Section & Structural Steel Rolling Patents: Who Leads 2026
- One assignee dominates the ranking. the leader holds 42 records against a fifth-place count of just 7, a steep drop-off rather than a gradual taper.
- Filing activity already peaked. 2018 recorded 12 filings, the high point of the window, with the trend now trailing off through the most recent (partial) year.
- Claim space is concentrated in one subclass. B21B metal rolling covers 70.9% of the 134 records in scope, while heat treatment, coating and alloy classes each sit under 10%.
What this landscape covers
Section and structural steel rolling patents in this dataset centre on the mechanics of turning a hot bloom into finished beam, angle or rail sections: universal beam mill configurations, roll pass sequence design, flange-web balance control, and the downstream steps of section straightening and cooling bed layout that fix dimensional accuracy and residual stress. The search spans 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawing on 134 published records and the assignees behind them.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend understates real activity; treat the last one or two years as provisional rather than as evidence of a slowdown.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The trend line and the IPC breakdown below are drawn from the same 134-record set that anchors this landscape.
A single peak year, then decline
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2018, then eased off across the rest of the window. With fewer than four complete years available once the publication lag is accounted for, no growth rate can be stated from this data — but the shape points to a technology whose core mechanical claims were staked out early rather than one still building momentum.
Rolling mechanics dominate; ancillary steps are thin
B21B (metal rolling) appears in 70.9% of the 134 records, confirming that the core contest is over pass design and mill configuration. Heat treatment (C21D), coating (C23C) and alloy composition (C22C) each sit near 9% or below, and sheet-metal working, non-ferrous treatment, casting and electroplating classes trail further behind — each a candidate for closer scrutiny rather than an assumed white space.
Shares are the percentage of the 134 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Section and Structural Steel Rolling with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe records other filings build on
Method of rolling rails
A rail is rolled from a hot-rolled bloom having a square or rectangular cross section by a method constituted by breakdown rolling, universal rolling — effected by passing the bloom through a plurality of stands making only a single pass on each stand — base-wheel rolling, head-wheel rolling and edging. The bloom is broken down into a substantially H-shaped beam blank symmetrical about its web centreline. In the base-wheel rolling stage, the flanges corresponding to the rail head and base are rolled widthwise and thicknesswise in three or more passes using a pair of horizontal rolls.Filed by Nippon Steel Corporation, 1985-03-12 — a foundational single-pass universal rolling method still cited across later beam and rail rolling filings.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100196637A1 | Method for producing fibre-reinforced hollow bodies and products formed using said method | 92 |
| 2 | JP1986262404A | Hot rolling method for wide flange beam | 23 |
| 3 | JP1990147112A | Method and device for control rolling for web height of h-shape steel | 22 |
| 4 | US4106318A | Method and apparatus for rolling metallic material | 22 |
| 5 | US5553475A | Method for detecting setting errors of clearance between rollers in universal rolling mill, and method for ro… | 16 |
| 6 | US4503700A | Method of rolling rails | 16 |
| 7 | JP1991005011A | Rolling guide for shape steel | 13 |
| 8 | US20150361664A1 | H-section steel and method of producing the same | 12 |
| 9 | US20140301888A1 | High-strength h-beam steel exhibiting excellent low-temperature toughness and method of manufacturing same | 12 |
| 10 | US4958509A | Rolling method for parallel-flange steel shapes | 10 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; read them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend and the IPC mix are read together.
One filer, then a steep drop
The gap between the leading assignee at 42 records and fifth place at just 7 is not a gradual taper — it is a cliff. That points to one organisation having built a dense thicket around core mill and pass-design claims early, leaving later entrants to file around a small number of already-crowded positions rather than compete on volume.
Activity already crested
Filings climbed from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2018 and have not returned to that level since. Combined with the concentration at the top of the ranking, this suggests the core mechanical claim space around universal beam milling was staked out in a short window rather than contested continuously.
Rolling mechanics, not metallurgy, is the battleground
Metal rolling (B21B) appears far more often than any metallurgical class. Heat treatment, coating, alloy and casting classes each sit in single digits to low double digits of the 134 records, which is a narrower footprint than the mechanical rolling classes and worth checking directly before assuming it is open.
