Sintering Furnace Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not locked up. the top 5 assignees hold 20.2% of all 198 records in scope and the top 10 hold 32.8%, leaving most of the field to single- or few-filing entrants.
- Filing kept climbing through the early 2020s. the documented growth from 2021 to 2024 is +57%, even though 2020 remains the single peak year at 22 filings.
- China dominates the filing venue. 95 of the tracked records were filed there, more than the next four receiving offices combined.
Filing growth compares 2021 (7 records) with 2024 (11) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 198 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Sintering furnace and atmosphere control technology sits at the intersection of thermal equipment design and process chemistry: belt speed, dew point, hydrogen-nitrogen ratios and temperature uniformity all determine whether a sintered part meets spec. This landscape tracks 198 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim sintering furnace hardware or atmosphere control methods, drawn from title, abstract and claim text matching terms like dew point control, decarburization and furnace energy.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so figures for 2025 and 2026 will fill in as later disclosures publish. The dataset is best read through 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 198 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 2 in 2017 to a peak of 22 in 2020, then continued growing through the early 2020s: the documented 2021-to-2024 span shows an increase from 7 to 11 filings, a 57% rise. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a slowdown.
IPC subclass composition
Furnace and kiln claims (F27B) appear in 44.4% of the 198 records, ahead of powder metallurgy claims (B22F) at 39.9% and furnace details and accessories (F27D) at 33.8%. Alloys, ceramics and heat-treatment classes each appear in a smaller but still meaningful share, and because records can carry multiple classes these figures sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 198 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Sintering Furnaces and Atmosphere Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about sintering furnaces and atmosphere control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Sintering furnace with a gas removal device (US20150050610A1)
The filing describes a sintering furnace built around a burn-off zone, a transitional zone and a sintering zone, with a transport mechanism moving parts through all three and a gas removal device positioned at the transitional zone to pull off gas generated during burn-off before it reaches the sintering zone.Filed by GKN Sinter Metals Holding GmbH, published 2015-02-19.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190255612A1 | Sintering furnace | 35 |
| 2 | CN104493161A | 一种硬质合金在真空烧结炉中渗碳的方法 | 22 |
| 3 | CN108356260A | 一种硬质合金异形制品的3D打印制造方法 | 18 |
| 4 | CN2890808Y | 具有冷却炉的带气体保护的烧结炉 | 18 |
| 5 | US4649002A | System for preventing decomposition of silicon carbide articles during sintering | 17 |
| 6 | EP0038558A1 | Process for producing sintered ferrous alloys | 16 |
| 7 | US4614638A | Process for producing sintered ferrous alloys | 14 |
| 8 | EP0105138A1 | High efficiency reduction carburization and sintering method | 14 |
| 9 | GB885322A | A process of fabricating transpiration cooled turbine blades and the blades producedthereby | 14 |
| 10 | CN106098443A | 一种高钎着率垂直纤维银石墨电触点的制备工艺 | 13 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; a low-citation recent record can still be operationally important.
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 numbers say about this field
Four read-throughs of the dataset that matter for a freedom-to-operate or whitespace decision.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The leading assignee holds 10 records and the field drops to 6 by fifth place and 4 by tenth, a shallow gradient rather than a cliff. With the top 10 controlling only 32.8% of the 198 records in scope, the remaining two-thirds of filings are spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
Growth resumed after the 2020 peak
2020 remains the highest single year on record at 22 filings, but the field did not simply decline afterward: the documented span from 2021 (7 filings) to 2024 (11 filings) shows a 57% increase. Treat 2025-2026 as incomplete rather than as evidence of a downturn.
China is the primary filing venue
China accounts for 95 records, roughly triple the next-largest venue, the United States at 33. Europe, Japan, WIPO and Canada each account for smaller shares, which matters for where enforcement and freedom-to-operate checks should be weighted first.
