Shotcrete Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- A single leader holds 37 records, well ahead of the field, while the top 5 combined account for just 28.9% of all 232 records in scope — concentration at the very top, then a long tail.
- Filing peaked in 2023 at 27 records and 2022 sat at 26, so momentum has flattened rather than kept climbing into the most recent filing years.
- China receives 140 of the tracked filings, more than ten times the next-largest office, putting most competitive activity and prior art inside Chinese-language filings.
What this dataset covers
This landscape tracks 232 published records at the intersection of shotcrete application methods and the specific technical problems that dominate the field’s claims: rebound rate control, accelerator dosage, early strength development, tunnel dust and safety, and fiber-reinforced shotcrete. The scope is bounded by IPC classes covering cement and refractories, tunnel and mine support structures, and spraying equipment — so the set captures both the material chemistry and the delivery hardware side of the technology.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend understate real filing activity for those years; treat the most recent one or two years as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 232-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 27 in 2023, with 2022 close behind at 26. The 2026 figure of 5 is a partial year and, combined with the publication lag, should not be read as a drop-off in real activity — but the 2022-to-2023 plateau does suggest the field's growth rate has flattened rather than continued to accelerate.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) appears in 78.0% of the 232 records, confirming that most claims are material-composition claims rather than equipment claims. E21D (tunnel and mine support) follows at 30.6%. Smaller shares in B05B (spraying & atomising, 3.9%), B28C (mortar & concrete mixing, 3.9%) and E04G (scaffolding & formwork, 3.0%) mark the equipment and process-control side of the field, where filing density is much lower than on the chemistry side.
Shares are the percentage of the 232 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Shotcrete Technology with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about shotcrete technology and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this set
Dynamic monitoring method for rebound rate of wet spraying shotcrete
The method converts laser-scan point clouds of a tunnel rock face into a relative coordinate system to build an initial geometric model, then measures rock wall volume before and after coarse and fine spraying passes to calculate coarse-spray and fine-spray rebound rates separately through three-dimensional modelling.Filed by CHINA TIESIJU CIVIL ENGINEERING GROUP CO., LTD., published 2024-12-05 as US20240404654A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6648962B2 | Micro-granulose particulates | 89 |
| 2 | US20180291736A1 | High-strength confined concrete support system for underground tunnel | 78 |
| 3 | WO1996005150A1 | Cement accelerating admixture | 56 |
| 4 | US20030089281A1 | Micro-granulose particulates | 49 |
| 5 | US4264368A | Admixtures and method for accelerating the setting of portland cement compositions | 36 |
| 6 | CN101265058A | 喷射混凝土 | 31 |
| 7 | US20150315078A1 | Concrete materials with modified rheology, methods of making, and uses thereof | 22 |
| 8 | CN115893895A | 促凝早强剂及其制备方法、混凝土组合物 | 19 |
| 9 | CN113880485A | 一种无碱无氟液体速凝剂及制备和应用 | 17 |
| 10 | CN114671644A | 一种高早强低回弹的高性能喷射混凝土及其制备方法 | 16 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — treat this as a signal of influence on later work, not of 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.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing decisions
Three patterns stand out once the records are grouped by assignee, geography and IPC class.
The leader is well clear of the pack
The top-ranked assignee holds 37 records against 6 for the fifth-place holder — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one. Combined, the top 5 account for 28.9% of all 232 records in scope, leaving the remaining 71% spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants, many of them regional Chinese construction and materials-testing firms.
Filing activity is centred on China
China accounts for 140 of the tracked filings, dwarfing the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan, each in the 11-13 range. That skew means most of the newest claim language, including tunnel-support and rebound-monitoring methods, is being filed first in Chinese and only sometimes followed into other jurisdictions.
