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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/refractory-materials-for-industrial-furnaces-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Refractory MaterialsRefractory materials patents for industrial furnaces: filing trends, leading assignees and open claim space
- Filings have flattened, not grown. the peak year so far is 2022 at 174 families, and 2026 volume already sits well below that partial-year pace — occupied claim space, not a rising field.
- China dominates the filing venue. 2,253 of the tracked records were filed there against 415 in Japan and 276 in the United States, so freedom-to-operate work has to start with the Chinese register.
- Collaboration is thin and concentrated. only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the whole dataset, and the strongest single pairing accounts for 51 shared filings — most applicants file alone.
3,832
Published Records
14%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-4%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (167 records) with 2024 (161) — 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 3,832 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks 3,832 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine refractory material composition claims — castable refractories, furnace linings, monolithic repair materials — with claims tied to slag corrosion, thermal shock, high-temperature creep, installation method or service life. The IPC scope spans C04B35 (ceramics and refractories), F27D1 (furnace linings and details) and C04B14 (fillers and reinforcements), so the corpus captures both the material science and the furnace-engineering side of the same problem.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend chart understate real filing activity for those years; treat the most recent one or two years as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trend and technology composition
The subclass mix shows where claim density actually sits: refractory chemistry itself, not the furnace hardware around it, carries most of the filing weight.
A flat-to-declining filing curve
Filings ran at 159 in 2017, climbed to a peak of 174 in 2022, and have since eased off; the 2026 figure of 34 is a partial year, but even annualised it does not point to renewed growth. This is a mature filing area where incumbents are defending positions rather than a field still being staked out.
Composition concentrated in C04B and F27D
C04B (ceramics, cement and refractories) accounts for 2,798 of the records and F27D (furnace details and accessories) for 1,327, together dwarfing the metal-casting (B22D, 471), furnace/kiln (F27B, 329) and steelmaking (C21C, 227) counts. Iron production (C21B, 137), foundry moulding (B22C, 67) and electric heating circuits (H05B, 67) are the smallest slices — plausible entry points for narrower, less contested claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,832 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited prior art and a recent representative filing
Representative recent filing
US20240261851A1 — Refractory material with function of cleaning molten steel, preparation method therefor and use thereof
THE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BEIJING
Filed by The University of Science and Technology Beijing, this application discloses a refractory material whose phase composition includes one or more of CA6, CMA, corundum and ZrO2, aimed at high purity, erosion resistance, slag-permeability resistance and thermal shock stability while limiting refractory contamination of the molten steel it contacts.Published 2024-08-08 — recent enough that citation counts have not yet accumulated.
Highest-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5227106A | Process for making large size cast monolithic refractory repair modules suitable for use in a coke oven repair | 128 |
| 2 | US5286685A | Refractory materials consisting of grains bonded by a binding phase based on aluminum nitride containing boro… | 124 |
| 3 | JP2013189322A | Silica-based castable refractory and silica-based precast block refractory | 91 |
| 4 | US6582796B1 | Monolithic honeycomb structure made of porous ceramic and use as a particle filter | 90 |
| 5 | US4366255A | Highly reinforced refractory concrete with 4-20 volume % steel fibers | 80 |
| 6 | US4737326A | Refractory shapes of ceramic fiber-containing material | 78 |
| 7 | CN102093064A | 一种高钢纤维含量的耐火喷涂料及喷涂方法 | 70 |
| 8 | US4761134A | Silicon carbide diffusion furnace components with an impervious coating thereon | 65 |
| 9 | US7074361B2 | Ladle | 64 |
| 10 | US4364798A | Rebuilt coke oven heating chamber and method of making the same | 61 |
Citation counts accumulate over time inside this searched corpus, so older US filings from the 1980s and 1990s lead the table; that reflects influence on later filers, not current commercial relevance.
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.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once families, geography and co-filing behaviour are put side by side.
Filing venue
2,253 vs 415 vs 276
China vs Japan vs US receiving-office counts
China is the primary battleground, not a secondary market
With 2,253 of the tracked filings entering through China against 415 in Japan and 276 in the US, freedom-to-operate and invalidity searches that stop at USPTO or EPO records miss the bulk of the active claim landscape.
Receiving-office data
Filing trend
159 → 174 → 34
2017, peak 2022, latest partial year
The field has plateaued
Volume rose to a peak of 174 families in 2022 and has since softened; a flat or declining trend after a mid-decade peak usually means incumbents are consolidating positions rather than new entrants opening fresh ground.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
strongest pair: 51 shared filings
Most applicants file solo
Only 10 co-assignee pairings show up across 3,832 families, and even the strongest — a steelmaker and a refractory specialist — accounts for just 51 joint filings. Academic-industrial pairings involving Chinese universities and regional refractory makers repeat at a smaller scale (18 filings each).
