Arc Ion Plating Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
A data-backed view of the arc ion plating and PVD patent landscape: filing trends since 2017, the concentration among ranked assignees, dominant IPC classes and where claim space remains open.
Filing growth = 2021 (106 records) → 2024 (107); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 2,638 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What the arc ion plating patent record shows
Arc ion plating is a variant of physical vapor deposition that ionises a metal cathode in a vacuum arc to build hard, dense coatings on tools, medical devices, engine components and, more recently, fuel-cell hardware. The dataset behind this page covers 2,638 records published between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off, drawn from claims and abstracts that name arc ion plating directly or claim PVD/sputtering methods under the C23C14 coating classification. Family-level counting is used throughout so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction copies of the same invention are not counted twice.
Filing activity is not evenly spread: a handful of assignees account for a meaningful share of the total, receiving-office activity is heavily weighted toward China, and technology claims cluster overwhelmingly in coating and surface-deposition classes even though the same records reach into machining, alloys, laminates and electroplating.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,638 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a plateau
Filings hit their high point in 2017 at 189 records, tapered over the following years, and then flattened out: 2021 recorded 106 records against 107 in 2024, a +1% move over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in this same series are still filling in and should not be read as a decline.
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: coating classes dominate, but not exclusively
C23C, the coating and surface-deposition class, appears in 94.5% of the 2,638 records — expected, given the search scope. What is more informative is the secondary spread: turning and boring (B23B, 7.4%), alloys (C22C, 6.3%), layered products (B32B, 4.5%), electroplating (C25D, 4.1%), powder metallurgy (B22F, 3.1%), milling (B23C, 3.0%) and electron tubes (H01J, 2.8%) all appear in the same corpus, showing arc ion plating claims are frequently tied to a specific substrate or end application rather than filed as a standalone coating method.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,638 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Physical Vapor Deposition: Arc Ion Plating Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about physical vapor deposition: arc ion plating patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative recent filing
Method of coating components of a fuel cell stack (US12272845B2)
The patent covers coating metal components of a fuel cell stack — bipolar plates, electrodes, gaskets — by etching the uncoated component, optionally depositing an adhesion layer, and depositing a carbon coating using one of several named processes including arc ion plating, sputtering, PVD generally, or a Hipims process.Filed by IHI Hauzer Techno Coating and published 2025-04-08, this record sits at the intersection of arc ion plating and the C25D/B32B classes flagged above, illustrating how coating method claims are increasingly written against a specific downstream component rather than as a generic process claim.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5681575A | Anti-microbial coating for medical devices | 296 |
| 2 | US6017553A | Anti-microbial materials | 285 |
| 3 | US5753251A | Anti-microbial coating for medical devices | 272 |
| 4 | US5770255A | Anti-microbial coating for medical devices | 246 |
| 5 | US6238686B1 | Anti-microbial coating for medical devices | 240 |
| 6 | US5618388A | Geometries and configurations for magnetron sputtering apparatus | 194 |
| 7 | US20040242953A1 | Endocurietherapy | 140 |
| 8 | US20040023106A1 | Apparatus and method for fracture absorption layer | 115 |
| 9 | US20020187379A1 | Separator used for fuel cell, method for manufacturing the separator, and the fuel cell | 108 |
| 10 | CN103276362A | 多级磁场直管磁过滤与脉冲偏压复合的电弧离子镀方法 | 103 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited; treat them as a signal of historical influence within this searched corpus, not of which patents matter most today.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Four figures that matter more than the headline totals when deciding where to file, license or design around.
The top of the table is thin, not dominant
The leading assignee holds 164 records and the fifth-ranked holds 72 — a real gap, but the combined top 5 still account for only 21.3% of all records in scope. That leaves close to four-fifths of the field spread across a long tail, including entrants filing under names like Kobe Steel, the Institute of Metal Research and Oerlikon Surface Solutions.
A plateau, not a retreat
After the 2017 peak of 189 records, activity settled rather than collapsed. The 2021–2024 window shows essentially flat filing (+1%), and because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the lower counts visible in 2025–2026 are an artefact of the data cut-off, not evidence of a cooling field.
Filing activity is concentrated in China
China's 1,527 records dwarf the next-largest offices — Japan at 279 and the United States at 206 — indicating that both manufacturing capacity and the associated claim activity for arc ion plating are heavily weighted toward Chinese applicants and China-first filing strategies.
A small number of tight collaboration pairs
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and one pair alone — a materials company and its tooling affiliate — accounts for 39 shared records, far ahead of the next pairs at 7 and 5. Most collaboration in this field is intra-group rather than cross-company.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to physical vapor deposition: arc ion plating patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or R&D prioritisation.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top assignees
With 21.3% of records held by five assignees, a targeted clearance search against their granted claims is more efficient than scanning the full 2,638-record set before committing to a coating process design.
Run a clearance search in EurekaLook past the dominant coating class
C23C accounts for 94.5% of records, but the secondary classes — alloys, laminates, electroplating, powder metallurgy — show where arc ion plating claims are being tied to specific substrates, which is where less-crowded claim space tends to sit.
Explore adjacent IPC classes in EurekaTrack the fuel-cell and component-specific filings
The representative 2025 filing on fuel-cell stack coating signals a shift toward component-specific process claims rather than generic PVD method claims — worth monitoring as a forward indicator.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about the arc ion plating patent landscape
The dataset behind this page contains 2,638 published patent family records that either explicitly reference arc ion plating in the claims or abstract, or claim a PVD/sputtering method under the C23C14 coating classification, covering publications from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. This is a scoped search rather than an exhaustive count of every coating patent worldwide, so the true figure for the broader PVD field is larger. Family-level counting is used so that continuation filings and multiple jurisdictional copies of one invention are not double-counted.
Filing activity is concentrated but not dominated by any single company: the top five ranked assignees together hold 21.3% of all 2,638 records in scope, with the leading assignee alone holding 164 records. Named organisations active in the ranked list include Kobe Steel, the Institute of Metal Research, Oerlikon Surface Solutions, Mitsubishi Materials and Sumitomo Electric Industries, among ninety-five other ranked entrants. The remaining roughly four-fifths of records sit across a long tail of single- or few-filing organisations, so no one company controls the field outright.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 189 records and declined over the following years, but the 2021–2024 window — the most recent period that can be treated as complete — shows a near-flat move from 106 to 107 records, a +1% change. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the lower counts visible for 2025 and 2026 in the same series are a data-cutoff artefact rather than a genuine drop in filing. Read the field as having plateaued after its 2017 peak, not as actively slowing.
China is by far the largest receiving office with 1,527 records, more than five times the next-largest office. Japan follows at 279 records, the United States at 206, the European Patent Office at 179, South Korea at 163, and the WIPO PCT route at 47. This distribution suggests both R&D activity and defensive filing strategy for arc ion plating are heavily weighted toward the Chinese market and Chinese applicants.
US12272845B2, assigned to IHI Hauzer Techno Coating and published 2025-04-08, claims a method for coating metal components of a fuel cell stack — including bipolar plates, electrodes and gaskets — through an etching step, an optional adhesion layer, and a carbon coating deposited by one of several named processes including arc ion plating, sputtering, general PVD, or a Hipims process. It does not block arc ion plating or PVD coating generally; the claims are tied specifically to the fuel-cell-stack component application and the etch-then-coat sequence described. Work outside that specific component and process sequence would need a separate freedom-to-operate check against this patent's exact claim language.
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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.