Shape-Memory Alloy 3D Printing Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
- Filing activity has plateaued, not grown. the peak year so far is 2022 at 16 families, with the trend flat to declining since — this is a technology that occupied its claim space early rather than one still accelerating.
- China dominates the filing venue. 40 of the tracked receiving-office filings are in China against 8 in the United States, meaning most prior art here is Chinese-language and needs local search coverage.
- Co-filing is concentrated in one cluster. the strongest co-assignee pairs all involve South China University of Technology, its ceramics/hardware partner and a cancer-hospital research institute — an unusual materials-plus-medical pairing worth watching.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of shape-memory alloys — nickel-titanium (NiTi/nitinol) systems above all — and additive manufacturing processes such as laser powder bed fusion. The search combines shape-memory alloy terminology with 4D-printing and printed shape-memory structure language, restricted to B22F (powder metallurgy), B33Y (additive manufacturing) and C22C (alloys) IPC classes. It captures both the metallurgical composition side of the field and the process side — how the powder is atomised, sintered or laser-fused into a shape-memory structure with programmed transformation behaviour.
Fifty-five families sit inside the window from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with publication lagging filing by roughly 18 months — so the most recent year understates true filing activity. Every record in the set also touches B33Y, confirming the search is tightly centred on additive processes rather than shape-memory alloys generally.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 55-family dataset: how filing has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were negligible before 2020, rose to a peak of 16 in 2022, and have since flattened. With 2022 as the midpoint of activity and no sustained rise afterward, the field reads as an early land-grab that has not been followed by a second wave — though the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
IPC subclass distribution
B33Y (additive manufacturing) covers all 55 records by construction of the search, and B22F (powder metallurgy) appears in 47 of them, confirming that powder-based processes — not wire-fed or other AM routes — are the dominant fabrication path. C22C (alloys) at 35 shows composition claims are nearly as common as process claims. Smaller counts in A61L, A61F and A61B point to a real but minority medical-implant application layer sitting on top of the core materials and process work.
Shares are the percentage of the 55 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Shape-Memory Alloy Additive Manufacturing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about shape-memory alloy additive manufacturing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in the corpus
4D printing method and application of titanium-nickel shape memory alloy
A 4D printing method for a titanium-nickel shape memory alloy, and the titanium-nickel shape memory alloy and application thereof. Pure titanium and pure nickel are mixed and smelted, and titanium-nickel alloy bars are obtained; then alloy powder is prepared by means of a rotating electrode atomization method, the powder is sieved, and titanium-nickel alloy powder having a grain size of 15-53 μm is obtained; and the obtained titanium-nickel alloy powder is placed in a discharge plasma auxiliary ball mill to be subjected to discharge treatment, the powder is subjected to surface modification, and finally the titanium-nickel shape memory alloy is formed by means of SLM forming.Filed by South China University of Technology, published as US20210394268A1, dated 2021-12-23.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN111842888A | 一种镍钛基三元形状记忆合金的4D打印方法 | 39 |
| 2 | CN115070052A | 一种新型双态组织镍钛形状记忆合金及其4D打印制备方法与应用 | 10 |
| 3 | CN113210626A | 一种4D打印功能梯度钛镍形状记忆合金构件的方法 | 10 |
| 4 | US20210394269A1 | 4d printing method for in-situ regulation of functional properties of nickel-titanium alloy and use thereof | 10 |
| 5 | JP2022169459A | Ultrahigh-superelasticity titanium-nickel shape memory alloy with sequentially structured functional unit, an… | 9 |
| 6 | US20230415234A1 | NiTiHf High Temperature Shape Memory Alloy with Two-Way Shape Memory Effect, and 4D Printing Method and Appli… | 8 |
| 7 | CN112222398A | 一种DLP成形形状记忆合金制件的4D打印方法 | 8 |
| 8 | US20210394268A1 | 4d printing method and application of titanium-nickel shape memory alloy | 8 |
| 9 | CN114346259A | 一种记忆功能稳定适合人体承载植入物的镍钛形状记忆合金及其4D打印方法与应用 | 7 |
| 10 | CN111151756A | 一种形状记忆合金管接头的4D打印快速制造方法及产品 | 7 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings, since they have had longer to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of technical influence within the set, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
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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Reading the trend and citation data together points to where claim space is dense and where it is thin.
A plateau, not a growth curve
With the midpoint of activity in 2022 and no sustained increase since, new entrants are filing into a space where the core process claims — powder atomisation, SLM/LPBF forming, phase-composition control — are already staked out. Differentiation now has to come from a specific alloy variant or a specific application, not from the base process.
