Nickel Superalloy Durability Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 60 families and has declined through the midpoint year and beyond, suggesting the core single-crystal and bond-coat claim space is already staked out rather than expanding.
- Turbine-adjacent IPC codes (F01D, F02C) sit alongside alloy composition codes showing that durability claims are filed as much for engine hardware integration as for the alloy chemistry itself.
- Co-assignee filing is rare — only 10 pairs across 591 families and the densest collaboration cluster centres on one aerospace group and its national research partners, not on cross-industry alliances.
Filing growth compares 2021 (40 records) with 2024 (10) — 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 591 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families claiming nickel superalloy or nickel-based superalloy compositions together with oxidation resistance, hot corrosion, high-temperature stability or thermal barrier performance, restricted to alloy, coating and heat-treatment IPC classes. It captures the intersection of alloy chemistry and environmental durability rather than superalloys in general, which is why turbine hardware and coating deposition codes appear alongside the alloy codes.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the third quarter of 2026, with the most recent year understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Reading the trend line means weighting the last one to two years lightly and treating the 2017 peak as the more reliable signal of where the field's centre of gravity sits.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 591 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A single peak, then decline
Filings ran from 60 in 2017 down through a midpoint of 40 in 2022 to single digits by 2026. That shape is more consistent with a maturing, already-claimed technical core than with an emerging one — new entrants face dense prior art rather than open ground.
Alloy codes dominate, turbine codes follow
C22C (alloys) covers the large majority of records, with C22F (non-ferrous treatment), C30B (crystal growth) and C23C (coatings) each representing a substantial secondary cluster. F01D and F02C turbine-plant codes appearing on well over 150 records each confirm that most durability claims are drafted with a specific engine application in view, not as standalone metallurgy.
Shares are the percentage of the 591 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Nickel Superalloy Environmental Durability with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about nickel superalloy environmental durability and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
US7306682B2 — Single-crystal Ni-based superalloy with high temperature strength, oxidation resistance and hot corrosion resistance
Single-crystal nickel-based superalloys with high temperature strength, hot corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance comprising by weight, 3.0 to 7.0% Cr, 9.5 to 15.0% Co, 4.5 to 8.0% W, 3.3 to 6.0% Re, 4.0 to 8.0% Ta, 0.8 to 2.0% Ti, 4.5 to 6.5% Al, 0.01 to 0.2% Hf, less than 0.5% Mo, 0.01% or less C, 0.005% or less B, 0.01% or less Zr, 0.005% or less O, 0.005% or less N, and balance substantially Ni.Filed by Hitachi, Ltd.; granted 2007-12-11.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5783318A | Repaired nickel based superalloy | 158 |
| 2 | US5366695A | Single crystal nickel-based superalloy | 153 |
| 3 | US5151249A | Nickel-based single crystal superalloy and method of making | 100 |
| 4 | US5498484A | Thermal barrier coating system with hardenable bond coat | 80 |
| 5 | US4459160A | Single crystal castings | 67 |
| 6 | US20040221925A1 | Ni-based superalloy having high oxidation resistance and gas turbine part | 66 |
| 7 | US4222794A | Single crystal nickel superalloy | 64 |
| 8 | US4371404A | Single crystal nickel superalloy | 59 |
| 9 | US5540790A | Single crystal nickel-based superalloy | 53 |
| 10 | US20050067061A1 | Nickel-based braze alloy compositions and related processes and articles | 45 |
Citation counts reward older filings simply because they've had more time to be cited — read this table as a map of foundational art, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Four patterns stand out once volume, geography and citation data are read together.
The core claim space is already staked out
A single sharp peak in 2017 followed by a steady decline through 2022 and into the current year points to a technology whose central compositional and processing claims were filed early. Later entrants are working around, not into, open space.
Filing is concentrated in two blocs
The United States and the European Patent Office together account for the majority of receiving-office activity, well ahead of China, Japan, Canada and India. Enforcement and freedom-to-operate diligence should prioritise these two offices before broader jurisdictions.
Joint filing is the exception, not the rule
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across the full dataset, and the strongest cluster links one aerospace group to national research institutes rather than to other manufacturers. Most durability claims are filed by a single owner acting alone.
