Metallic Glass Joining and Welding Patents: Filing Peak, Long Tail 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 74 records then fell through a 2022 midpoint of just 3, a decline pattern rather than a growth curve — most recent-year assignees show zero fresh filings.
- Welding and powder metallurgy dominate the IPC mix B23K (180) and B22F (142) lead composition, with additive manufacturing (B33Y, 124) close behind, showing the field sits at the intersection of joining process and powder-based forming.
- The most-cited records are golf club heads, not joining processes the top-cited documents (469, 466, 321 citations) describe golf club head structures, meaning citation weight in this corpus favours an adjacent application rather than the joining art itself.
What this landscape covers
Metallic glass — also called bulk metallic glass or amorphous alloy — resists conventional fusion welding because its disordered atomic structure crystallizes under prolonged heat, destroying the mechanical properties that make it valuable. Patent activity in this space clusters around alternative joining routes: diffusion bonding, laser joining, and composite co-deformation processes that keep the alloy within its supercooled liquid region rather than pushing it through a full melt. The search set spans 589 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026, with publication naturally lagging filing by roughly eighteen months, so the most recent year understates real activity.
The IPC spread shows this is not a single-process technology. Welding and brazing codes (B23K) sit alongside powder metallurgy (B22F) and additive manufacturing (B33Y), meaning many filers are approaching metallic glass joining as a materials-forming problem as much as a welding problem. A meaningful share of records also falls under sports equipment (A63B), reflecting golf club heads as a long-standing commercial application that pulled early patent activity into this search string.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
The dataset's filing curve and IPC breakdown together describe a field that filed hard once and has not repeated the pace.
A sharp peak, then a steep drop-off
Filings ran to 74 in 2017, the peak year in the dataset, then declined toward a 2022 midpoint of only 3 records. That trajectory reads as flat-to-declining rather than emerging, and the most recent tracked assignees show no filings in the latest year — a pattern more consistent with a technology that had its filing wave than one still building momentum.
Joining, powder metallurgy and additive manufacturing overlap
B23K (welding, soldering & brazing) leads at 180 records, ahead of B22F (powder metallurgy, 142) and B33Y (additive manufacturing, 124). C22C (alloys, 105) and B29C (plastics shaping, 75) round out the core cluster, while A63B (sports equipment, 61), B32B (layered products, 54) and G11B (information storage, 28) mark the applications this joining art has been drawn into rather than technology areas it originated from.
Shares are the percentage of the 589 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metallic Glass Joining and Welding with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about metallic glass joining and welding and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative record
Bulk metallic glass/metal composites produced by codeformation
The invention concerns bulk metallic glass/metal alloys, a method for their production and their uses, specifically composite materials resulting from the co-deformation of a bulk metallic glass and a metal. The method comprises co-deforming the bulk metallic glass and the metal at a temperature within the supercooled liquid region of the bulk metallic glass.Filed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; published 2008-08-21 as US20080196794A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7166038B2 | Golf club head | 469 |
| 2 | US7163468B2 | Golf club head | 466 |
| 3 | US7169060B2 | Golf club head | 321 |
| 4 | US7278927B2 | Golf club head | 222 |
| 5 | US7413520B1 | Golf club head with high moment of inertia | 188 |
| 6 | US6419147B1 | Method and apparatus for a combined mechanical and metallurgical connection | 173 |
| 7 | US7591737B2 | Golf club head | 167 |
| 8 | US7306527B2 | Golf club head | 160 |
| 9 | US7476161B2 | Golf club head | 156 |
| 10 | US7431667B2 | Golf club head with high moment of inertia | 153 |
Citation counts here are skewed by older, widely-cited golf club head patents rather than by the joining processes central to this search — treat citation rank as a signal of influence within the corpus, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers indicate
Three patterns stand out once filing counts, IPC codes and citation data are read together.
A single filing wave, not sustained growth
The 2017 peak of 74 records was not sustained. By the 2022 midpoint filings had dropped to 3, and the most recent tracked year shows only 1. Recency should be read cautiously given publication lag, but the multi-year decline before the cut-off is a real signal, not an artefact of lag alone.
Welding, powder metallurgy and additive manufacturing overlap heavily
The three leading IPC subclasses are close in volume, indicating that filers treat metallic glass joining as inseparable from powder-based forming and additive processes rather than as a standalone welding niche.
