Shape-Memory Alloy Heat Treatment Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Flat, not growing. filings ran 4 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2023, with 2022 sitting at the midpoint of 5 — this is a mature, plateaued filing curve, not an emerging one.
- Japan and China lead filing venues. 43 and 40 published records respectively, ahead of the United States at 28, showing where examiners and prior art density concentrate.
- Medical-device overlap is substantial. 36 records also sit in A61F (implants) and 20 in A61L (sterilising), meaning heat-treatment claims here routinely collide with biocompatibility and device prior art.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 148 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine shape-memory alloy compositions — nitinol, NiTi, and related systems — with heat-treatment process claims: shape-setting, aging, training, and transformation-temperature tuning. The search deliberately pairs alloy-family terms with process-specific language, so it captures the treatment step itself rather than every patent that merely mentions a shape-memory alloy in passing.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart understate actual filing activity; treat the most recent one to two years as a floor, not a ceiling. The IPC composition below shows this is not a single-industry technology — core metallurgy classes overlap heavily with medical implant, dental and sterilisation classifications, which is where much of the commercial pull for precise transformation-temperature control comes from.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 148-family dataset: filing activity over time, and where those filings sit across the IPC classification system.
A plateaued filing curve
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2023, with the 2022 midpoint at 5. That trajectory reads as flat-to-declining rather than expansionary — this is a technology where the core process claims were largely staked out some years ago, and recent activity is incremental rather than a land grab.
Concentrated in non-ferrous metal treatment, spilling into medical devices
C22F (non-ferrous metal treatment) covers 143 of 148 records and C22C (alloys) covers 97, confirming the core is metallurgical process control. But A61F (implants) at 36, A61L (sterilising) at 20, A61B (surgery) at 13 and A61C (dentistry) at 10 show that a large minority of filings frame the same heat-treatment work around a specific medical end-use, which changes both the prior art a new filing must clear and the regulatory context it will eventually sit in.
Shares are the percentage of the 148 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 Heat Treatment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about shape-memory alloy heat treatment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe patents anchoring this space
Method of processing and heat-treating NbC-added Fe-Mn-Si-based shape memory alloy (US6855216B2)
A NbC-added Fe-Mn-Si-based shape memory alloy is provided, showing a shape memory property even if a special treatment such as training is not performed. The alloy is rolled by 10 to 30% in a temperature range of 500 to 800°C under austenite condition, then subjected to an aging treatment by heating in a temperature range of 400 to 1000°C for 1 minute to 2 hours.Filed by the National Institute for Materials Science; notable because it removes the training step that most competing Fe-Mn-Si processes rely on.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5882444A | Manufacture of two-way shape memory devices | 196 |
| 2 | US6375458B1 | Medical instruments and devices and parts thereof using shape memory alloys | 175 |
| 3 | US5624508A | Manufacture of a two-way shape memory alloy and device | 163 |
| 4 | US8118952B2 | Osteosynthetic implants and methods of use and manufacture | 68 |
| 5 | US20050090844A1 | Long fatigue life nitinol | 60 |
| 6 | US20080290141A1 | Manufacture of Shape Memory Alloy Cellular Materials and Structures by Transient-Liquid Reactive Joining | 49 |
| 7 | JP1984104459A | Preparation of shape memory alloy material | 40 |
| 8 | JP1987037353A | Manufacture of shape memory alloy | 32 |
| 9 | WO2000069359A1 | Medical instruments and devices and parts thereof using shape memory alloys | 28 |
| 10 | JP1984150069A | Manufacture of shape memory alloy | 28 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of being in the corpus longer; read them as a measure of influence on subsequent filings, not as a signal of current commercial relevance.
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 a filing decision
Read together, the trend, the IPC spread and the citation table point to a technology where the metallurgical core is settled and the open ground is at the application edges.
The peak has already passed
Filings climbed from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2023 before easing; the 2022 midpoint of 5 confirms this is closer to a plateau than a ramp. New entrants should expect a dense, settled prior art base for basic aging and shape-setting steps rather than open ground.