Furnace hardware claims outweigh alloy claims
F27B furnace and kiln claims appear in 44.4% of the 198 records, more than powder metallurgy (39.9%) or furnace details and accessories (33.8%). Alloy composition (C22C, 17.7%) and ceramics (C04B, 12.1%) trail well behind, suggesting the denser claim space is in equipment design rather than material formulation.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to sintering furnaces and atmosphere control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders sit atop a field where most participants file only once or twice, and several under-claimed process branches remain visible in the class data.
A modest single-digit lead
The top-ranked assignee holds 10 of the 198 records, a lead that narrows quickly: fifth place holds 6 and tenth place holds 4. No single filer approaches a dominant share of the field.
Fragmented ownership beyond the leaders
The assignee ranking spans 100 companies, and with the top 10 accounting for only 32.8% of all 198 records, the bulk of filings belong to entities appearing once or a handful of times. This is typical of equipment-adjacent fields where furnace builders, materials suppliers and end users all file independently.
Co-filing is limited and firm-internal
Only 6 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings link a single corporate assignee to its own named inventors rather than to external partners. Cross-company joint filing is not a visible pattern here.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BOC Group Inc. | 0 | — |
| Mantle Inc. | 0 | — |
| Sandvik Intellectual Property AB | 0 | — |
| Outotec (Finland) Oy | 0 | — |
| Federal-Mogul Corporation | 0 | — |
| Markforged Inc. | 0 | — |
| 气体产品与化学公司 | 0 | — |
| 住友电气工业株式会社 | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to decide.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leaders
With the top 10 assignees holding a third of all records, a claim chart against their granted families is the fastest way to see whether a planned furnace design or atmosphere-control method reads on existing claims.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the under-claimed process branches
Dew point sensing, hydrogen-nitrogen ratio control and furnace energy recovery show lighter claim density than the core furnace-hardware classes, which is where a narrowly drafted first claim is more likely to clear prior art.
Explore whitespace mapping in EurekaTrack filing momentum past 2024
Because publication lag means 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete, re-running this search in future quarters will sharpen the read on whether the 2021-2024 growth trend has continued.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset's ranked leader holds 10 of the 198 records in scope, with the lead narrowing to 6 records by fifth place and 4 by tenth. The top 5 assignees together account for 20.2% of all records and the top 10 for 32.8%, meaning no single company controls the field. The remaining two-thirds of filings belong to a long tail of 100 ranked companies, most filing only a handful of times each.
Filing activity peaked in 2020 at 22 records, but growth resumed afterward: the documented span from 2021 (7 filings) to 2024 (11 filings) shows a 57% increase. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower only because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those years are still incomplete rather than showing a real decline. 2024 is the most recent year that should be treated as a complete data point.
China is by far the largest filing venue in this dataset, with 95 of the 198 records filed there, compared with 33 in the United States, 23 at the EPO, 17 in Japan, 7 via WIPO/PCT and 6 in Canada. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work in this space should weight Chinese filings first, since they outnumber the next four venues combined. This also reflects where much of the underlying manufacturing capacity for sintered parts is concentrated.
US20150050610A1, assigned to GKN Sinter Metals Holding GmbH and published in 2015, claims a sintering furnace with a burn-off zone, a transitional zone and a sintering zone, plus a gas removal device positioned at the transitional zone to draw off gas before parts reach the sintering zone. It matters because gas-removal placement at the transition point is a specific structural feature that a new furnace design would need to design around rather than simply avoid by relabeling zones. Reviewing its claim scope is a sensible first step before finalizing a similar multi-zone furnace layout.
Relative to the dense core classes, F27B furnace and kiln hardware at 44.4% of records and B22F powder metallurgy at 39.9%, several process-control branches show lighter claim density: dew point sensing integration, hydrogen-nitrogen ratio control loops, and furnace energy recovery. These sit within classes like C21D and C23C that each cover under 10% of the 198 records. A narrowly scoped claim in one of these control-method areas is more likely to clear existing prior art than a new furnace-hardware claim filed into the crowded F27B/F27D space.
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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.