Piezoelectric Material Manufacturing Patents: Who Leads, Gaps 2026
- Filing has cooled since a 2017 peak of 23 records, with the 2022 midpoint at just 9 — this is a maturing, not a growing, filing category.
- No assignee in the recent-momentum list filed anything in the latest year, including Samsung, Panasonic, Seiko Epson and SOITEC — a signal the active edge has shifted to smaller or newer filers.
- H10N and H01L together dominate the IPC mix (238 and 170 of 253 records), while C04B ceramics-specific claims sit far behind at only 21 — thin-film and device integration outpaces bulk ceramic process claims.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 253 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim piezoelectric material manufacturing steps — tape casting of piezoceramic, sputtered piezo film deposition, poling processes, and general manufacturing process claims — filtered against IPC classes covering electric solid-state devices, sputtering/coating, and piezoelectric-specific hardware. The scope spans both bulk ceramic routes (tape casting, sintering) and thin-film routes (sputtering, etching, poling), which is why the composition skews heavily toward device-level IPC codes like H10N and H01L rather than ceramics-only classification.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has trended down or flat since, with the 2022 midpoint at roughly a third of the peak. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate true filing volume — but the multi-year decline predates that lag window and reflects a real slowdown in new filing, not a data artefact.
Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below place filing volume against the IPC subclasses that actually carry the claims, so a reader can see not just how much was filed but where the claim density sits.
A filing peak that has not been repeated
23 records in 2017 remains the high-water mark for this search; by the 2022 midpoint annual output had fallen to 9, and the trend has not recovered. Read the final one to two years with the publication lag in mind rather than as a hard drop to zero.
Device integration outweighs bulk ceramic process claims
H10N (238 records) and H01L (170) dominate, meaning most claims sit at the level of finished piezoelectric devices and semiconductor integration rather than the ceramic material itself. C04B, the ceramics-specific class, appears in only 21 records — bulk tape-casting and sintering process claims are comparatively sparse against thin-film and device claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 253 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Piezoelectric Material Manufacturing Process with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about piezoelectric material manufacturing process and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
Piezoelectric thin film element, method for manufacturing the same, and electronic device including piezoelectric thin film element
The filing describes a manufacturing sequence for an alkali-niobate-based piezoelectric thin film: forming a lower electrode film on a substrate, forming the piezoelectric thin film on that electrode, patterning an etching mask on the film, and dry-etching the film into the desired pattern — with the etching mask specified as an oxide layer adjacent to the piezoelectric film.Sumitomo Chemical, published 2016-12-15.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20120055257A1 | Pressure sensing or force generating device | 240 |
| 2 | US20050185026A1 | Piezoelectric element, piezoelectric actuator, ink jet recording head, ink jet printer, surface acoustic wave… | 195 |
| 3 | US7275292B2 | Method for fabricating an acoustical resonator on a substrate | 156 |
| 4 | US6447887B1 | Electrostrictive and piezoelectric thin film assemblies and method of fabrication therefor | 120 |
| 5 | US8479585B2 | Pressure sensing or force generating device | 78 |
| 6 | US20080079333A1 | Energy harvesting device manufactured by print forming processes | 76 |
| 7 | US20180309426A1 | Surface acoustic wave device and associated production method | 67 |
| 8 | US6004500A | Methods for producing novel ceramic composites | 62 |
| 9 | US20100058861A1 | Piezoelectric Transducers and Inertial Sensors using Piezoelectric Transducers | 57 |
| 10 | US6822376B2 | Method for making electrical connection to ultrasonic transducer | 57 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current filing activity.
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
Three patterns stand out once the trend and IPC data are read together: a shrinking filing pool, a device-heavy claim mix, and receiving-office concentration that does not match where ceramic manufacturing actually happens.
The category has already crested
Annual filings fell from a 2017 peak of 23 to 9 by the 2022 midpoint, with no recovery visible since. Combined with zero recent-year filings across every assignee in the momentum list, this reads as a category where the core process claims were staked out early and few new entrants are contesting them.
Most claims protect devices, not raw ceramic process
H10N and H01L cover 238 and 170 records respectively, against only 21 in C04B. A team working on bulk tape-casting or sintering chemistry is filing into comparatively open ceramics-class space, even though the overall field looks crowded from the device side.
US filing volume outpaces Asian manufacturing bases
The United States receives 132 filings against 14 for China, despite ceramic and thin-film piezoelectric manufacturing being heavily concentrated in East Asian supply chains. That gap suggests either under-filing in China relative to production volume or a preference for protecting downstream device claims in the US market.