Foundational art is decades old
The most-cited records date to the 1980s-1990s single-crystal casting and repair era. New filings must clear this older art on composition and processing steps before any claim on environmental durability can stand.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to nickel superalloy environmental durability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
Filing is led by a small group of aerospace, industrial and materials-research organisations, with momentum having cooled across the board in the latest recorded year.
Safran S.A. (Safran)
Anchors the dataset's only significant collaboration cluster, filing jointly with French national research institutes on alloy and coating development rather than filing solo.
General Electric Company (General Electric)
A long-standing presence in single-crystal and coating claims consistent with turbine OEM demand, though recent-year activity has gone quiet along with the rest of the field.
Daido Steel Co., Ltd. (Daido Steel)
Represents the specialty-steel and alloy-supplier segment of the landscape, filing on composition and heat-treatment claims adjacent to the OEM-held turbine hardware claims.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Safran S.A. | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Kennametal Inc. | 0 | — |
| Daido Steel Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) | 0 | — |
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | 0 | — |
| National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, R&D targeting or portfolio strategy.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the top-cited art
US5783318A, US5366695A and US5151249A anchor decades of single-crystal casting and repair claims. Any new composition or repair-process filing should be checked against these before drafting.
Explore prior art in EurekaTrack the quiet assignees for renewed activity
Every major named assignee shows zero filings in the latest recorded year. A sudden resumption from any one of them would be an early signal worth monitoring.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaScope the under-claimed branches before committing R&D
Powder-metallurgy routes to single-crystal-equivalent structure and additive-manufacturing repair of hot-corrosion damage both sit outside the dense core and warrant a closer novelty search.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Filing in this space is led by a small group of aerospace and industrial organisations, with an aerospace group and a major industrial conglomerate among the most active alongside several Japanese materials and electronics firms. No single assignee dominates outright; the pattern is a moderately concentrated top group followed by a long tail of single-filing entrants such as universities and smaller alloy specialists. Citation leadership sits with older single-crystal casting and repair patents rather than with the most prolific recent filer.
Filing peaked at 60 families in 2017 and has fallen fairly steadily since, reaching single digits by the most recent recorded year. This shape typically indicates that the core compositional and processing claims — single-crystal casting, primary bond-coat chemistries, standard hot-corrosion-resistant alloy ranges — were staked out early, leaving later filers to work incremental variations. Part of the apparent recent decline is also a publication-lag artefact: recent years are always undercounted until roughly 18 months after filing, so the true 2025-2026 volume is higher than currently visible.
US7306682B2, assigned to Hitachi, claims a single-crystal nickel-based superalloy defined by a specific weight-percentage range across chromium, cobalt, tungsten, rhenium, tantalum, titanium, aluminium, hafnium and trace-element limits on molybdenum, carbon, boron, zirconium, oxygen and nitrogen. The claim is valuable because it targets simultaneous creep-rupture strength, oxidation resistance and hot corrosion resistance in one composition rather than trading one property for another. Anyone formulating a similar rhenium-bearing single-crystal alloy for turbine blade service needs to check their composition against these ranges directly rather than relying on general single-crystal prior art alone.
The United States and the European Patent Office receive the largest share of filings by a clear margin, followed by China, Japan, Canada and India in roughly that order. For freedom-to-operate work, the US and EPO filings should be reviewed first since they carry both the highest volume and the broadest downstream enforcement exposure. China's share, while smaller in this dataset, is worth monitoring separately given how quickly regional filing patterns can shift in metallurgy.
The densest claim coverage sits in single-crystal alloy composition, primary bond-coat chemistry and standard thermal barrier coating systems — areas with decades of highly cited prior art. Comparatively thinner coverage appears around powder-metallurgy routes that approximate single-crystal microstructure, additive-manufacturing-based repair of hot-corrosion damage, and rhenium-reduced or rhenium-free substitute compositions aimed at supply-chain cost pressure. A first claim in one of these branches would need to differentiate clearly from the dense core art rather than restate it with minor compositional shifts.
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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.