Filing is anchored in Japan, then split West
Japan accounts for the largest share of receiving-office activity at 62, ahead of Europe (EPO) at 21 and the United States at 19, with Germany and Australia trailing. That distribution tracks the historical concentration of structural steel rolling capacity and R&D in Japanese steelmakers.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to section and structural steel rolling, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
The ranking covers 17 companies in total — the entire set the data endpoint returns, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Recent-year momentum for the named leaders reads flat: none of the tracked assignees show filings in the latest year, consistent with the post-2018 decline in the overall trend.
A dominant single filer
The top-ranked assignee holds 42 records, well ahead of the rest of the ranked field. That scale is typically built through decades of incremental mill and pass-design filings rather than a single burst of activity.
A sharp drop after the leader
Fifth place in the ranking holds 7 records — a fraction of the leader's count. This gap suggests most competitors have staked out narrow, defensive positions rather than broad platforms.
Single-digit filers make up most of the field
By tenth place the count falls to 3 records, and the ranking includes several state research institutes and individual inventors alongside the major steelmakers. Co-assignee activity is limited to three identified pairs, mostly linking metallurgical research institutes to production plants.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Kawasaki Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP | 0 | — |
| ArcelorMittal S.A. | 0 | — |
| Nippon Kokan K.K. | 0 | — |
| Federal State Unitary Enterprise All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Inorganic Materials named after A.A. Bochvar | 0 | — |
| OPEN SAMARA METALLURGICAL PLANT | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature, concentrated claim space around universal beam mill mechanics with a small number of thinner adjacent branches. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate or new filing.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 42 of the ranked records, any new mill or pass-design filing should be checked against that portfolio specifically rather than against the field average.
Explore assignee portfolios in Eureka →Probe the under-claimed branches before assuming they're open
Coating, non-ferrous treatment and casting-integration classes show low record counts, but low counts can also mean the search terms miss adjacent filings. Verify with a targeted search before filing.
Run a targeted white-space search in Eureka →Treat the recent-year figures as provisional
Publication lag means the last one to two years in this trend will fill in further. Re-check the trend chart closer to filing decisions rather than relying on the current snapshot alone.
Set up monitoring in Eureka →Common questions on this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 42 records, well ahead of fifth place at 7 and tenth place at 3. That is a steep drop-off rather than a gradual taper, which typically indicates the leader built a dense position on core mill and pass-design claims over a long period. The ranking covers 17 companies in total, drawn from a set of 134 published records, so it should not be described as a top-50 or top-100 list — it is the complete ranked field the dataset returns.
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2018 and have not returned to that level since, based on the trend through the 2026 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one or two years understate true activity and should be treated as provisional. With fewer than four complete years available once that lag is factored in, no reliable growth rate can be stated from this data.
Metal rolling mechanics, IPC class B21B, appears in 70.9% of the 134 records in scope, making it by far the largest single technology bucket. Heat treatment, coating and alloy composition classes each sit at or below roughly 9% of records, and sheet-metal working, non-ferrous treatment, casting and electroplating classes are thinner still. This tells a filer that the core contest is over pass sequence and mill configuration, not metallurgy.
The classes with the thinnest coverage relative to the dominant B21B rolling claims — cooling bed layout automation, post-rolling residual stress relief, beam blank casting integration, and coating or non-ferrous treatment of finished sections — are worth investigating first. Low record counts in these branches are not proof of open space on their own; they may simply reflect the search terms used to build this dataset. A targeted freedom-to-operate search against the leading assignee's full portfolio is the necessary next step before committing claim language.
US4503700A describes a method for rolling rails from a hot bloom through breakdown rolling, single-pass universal rolling, base-wheel and head-wheel rolling, and edging, producing a symmetrical H-shaped beam blank. Its claims are narrow to that specific sequence and roll configuration, which limits how broadly it can block later work — a different pass sequence, roll count, or blank geometry is likely to sit outside its scope. It remains a heavily cited reference in this landscape, which signals influence on how later universal rolling methods were framed rather than blanket coverage of the field.
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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.