Collaboration is rare and mostly corporate-inventor
Only nine co-assignee pairs appear across the full set, and the strongest links pair a corporate assignee with a named individual inventor rather than two companies. This is a field of largely independent filers, not one built on cross-licensing consortia.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to piezoelectric material manufacturing process, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has gone quiet
The assignee base is fragmented rather than dominated by one or two firms, and the names with the largest historical footprints — Samsung, Panasonic, Seiko Epson, SOITEC — show zero filings in the latest tracked year, alongside smaller specialist filers.
Historic leaders have stopped filing
Every assignee named in the recent-momentum data, including large electronics manufacturers, shows zero filings in the most recent year. That does not necessarily mean exit from the technology — publication lag means the newest filings from any of these firms may simply not have surfaced yet — but it does mean the visible frontier has moved elsewhere.
University-industry links are the exception, not the rule
The strongest co-assignee relationship in the dataset pairs a large electronics manufacturer with a university technology-transfer office, at three joint filings. Robert Bosch appears in two separate pairs with named individual inventors, suggesting inventor-driven rather than institutional collaboration.
A wide base of single- and few-filing entrants
With 253 families spread across a roster that includes ceramics specialists, semiconductor conglomerates, and individual inventors, ownership of core manufacturing claims is distributed rather than concentrated. New entrants filing one or two families still have room to stake defensible positions in specific process steps.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| SOITEC | 0 | — |
| Panasonic Corporation (Japan) | 0 | — |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 0 | — |
| Seiko Epson Corporation | 0 | — |
| Amec LLC | 0 | — |
| General Inspection Technologies | 0 | — |
| Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany) | 0 | — |
| Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and assignee data point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white-space filing, or monitoring a competitor.
Check freedom-to-operate against the citation leaders
The five most-cited records anchor prior art in pressure-sensing devices, thin-film piezoelectric fabrication, and acoustic resonator manufacture. Any new filing in these areas should be checked against these documents specifically before drafting claims.
Explore prior art in EurekaModel a claim in an under-claimed branch
Low-temperature poling and lead-free alkali-niobate thin-film routes show thinner claim density than the device-integration classes. Drafting around a specific process parameter in these areas avoids the densest prior art.
Draft a claim in EurekaTrack dormant leaders for re-entry
Firms with zero recent-year filings may resume once their next filing cohort publishes. Set a watch on the largest historical filers rather than assuming exit from the space.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on piezoelectric manufacturing patents
The dataset shows filings peaking at 23 records in 2017 and falling to 9 by the 2022 midpoint, with no recovery through the most recent tracked years. This pattern typically indicates that core manufacturing process claims — poling protocols, standard sputtering sequences, tape-casting steps — were staked out early by the first wave of filers, leaving less open ground for follow-on process patents. It does not mean the underlying technology has stopped advancing; it means the patenting activity around these specific manufacturing steps has slowed. Readers should also account for publication lag of roughly 18 months, which understates the very latest years regardless of the underlying trend.
The assignee base in this dataset is fragmented rather than dominated by a single company, spanning ceramics specialists, large semiconductor and electronics firms, and individual inventors. Names with substantial historical filing footprints include large Japanese and Korean electronics manufacturers alongside materials specialists such as Sumitomo Chemical, but none shows filing activity in the most recent tracked year according to the momentum data. This suggests the field's visible leadership has shifted or gone quiet rather than remaining static, and any competitive assessment should weight historical volume against recent-year silence.
Tape casting is a bulk ceramic process, typically classified under C04B, which appears in only 21 of the 253 records in this dataset — a comparatively thin slice of the corpus. Sputtered and other thin-film routes fall mostly under H10N and H01L, which together account for 238 and 170 records respectively, reflecting far denser claim activity around thin-film deposition, patterning and device integration. For a team choosing where to file, the bulk ceramic route currently carries lighter claim density in this search than the thin-film route does.
Not directly. The United States accounts for 132 of the receiving-office filings in this dataset, compared with 14 for China, 11 for South Korea and 10 for Japan, even though a large share of ceramic and thin-film piezoelectric manufacturing capacity sits in East Asian supply chains. This gap likely reflects a strategic preference for filing device-level and downstream-market claims in the US rather than an absence of manufacturing-process innovation in Asia. Readers assessing regional competitive risk should treat receiving-office counts as a market-protection signal, not a manufacturing-location signal.
The IPC composition points to bulk ceramic process steps — tape-casting slurry formulation, low-temperature poling protocols, and lead-free alkali-niobate thin-film routes — as comparatively under-claimed relative to the dense device-integration classes like H10N and H01L. Co-assignee data also shows only nine joint-filing relationships across the whole corpus, meaning collaborative or licensing-based filing strategies remain largely untested here. A first claim in one of these thinner branches, tied to a specific process parameter rather than a general method, is more likely to clear existing prior art than a claim in the crowded thin-film device space.
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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.