Material composition dominates over equipment
Cement and refractory composition claims (C04B) appear in 78.0% of records, while spraying and atomising equipment (B05B) appears in only 3.9%. Anyone filing on nozzle design, spray-pattern control or delivery hardware is working in a much less crowded part of the claim space than anyone filing on accelerator or fiber-reinforcement chemistry.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to shotcrete technology, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders sit alongside a large number of regional Chinese railway, tunnel and materials-testing entities filing one or a handful of records each.
A clear front-runner
The top-ranked assignee holds 37 of the 232 records, more than six times the fifth-place count of 6. That gap indicates a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a single burst of activity.
A long tail of infrequent filers
Beyond the top 10 combined share of 38.4% of all 232 records, the ranking runs to 100 companies in total, most holding only one or two records — a mix of railway research institutes, regional construction groups and materials-testing firms.
Recent-year activity has cooled for established filers
Several of the historically active assignees, including some with a -100% year-on-year change, show no filings in the latest tracked year. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this may partly reflect filings still in the pipeline rather than a genuine stop in R&D.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Construction Research & Technology GmbH | 0 | -100% |
| WR Grace & Co Conn | 0 | — |
| Denka Co Ltd | 0 | — |
| Sandoz Ltd | 0 | — |
| Railway Construction Research Institute of China Academy of Railway Sciences Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| China Academy of Railway Sciences Corporation Limited | 0 | -100% |
| MBT Holding AG | 0 | — |
| AECI International Mining | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The landscape points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you're trying to protect or clear.
Check freedom to operate on rebound-rate methods
Rebound-rate monitoring and control claims sit close to the field's most-cited records, including the featured 2024 filing. Anyone building a sensing or monitoring method for shotcrete should map claim scope there before filing.
Explore rebound-rate claims in EurekaAssess the equipment side for open claim space
Spraying and atomising equipment (B05B) and mixing equipment (B28C) each sit under 4% of records, well below the 78.0% carrying C04B composition claims. That gap is worth testing with a novelty search before assuming it's occupied.
Run a novelty check in EurekaTrack the long tail for acquisition or licensing targets
With 100 companies in the ranking and a steep drop after the top 5, many single- or few-filing entrants hold narrow but potentially useful claims, particularly among regional Chinese railway and tunnel-construction firms.
Screen assignees in EurekaCommon questions about shotcrete patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 37 of the 232 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 6. The top 5 assignees combined account for 28.9% of all 232 records, and the top 10 combined reach 38.4%. That leaves the majority of records spread across a long tail of companies with only one or a few filings each, many of them regional railway, tunnel-construction and materials-testing firms based in China.
The dataset is scoped around five recurring problems: rebound rate, accelerator dosage, early strength development, tunnel dust and safety, and fiber-reinforced shotcrete. At the IPC level, 78.0% of the 232 records carry a C04B classification covering cement and refractory compositions, meaning most claims are about the material formulation rather than the spraying equipment. Only 3.9% carry a B05B spraying-and-atomising classification, so equipment-side claims are comparatively rare.
Filings rose steadily from 2 records in 2017 to a peak of 27 in 2023, with 2022 close behind at 26 — a plateau rather than continued acceleration. The most recent years in the trend, including the 2026 figure of 5, are partial counts affected by the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so they understate real activity. Based on the 2022-2023 comparison, growth had already flattened before that lag effect sets in.
China is by far the largest receiving office in this dataset, with 140 of the 232 tracked filings. The United States, Australia, Canada, Europe (EPO) and Japan each sit in a much smaller range of 11 to 13 filings. That imbalance means most current claim activity, particularly around tunnel-support and rebound-rate methods, originates in Chinese filings and is only sometimes extended into other jurisdictions.
The clearest gaps sit in the equipment and process-control side of the field rather than the chemistry side: spraying and atomising equipment (B05B) appears in only 3.9% of the 232 records, mixing equipment (B28C) in 3.9%, and scaffolding or formwork integration (E04G) in 3.0%, all well below the 78.0% carrying cement-composition claims. These lower-density subclasses are worth a targeted novelty search before assuming a spray-nozzle or delivery-hardware idea is already covered.
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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.