Japan and China set the examination bar
Japan (43) and China (40) between them account for well over half of published records, ahead of the United States (28) and EPO (16). Freedom-to-operate work that only checks US and EPO prior art will miss the bulk of the corpus.
Medical-device framing is common, not incidental
More than a quarter of records carry an implant, surgical or dental classification alongside the core metallurgy code. A heat-treatment claim written purely as a materials-science process risks missing device-side prior art that constrains the same transformation-temperature window.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to shape-memory alloy heat treatment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is active, and where momentum has gone quiet
The assignee set is fragmented rather than dominated by one filer, and the recent-year momentum data shows the named organisations with the deepest historical filing records have no publications in the latest year — consistent with a plateaued field where activity has dispersed rather than concentrated.
A long tail behind a moderate core
The assignee ranking spans research institutes, medical-device specialists and alloy manufacturers rather than a single dominant filer, with co-assignee pairings limited to a handful of one-off collaborations.
Historic leaders have gone quiet recently
Several of the organisations with the strongest historical filing records, including National Institute for Materials Science and University of Florida Research Foundation, show zero filings in the latest year — a sign that near-term activity may be shifting to smaller or newer filers not yet visible in the ranking.
Collaboration is rare and narrow
Only six co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, each tied to a single family. This is a field where organisations mostly file alone rather than through joint ventures or cross-licensed research programmes.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Bomay Lithium Battery Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| National Institute for Materials Science | 0 | — |
| Litana Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Memry Corporation | 0 | — |
| University of Florida Research Foundation, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Zhenjiang Yinuowei Memory Alloy Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tokin Corporation | 0 | — |
| Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
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.
Check freedom-to-operate against Japan and China filings first
With 43 and 40 published records respectively, these two offices carry more prior art than the US and EPO combined for this technology.
Explore in EurekaTest claims against the most-cited records
The five most-cited patents, several dating to the 1990s, still anchor citation chains across the corpus and are the first stop for novelty checks.
Explore in EurekaTrack the assignees that have gone quiet
Zero recent-year filings from historically active organisations suggests reassignment or a shift to unpublished trade-secret practice worth monitoring.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset identifies 148 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine shape-memory alloy compositions such as nitinol or NiTi with a specific heat-treatment process step like shape-setting, aging, training or transformation-temperature tuning. Using families rather than raw document counts avoids double-counting the same invention filed in multiple jurisdictions or through continuation applications. The true figure for recent years is likely somewhat higher than shown, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
The filing trend suggests it is plateaued rather than expanding: annual filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2023, with the 2022 midpoint sitting at 5. That is a flat trajectory, not a growth curve, and it indicates the core process claims for basic aging and shape-setting were largely established some years ago. New activity tends to concentrate at the edges — medical-device integration, damping applications and fatigue-life tuning — rather than in the base metallurgy.
Japan leads with 43 published records, followed closely by China at 40, then the United States at 28, the European Patent Office at 16, WIPO/PCT filings at 7, and Australia at 4. This ordering means a freedom-to-operate search limited to US and European prior art will miss well over half of the relevant published art. Any serious clearance exercise in this field needs Japanese and Chinese-language prior art review as a baseline, not an afterthought.
US6855216B2, assigned to the National Institute for Materials Science, covers a method for processing an NbC-added Fe-Mn-Si-based shape memory alloy that exhibits shape memory behaviour without a separate training step — the alloy is rolled between 500 and 800°C under austenite conditions, then aged by heating between 400 and 1000°C for one minute to two hours. It matters because it removes a process step that many competing Fe-Mn-Si heat-treatment routes still require, which narrows the design-around options for anyone working with niobium-carbide-modified iron-based shape-memory alloys in that same temperature and rolling-reduction window.
The IPC composition shows heavy concentration in core non-ferrous metal treatment (143 of 148 records) and alloys (97), but comparatively thin direct coverage in adjacent applied branches such as damping and vibration control under F16F (9 records) and dentistry-specific transformation tuning under A61C (10 records). These branches sit on the edge of a dense core rather than in it, which makes them a more realistic filing target than the base aging and shape-setting claims that the most-cited patents already occupy.
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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.