historically tied to bulk metallic glass work later associated with Apple and Crucible Intellectual Property. High citation counts favour older patents simply because they have had more time to accumulate references, so this is a measure of historical influence rather than current filing leadership.
The under-claimed branches sit outside the dense C22C alloy-composition cluster: in-line thermal analysis during additive manufacturing, atomic structure verification for coated laminates, non-beryllium quinary alloy characterization, and crystallization detection in welding zones all carry thinner recent filing. These are process- and application-adjacent claims rather than new base-alloy chemistry, which is the most heavily claimed part of the landscape. A first claim drafted in one of these areas starts with less prior art to design around than a composition claim would.
That filing, assigned to Desktop Metal, Inc. in 2017, claims a specific mechanism — a shearing engine within the feed path that induces shearing displacement to delay crystallization during fused filament fabrication of bulk metallic glass. It does not claim bulk metallic glass printing generally, so approaches that feed, heat or shape the material without that specific in-feed shearing mechanism are not automatically blocked by this claim alone. Anyone building a competing additive process should still check the full claim set and family status rather than relying on the abstract, since dependent claims may narrow or extend the mechanism described.
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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.