Seamless Tube Rolling Patents: Top Filers & Filing Trends 2026
Seamless Tube Rolling Patents: Who Holds the Claim Space
83.9% concentration. The top five assignees account for 1,485 of the 1,770 records in scope — a field with almost no open middle tier. Records climbed from 71 in 2017 to a peak of 108 in 2019, then declined; the 2021-to-2024 span moved from 51 to 21 records, a 59% drop. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as incomplete rather than as evidence of a further slide.
- 1NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION840
- 2NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP285
- 3SUMITOMO METAL IND LTD155
- 4JFE STEEL CORP150
- 5KAWASAKI STEEL CORP55
See the full seamless tube rolling analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on seamless tube rolling patents
Who holds the most patents in seamless tube rolling?
One assignee leads the corpus decisively, holding 840 of the 1,770 records in scope — close to half the field on its own. The next four ranked assignees combined bring the top five to 1,485 records, or 83.9% of all records. Beyond the top ten, which together hold 90.6% of records, filing activity thins into a long tail of entities with only a handful of filings each, so freedom-to-operate work should prioritise the leading names first.
Is seamless tube rolling patent activity growing or slowing?
Filings peaked in 2019 at 108 records and have declined since. Looking at the most recent complete comparison window, filings dropped from 51 records in 2021 to 21 in 2024, a 59% decline. Because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming a continued drop.
What technology areas dominate seamless tube rolling patents?
Alloy composition claims under IPC class C22C appear in 52.3% of the 1,770 records, while metal rolling (B21B) and heat treatment of metals (C21D) each appear in 46.3%. Because a single filing can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures overlap substantially, indicating that most substantive filings combine a mechanical rolling step with an alloy or heat-treatment claim rather than filing either in isolation. Smaller classes like metal extrusion and drawing, coating, and steelmaking each sit under 6% of records.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Seamless Tube Rolling covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.