Citation leadership sits outside the joining art
The most-cited documents in this corpus describe golf club heads, not joining or welding processes. That means citation counts here measure the influence of an application area that happens to use metallic glass, not the technical weight of the joining innovations themselves.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metallic glass joining and welding, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where activity has gone quiet
Recent-year momentum data shows a field where even previously active filers have gone to zero, and co-filing activity is thin.
No assignee shows recent-year filing activity
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including Nippon Steel, Apple, and Caltech, shows zero filings in the latest year. This is consistent with the broader decline visible in the filing trend and suggests the active filing period for this exact claim space has passed for now.
Collaboration is limited and mostly bilateral
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset. The strongest is Nippon Steel with Fukuju Industries at 6 shared records, followed by Atotech Deutschland pairings with individual inventors at 3 each — evidence of small, durable partnerships rather than broad consortium activity.
Filing concentrates in the US, Japan and Europe
The United States leads with 216 records, ahead of Japan (90) and the European Patent Office (83). PCT filings (36) and China (23) trail well behind, indicating that international-route filing has not been a major strategy for most assignees in this space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Frugard Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Callaway Golf Company | 0 | — |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Apple Inc. | 0 | — |
| California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | 0 | — |
| DANIEL DAVID L | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (US) | 0 | — |
| NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The filing and classification data point to specific questions worth running deeper before committing R&D or filing budget.
Check freedom-to-operate against the golf club head cluster
The highest-cited records in this corpus are golf club head patents built on metallic glass composites. Anyone targeting sports equipment or similarly shaped components should map claims there before assuming the joining art alone clears the path.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaRe-examine the declining filing trend by sub-branch
The 2017 peak and subsequent drop are aggregate figures across all eight IPC subclasses. Splitting the trend by subclass would show whether the decline is uniform or concentrated in specific process routes.
Break down filing trend by IPC in EurekaWatch for renewed activity as publication lag closes
The most recent one to two years are understated by publication lag alone. Tracking new filings as they publish will clarify whether the 2022-2026 low is a genuine plateau or a temporary reporting gap.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaCommon questions on metallic glass joining patents
Metallic glass owes its properties to an amorphous, disordered atomic structure formed by rapid cooling from the melt. Conventional fusion welding reheats the material past its crystallization temperature for long enough that it re-orders into a crystalline structure, which destroys the strength and elasticity advantages the alloy was chosen for in the first place. This is why the patent literature in this space concentrates on alternative routes such as diffusion bonding and laser joining that keep processing within or below the supercooled liquid region rather than fully melting the material.
The dataset shows filing activity from a mix of industrial and academic assignees, including Nippon Steel, Apple, Caltech, and sports equipment makers such as Callaway Golf, alongside process-technology firms like Atotech Deutschland. However, recent-year momentum data shows every one of these tracked assignees at zero filings in the latest year, meaning current leadership reflects historical filing activity around the 2017 peak rather than ongoing output. Anyone assessing competitive position should weight older filings heavily and treat this as a settled rather than an active filing race.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 74 records in this dataset and declined sharply afterward, reaching just 3 records by the 2022 midpoint and 1 in the most recent tracked year. Publication lag of roughly eighteen months means the very last year or two is always understated, so the true 2025-2026 picture may be slightly higher than shown. Even accounting for that lag, the multi-year decline from the 2017 peak through 2022 is a real trend, not a lag artefact, and points to a technology area whose filing wave has largely passed.
The three largest IPC subclasses in this corpus are B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) at 180 records, B22F (powder metallurgy) at 142, and B33Y (additive manufacturing) at 124, showing that joining claims are frequently filed alongside powder-forming and 3D-printing processes rather than as standalone welding innovations. C22C (alloys, 105) and B29C (plastics shaping, 75) also carry meaningful volume. A63B (sports equipment, 61) and G11B (information storage, 28) show where the joining technology has been applied downstream rather than where it originated.
Not necessarily, and this dataset is a clear example of why. The most-cited records in the corpus — with citation counts of 469, 466, 321, 222 and 188 — are all golf club head patents, an application area, not the underlying joining or welding process innovations that define this search. Citation counts inside any searched patent corpus tend to favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so they should be read as a measure of influence within the corpus rather than a ranking of current technical significance.
Research Metallic Glass Joining and Welding in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole metallic glass joining and welding corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.