Co-assignee pairs
Technology mix
2,798 in C04B
vs 1,327 in F27D
Composition claims outweigh furnace-hardware claims
Material composition (C04B) carries roughly twice the filing volume of furnace lining and hardware detail (F27D), so the chemistry side of the problem is more heavily claimed than the installation and equipment side.
IPC subclass distribution
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to refractory materials for industrial furnaces, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where momentum has gone quiet
Recent-year activity across the tracked assignees is thin across the board — a sign that even the most active filers of the past decade have slowed rather than accelerated.
Momentum
1 filing, latest year
Kurosaki Harima
Kurosaki Harima holds the strongest partnership on record
Kurosaki Harima's pairing with Nippon Steel is the strongest co-assignee link in the dataset at 51 shared filings, but its own latest-year output has slowed to a single filing — consistent with a mature, defensively-held position rather than active expansion.
Co-assignee and recent-year data
Momentum
-90% YoY
Wuhan University of Science and Technology
University filers are pulling back sharply
Wuhan University of Science and Technology shows a 90% year-on-year drop to a single latest-year filing, and University of Science and Technology Beijing shows a similar 50% decline — both remain named on record but well off their filing peaks.
Recent-year momentum
Momentum
0 in latest year
Nippon Steel; Foseco International
Some long-standing filers show no latest-year activity
Nippon Steel and Foseco International both show zero filings in the most recent year tracked, though publication lag means some of this may still surface as pending applications age into the record.
Recent-year momentum by assignee
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Kurosaki Harima Corporation | 1 | — |
| Wuhan University of Science and Technology | 1 | -90% |
| Sinosteel Luoyang Institute of Refractories Research Co., Ltd. | 1 | -50% |
| University of Science and Technology Beijing | 1 | -50% |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Foseco International Limited | 0 | — |
| Shinagawa Refractories Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Toshiba Ceramics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, white space filing, or competitive tracking.
Run a China-first freedom-to-operate check
With 2,253 of 3,832 families filed through China, any clearance search that only covers the US and EPO registers is working from a minority of the active claims.
Explore Eureka →Test claim language in the smaller IPC subclasses
B22C, H05B and C21B carry the lowest filing volumes in this set; drafting around installation-method and service-life language in those subclasses is less likely to run into dense prior art.
Explore Eureka →Watch for lagging publications from active filers
Several assignees show zero or falling latest-year counts that may simply reflect the 18-month publication lag rather than a real slowdown; recheck these names against fresh publications on a rolling basis.
Explore Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on refractory material patents
Filing activity in this dataset is spread across a long list of assignees rather than concentrated in one or two names, with Chinese steelmakers, refractory manufacturers and universities alongside established Japanese firms like Kurosaki Harima and Nippon Steel. The strongest documented relationship is a co-assignee pairing between Kurosaki Harima and Nippon Steel at 51 shared filings, which signals a long-running joint development programme rather than a single dominant owner. Anyone building a competitor watch list should track assignee families rather than individual filers, since related entities and university-industry pairs often file jointly.
No, filing volume has plateaued. The tracked trend rose from 159 families in 2017 to a peak of 174 in 2022, and has since eased; the 2026 count is a partial year but does not suggest renewed growth. Combined with publication lag of roughly 18 months, the honest read is a mature field where incumbents are defending existing claim space rather than a technology still being rapidly staked out.
China first: 2,253 of the 3,832 tracked families were filed there, far ahead of Japan at 415, the United States at 276, the EPO at 219, the United Kingdom at 108 and Canada at 107. A search limited to US and European registers would miss the majority of active filings in this space. Given the volume gap, any clearance or invalidity search should treat the Chinese register as the primary source, not a supplementary check.
US20240261851A1, filed by The University of Science and Technology Beijing and published 2024-08-08, covers a refractory material for cleaning molten steel whose phase composition includes one or more of CA6, CMA, corundum and zirconia, aimed at high purity, erosion resistance and thermal shock stability. It is recent enough that citation data has not yet accumulated, so its influence on later filings cannot yet be judged from citation counts alone. Anyone formulating a similar high-purity, slag-resistant refractory for molten steel contact should review its specific claim scope for phase composition and preparation method before finalising a formulation.
The smallest IPC subclasses in this dataset — foundry moulding (B22C, 67 records), electric heating circuits (H05B, 67 records) and blast-furnace iron production (C21B, 137 records) — carry far less filing volume than the dominant C04B and F27D subclasses. Installation-method and service-life claim language, rather than pure material composition, also appears less densely claimed based on the composition-versus-hardware split in this corpus. These are reasonable starting points for narrower claims, though a full clearance search within each subclass is still needed before filing.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Refractory Materials for Industrial Furnaces covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.