China is the primary prior-art venue
The receiving-office split shows China carrying the large majority of filings, with the United States, WIPO/PCT, Japan, Australia and India accounting for the rest. Freedom-to-operate work in this field has to include Chinese-language search and cannot rely on English-language databases alone.
One filing anchors the citation graph
The most-cited record in the set — a ternary NiTi-based shape-memory alloy 4D-printing method — is cited roughly four times more than the next tier. That gap suggests it defined vocabulary or a reference process that later filers had to cite around, making it a useful starting point for any freedom-to-operate review.
Process claims outnumber composition claims
Powder-metallurgy process claims (B22F) appear in more records than alloy-composition claims (C22C), meaning the fabrication route itself — how the powder is made, sintered or laser-fused — is more heavily claimed than the specific alloy chemistry. New composition variants may have more room than new process tweaks.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to shape-memory alloy additive manufacturing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and collaboration patterns
Filing here is led by Chinese university and research-institute assignees, often working with an industrial or clinical co-assignee rather than filing solo.
South China University of Technology anchors the strongest cluster
Its pairing with a sanitary-ware manufacturer and a cancer-hospital research institute is the densest co-assignee relationship in the set, suggesting the university's NiTi 4D-printing work is being routed into both a consumer-hardware application and a medical-implant application in parallel.
No assignee shows current-year momentum
Every assignee tracked for recent-year activity, including the most active historical filers, shows zero filings in the latest year — consistent with the plateau seen in the overall trend rather than a single company slowing down.
Collaboration is real but narrow
Nine identified co-assignee pairs across 55 families show that joint filing is a meaningful minority pattern here, concentrated around one university's partnerships rather than spread evenly across the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| South China University of Technology | 0 | — |
| Guangdong Huayi Sanitary Ware Industrial Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
| Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Hospital / Cancer Institute) | 0 | — |
| Sinn Nam Innovation Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shandong Kangsheng Medical Devices Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Guangzhou Leijia Additive Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tianjin University | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps for teams deciding where to file or where to watch.
Map the LPBF process claims in detail
With B22F present in 47 of 55 records, a claim-by-claim breakdown of powder preparation and laser-fusion parameters will show exactly how tight the process space really is before committing to a new filing.
Explore in EurekaTrack the South China University of Technology cluster
Its co-assignee relationships span sanitary hardware and clinical research, an unusual pairing that may signal where NiTi 4D-printing commercialisation is actually heading.
Explore in EurekaBuild out Chinese-language freedom-to-operate coverage
With 40 of 55 filings routed through China, any clearance search that skips Chinese-language sources is working from an incomplete picture.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
It combines 3D-printing processes, mainly laser powder bed fusion, with nickel-titanium and related shape-memory alloys to produce parts that change shape in response to temperature or stress, without machining a finished shape-memory component from bulk stock. Applications documented in this patent set span structural and mechanical components as well as a smaller cluster of medical implant and surgical uses. The appeal is being able to print complex geometries, such as lattices or functionally graded sections, that would be very difficult to achieve with conventional forming of shape-memory alloys.
Filing in this dataset is led by Chinese university and research-institute assignees, with South China University of Technology showing the strongest collaboration footprint through co-assignee filings with an industrial partner and a clinical research institute. No single assignee shows current-year filing momentum, since the whole field's activity has flattened since its 2022 peak. A full ranking of filers by family count is rendered in the players table above.
The receiving-office data shows 40 of the 55 tracked families were filed in China, well ahead of the United States, WIPO/PCT, Japan, Australia and India combined. This reflects concentrated university and research-institute activity in Chinese materials science programmes working on NiTi powder metallurgy and laser fusion. Anyone conducting freedom-to-operate work in this space should treat Chinese-language patent literature as the primary, not secondary, source.
Not currently, based on the tracked trend: filing activity rose from near zero to a peak of 16 families in 2022 and has not exceeded that level since. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in the data are understated, so this should not be read as a hard stop. But there is no visible second wave of filing growth in the data collected so far, which is more consistent with an early claim-staking period than an accelerating field.
Relative to the dense core of NiTi powder-bed-fusion process claims, several adjacent branches carry comparatively thin coverage in this dataset: multi-material 4D-printed structures, functionally graded NiTi-titanium components, in-situ property regulation during printing, and sterilisation or biocompatible surface treatment specific to printed SMA implants. Wire-arc and directed-energy-deposition routes to shape-memory alloys are also lightly represented compared with powder-bed fusion. These are reasonable starting points for a novelty search before drafting a new application.
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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.