Surface Preparation for Adhesive Bonding Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing jumped 550% from 2021 to 2024 (2 records to 13), the clearest sign this field only recently became a serious filing target rather than an incidental one.
- The top 10 assignees already hold 51.9% of all 243 records so a new entrant is filing into a field where roughly half the claim space is already staked by a small group.
- Semiconductor-class filings (H01L) touch 37.9% of records outweighing classic bonding classes like B32B (6.2%), which shows how much of this art originates in device fabrication, not adhesives per se.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (13) — 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 243 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Surface preparation for adhesive bonding sits at the intersection of coating science, plasma processing and mechanical or chemical priming, and this dataset pulls together 243 patent records published between 2015 and mid-2026 that describe treatments intended to improve adhesion — plasma treatment, laser ablation, surface energy measurement, contamination control, primer application and durability testing after ageing. The search deliberately spans several IPC subclasses because the same surface-preparation technique often gets claimed once for semiconductor fabrication and again for structural bonding or medical device assembly.
Because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in the trend chart are still filling in and should not be read as a slowdown. The 2024 filing count is the most recent year that can be treated as complete, and it is against that year that the field's growth is measured.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 243 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the underlying inventions actually sit in.
A field that accelerated sharply after 2021
Annual filings ran low and flat for most of the 2015-2019 period, peaked at 22 records in 2020, then cooled before rebuilding: 2021 filings sat at just 2 records and climbed to 13 by 2024, a 550% increase over that three-year span. Readers should treat 2025-2026 counts as provisional given publication lag, not as evidence the field is contracting again.
Semiconductor and coating classes dominate the mix
H01L (semiconductor devices) appears in 37.9% of the 243 records and C23C (coating and surface deposition) in 26.7%, together outweighing more adhesive-specific classes such as B32B (layered products, 6.2%) and C08J (polymer processing, 7.8%). Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read individually against the full 243-record base, not summed.
Shares are the percentage of the 243 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Surface Preparation for Adhesive Bonding with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about surface preparation for adhesive bonding and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this field
Method and system for determining a quality of an abrasive surface preparation of a composite surface using electrical resistance and surface resistivity
There is provided a method for determining a quality of an abrasive surface preparation of a composite surface, prior to the composite surface undergoing a post-processing operation. The method includes fabricating levels of abrasive surface preparation standards for a reference composite surface; using a surface analysis tool in the form of an ohm meter, to create target values for quantifying the levels; and measuring, with the surface analysis tool, one or more abrasive surface preparation locations on the composite surface of a test composite structure, to measure one or more of, electrical resistance and surface resistivity, of the composite surface, to obtain test result measurement(s).Filed by The Boeing Company, published 2021-02-25 as US20210055244A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20020098627A1 | Surface preparation prior to deposition | 910 |
| 2 | US20050106893A1 | Surface preparation prior to deposition on germanium | 583 |
| 3 | US20040121620A1 | Surface preparation prior to deposition | 386 |
| 4 | US6613695B2 | Surface preparation prior to deposition | 317 |
| 5 | WO2002043115A2 | Surface preparation prior to deposition | 235 |
| 6 | WO1994006485A1 | Multilayer materials | 140 |
| 7 | US6623747B1 | Multilayer materials | 138 |
| 8 | US6923978B2 | Multilayer materials | 122 |
| 9 | WO2003039609A1 | Deposition of coatings on substrates | 83 |
| 10 | US5730808A | Producing solar cells by surface preparation for accelerated nucleation of microcrystalline silicon on hetero… | 83 |
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older records dominate this list; treat them as markers of influence on later filings, not as evidence 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
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are set against each other: where activity has concentrated, where it has moved fastest, and where the claim map is thin.
Over half the field sits with a small group
The top 5 assignees alone account for 30.5% of all 243 records, and the top 10 combined reach 51.9%. That leaves a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants competing for the remaining claim space, which is where a new filer's freedom to operate is widest.
