Guided Wave Inspection Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
A patent landscape review of guided wave inspection for nondestructive testing: 54 records, filing trends from 2017 to 2026, assignee concentration and the IPC branches carrying the claim activity.
Filing growth = 2021 (2 records) → 2024 (0); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 54 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Guided wave inspection uses an elastic or ultrasonic wave that travels along a structure — most often a pipe — so a single sensor position can screen a long run for corrosion, wastage or cracking without moving a probe point by point. This patent landscape covers 54 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 and classified under material-analysis, vibration-generation and related IPC subclasses. The representative record, US8091427B2 from Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, illustrates the core technique: a wave-based sensor mounted on a pipe’s outer surface reads a reflected signal to locate a defective section, including at bends.
The scope draws from receiving offices led by the United States, with meaningful activity from the United Kingdom, WIPO's PCT route, China, the European Patent Office and India. Filing peaked in 2019 and has since cooled, while claim activity remains concentrated in a small number of IPC branches tied closely to piping and vibration.
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Filing activity and technology composition
Fifty-four published records make up this dataset, spanning receiving offices from the United States to China and India. The trend and classification figures below are drawn directly from that scope.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 7 records in 2019 before tapering; 2021 to 2024 fell from 2 to 0 records, a -100% span over three years. Recent years, especially 2025 and 2026, will fill in further as publication catches up with filing, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G01N (material analysis and testing) covers 90.7% of the 54 records, with B06B (mechanical vibration generation) present in 29.6%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% — the chart uses the same all-records denominator throughout.
Shares are the percentage of the 54 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited prior art
Nondestructive inspection apparatus and nondestructive inspection method using guided wave (US8091427B2)
An apparatus and technique for quickly detecting a defective portion, including wastage, in piping with a straight section or a bending zone, using guided wave nondestructive inspection. A guided wave sensor mounted to the outer surface of the piping propagates a wave into the inspection area; if a defect exists, the sensor receives the wave reflected from that defective portion, and the device acquires receive information to locate it.Filed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd.; priority date 2012-01-10, ahead of this dataset's 2015–2026 filing window.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090150094A1 | Guided waves for nondestructive testing of pipes | 120 |
| 2 | US6968727B2 | Calibration method and device for long range guided wave inspection of piping | 64 |
| 3 | US4774842A | Hand-held apparatus to nondestructively test subsurface structure | 52 |
| 4 | US6294912B1 | Method and apparatus for nondestructive inspection of plate type ferromagnetic structures using magnetostrict… | 48 |
| 5 | US7573261B1 | Method and system for the generation of torsional guided waves using a ferromagnetic strip sensor | 39 |
| 6 | US20140278193A1 | System and method for focusing guided waves beyond curves in test structures | 30 |
| 7 | US6925881B1 | Time shift data analysis for long-range guided wave inspection | 26 |
| 8 | US20040216512A1 | Calibration method and device for long range guided wave inspection of piping | 25 |
| 9 | US20160290965A1 | Long-range magnetostrictive ultrasonic guided wave scanner system and method | 22 |
| 10 | GB2403009A | Non destructive inspection using guided waves | 17 |
Ranked by citation count within the 54 records in scope; older filings tend to accumulate more citations simply by being public longer, so treat this as a map of influence, not of current commercial importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern says about the field
Three figures from this dataset matter more than the raw count: where filings concentrate by assignee, which IPC branches are thin, and where citation weight sits relative to filing recency.
Filing is concentrated at the top
The leading assignee alone holds 12 records, and the top 5 combined account for 37 of the 54 records in scope. That leaves the remaining 12 ranked companies splitting a much smaller share, with the tenth-placed entrant holding just 1 record.
Filing has cooled since its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 7 records in 2019 and fell from 2 records in 2021 to 0 in 2024. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent years in the dataset will understate true activity and should not be read as a further slowdown.
Claim space is dominated by material-analysis art
G01N covers material analysis and testing and appears in 90.7% of the 54 records, with mechanical-vibration generation (B06B) present in 29.6%. Thinner branches — F16L pipe fittings and F26B drying — each sit at 1.9%, marking narrow, largely unclaimed adjacencies.
Citation weight sits with older piping art
The most-cited record in the corpus concerns guided waves for pipe testing specifically, well ahead of the next-ranked record on calibration methods at 64 citations. High citation counts here reflect influence on later filers rather than current commercial weight, since older records accumulate citations simply by having been public longer.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to nondestructive testing: guided wave inspection patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this landscape
The figures here mark the shape of the field. Turning that shape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going deeper on specific claims, assignees and branches.
Check freedom-to-operate against the piping cluster
The calibration and sensor-mounting claims cited most heavily in this dataset sit around piping inspection. Before committing a design to an outer-surface-mounted sensor and reflected-wave detection scheme, compare independent claim scope against the most-cited records directly.
Explore claims in EurekaTest the thin IPC branches for an open filing position
F16L, F26B and G01H each cover under 10% of the 54 records in scope. A claim that ties guided-wave sensing to a specific fitting geometry or drying process may sit in genuinely open space rather than crowded prior art.
Map white space in EurekaTrack the ranked leaders' recent activity
With the top 5 assignees holding 68.5% of records, watching their most recent filings — even with publication lag pushing 2025–2026 data still to arrive — gives an early read on where the next wave of claims will land.
Follow assignees in EurekaCommon questions about guided wave inspection patents
Guided wave inspection sends an ultrasonic or elastic wave along the length of a structure — most commonly a pipe — so a single sensor position can screen a long run for corrosion, wastage or cracking rather than requiring point-by-point contact. The wave travels guided by the structure's geometry, and a reflection returning to the sensor indicates a change in cross-section consistent with a defect. This dataset shows the technique concentrated overwhelmingly in piping applications, with G01N material-analysis classifications covering 90.7% of the 54 records in scope.
The assignee ranking for this dataset lists 17 companies, with the leading filer holding 12 records and the field concentrated at the top: the top 5 companies together account for 37 of the 54 records in scope, or 68.5%. The top 10 extend that to 48 records, 88.9% of the total, leaving only a handful of records spread across the remaining ranked entrants. That pattern — a dominant leader plus a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants — is typical of a technically mature niche rather than a fast-growing one.
Filing activity peaked at 7 records in 2019 and has declined since; the corpus shows 2021 falling to 2024 by -100% over that three-year span. That said, patent publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset will always understate true recent activity — the apparent drop-off in the very latest years should not be read as the field slowing further. The safest read is that filing cooled from its 2019 peak, not that it has stopped.
G01N (material analysis and testing) is the dominant classification, present in 90.7% of the 54 records, followed by B06B (generating mechanical vibrations) at 29.6% and G01B (measuring length and dimensions) at 13.0%. Smaller classifications such as G01M (structural balance testing), G06F (data processing) and G01H (vibration and sound measurement) each cover under 10% of records, marking thinner but still active branches. Because records often carry multiple classifications, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%.
The most-cited record in this dataset is US20090150094A1, covering guided waves for nondestructive testing of pipes, with 120 citations — well ahead of the next most-cited record, US6968727B2, a calibration method for long-range guided-wave piping inspection at 64 citations. Older foundational documents such as US4774842A and US6294912B1 also carry substantial citation counts. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older, foundational filings, so they are best read as a signal of influence on later filers rather than a measure of current commercial relevance.
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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.