The field accelerated late, not gradually
Filings sat at just 2 records in 2021 before rising to 13 by 2024. That is a step change concentrated in three years, not a steady climb from 2015, which suggests a specific trigger — likely new plasma or laser equipment entering commercial use — rather than organic field maturation.
Semiconductor fabrication drives more filings than bonding itself
H01L (semiconductor devices) and C23C (coating & surface deposition) together outpace bonding-specific classes like B32B and C08J. Surface preparation techniques developed for device fabrication are being claimed again for structural and medical bonding contexts.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to surface preparation for adhesive bonding, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span equipment makers, materials companies and device manufacturers rather than a single industry vertical, which reflects how many different applications rely on the same surface-preparation chemistry.
A single assignee leads the ranked field
The leading assignee holds 18 records, ahead of the fifth-place holder at 12 and the tenth-place holder at 8. The gap between first and fifth place is real but not overwhelming, meaning the leader's position is contestable rather than locked in.
The mid-field is closely bunched
Between fifth place (12 records) and tenth place (8 records) the spread is narrow, indicating several organisations are filing at a similar pace rather than one runner-up pulling clearly ahead of the pack.
Most of the ranking is a long tail
With the top 10 accounting for 51.9% of the 243 records in scope, the remaining share is spread across a long tail of the ranked assignees, many likely holding only one or two records each. That tail is where freedom-to-operate searches typically turn up the least prior art per applicant.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ASM America, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Beneq Oy | 0 | -100% |
| 3M Innovative Properties Co. | 0 | — |
| Seiko Epson Corporation | 0 | — |
| Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) | 0 | — |
| University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, Dublin | 0 | — |
| Ontos Equipment Systems Inc. | 0 | — |
| Novartis AG | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field that is still forming its claim structure rather than one that has settled. Two directions make sense from here.
Map freedom to operate against the long tail
With 49.1% of records held outside the top 10 assignees, a targeted search across that long tail is more likely to surface narrow, workable gaps than a search focused only on the leader.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack the assignees still active in the most recent complete year
Filing growth to 2024 was concentrated in a short window; watching which assignees kept filing into that period, rather than those who filed early and stopped, indicates who is still investing.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
This dataset contains 243 published patent records covering surface preparation techniques for adhesive bonding, filed and published between 2015 and mid-2026. It draws on a search combining terms like plasma treatment, laser ablation, surface energy measurement and contamination sensitivity. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the true count of filings in 2025 and 2026 is still understated in current data.
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 18 records, with the fifth-place assignee at 12 and the tenth-place assignee at 8, out of a 90-company ranking. The top 10 assignees combined account for 51.9% of all 243 records in scope, meaning roughly half the field is claimed by a small group and the remainder is spread thinly across many smaller filers. Specific rankings are best viewed directly in the assignee table on this page since they can shift as new records publish.
Filing activity grew sharply in the most recent complete years: annual filings rose from 2 records in 2021 to 13 records in 2024, a 550% increase over that span. There was an earlier peak of 22 records in 2020, followed by a dip, so the trend has not been a simple straight-line climb. Figures for 2025 and 2026 should be read as provisional, since publication typically lags actual filing by about 18 months and will keep filling in.
The most common IPC subclass is H01L (semiconductor devices), appearing in 37.9% of the 243 records, followed by C23C (coating and surface deposition) at 26.7%. More bonding-specific classes such as B32B (layered products and laminates) and C08J (polymer processing) appear less often, at 6.2% and 7.8% respectively. Since a single patent can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap and do not sum to 100%.
Sub-areas such as durability-after-ageing test protocols, contamination-sensitivity screening methods and primer application for composite-to-metal joints show thinner filing density than the core plasma- and coating-treatment claims that dominate the dataset. This does not mean these areas are unpatented, only that fewer records currently stake claims there relative to the core techniques. A prospective filer should still run a dedicated freedom-to-operate search before assuming an area is open, since class-level density is a starting signal, not a guarantee.
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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.