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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/tailor-welded-and-tailored-blanks-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent landscape · Automotive forming processesTailor Welded and Tailored Blank Patents: mapping the leaders and the open claim space
- One filer holds a commanding lead. the top assignee alone accounts for 120 of the 247 records in scope, and the top five combine for 66.0% of all records.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. 37 records that year versus a 2021→2024 change of 8 to 6, a -25% span on the most recent complete years.
- Welding and forming classes dominate, but adjacent classes are thin. B23K and B62D each cover over a third of records, while B32B and B21C sit under 6%.
247
Published Records
66%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-25%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (8 records) with 2024 (6) — 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 247 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Tailor welded and tailored blanks let a stamped part carry different gauges, grades or coatings within a single sheet, joined before forming rather than after. The patent activity in this scope centres on how that joint is made and how it survives the press: weld line position, thickness transition, joint strength and forming limit are the recurring technical anchors, alongside nesting yield and weld inspection as manufacturing-side concerns. The 247 records in scope span 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, drawn from filings that combine welding process claims (B23K) with body-in-white and sheet-forming claims (B62D, B21D).
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend understate real activity; treat 2025 and 2026 as still filling in rather than as a genuine drop-off.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 247 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the underlying technical claims.
Filing trend, 2015-2026
Filings peaked at 37 in 2017. On the most recent years that can be treated as complete, the count moved from 8 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a -25% change over that span. Later years in the chart are still being published and will revise upward.
IPC subclass composition
B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) appears on 41.3% of records and B62D (motor vehicles and steering) on 36.0%, confirming that most claims sit at the intersection of joining process and vehicle-body application. B21D (sheet-metal working) follows at 34.4%. Alloy and heat-treatment classes (C22C, C21D) are present but smaller, and lamination, extrusion and digital-processing classes each sit under 6% of records — each record can carry multiple classes, so these figures add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 247 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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A representative recent filing
Representative filing
Tailor welded blank, and tailor welded blank production method and tailor welded blank production apparatus (US20260216818A1)
JFE STEEL CORPORATION
Provided is a tailor welded blank that can be produced at low cost with high productivity and that has excellent press workability, even when thin steel sheets are used as materials. A butt joint includes a stir zone and thermo-mechanically affected zones adjacent to the stir zone, and the stir zone has an upper stir zone and a lower stir zone adjacent to each other in a thickness direction, and the tailor welded blank satisfies defined relationships between joint strength and base-metal thickness and strength.Filed by JFE Steel Corporation, dated 2026-07-30 — the newest record in this scope.
Most-cited records in this landscape
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP2013204090A | Tailored blank for hot stamping | 79 |
| 2 | JP2013220445A | Tailored blank for hot stamping, and method of manufacturing the same | 64 |
| 3 | US20140147693A1 | Formed member and manufacturing method thereof | 54 |
| 4 | EP2942143A1 | Methods for joining two blanks and blanks and products obtained | 50 |
| 5 | US20040184921A1 | Compressor blade for an aircraft engine | 45 |
| 6 | CA2358279A1 | High speed welding apparatus with interchangeable weld fixture capability | 43 |
| 7 | US20070138239A1 | Method of joining heat-treatable aluminum alloy members by friction stir welding and joined product obtained … | 37 |
| 8 | JP2017189781A | Tailored blank compound | 36 |
| 9 | EP2832887A1 | Tailored blank for hot stamping, hot-stamped member, and processes for producing same | 35 |
| 10 | US7156622B2 | Compressor blade for an aircraft engine | 35 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the same dataset, each pointing at a different practical question: how concentrated the field is, where the technical weight sits, and where filing has actually slowed.
Concentration
66.0%
of 247 records held by the top 5
The field is led, not fragmented
The top five assignees combine for 163 of the 247 records in scope — 66.0% of everything published here. A single leader holds 120 records on its own. Anyone entering this space is filing around an occupied core, not into open ground.
Top 5 combined: 163 records
Technology mix
41.3%
of records touch B23K welding claims
Joining process is the dominant claim axis
B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) and B62D (motor vehicles and steering) together anchor the bulk of records, with B21D sheet-forming close behind. Claims tend to combine a joining-process element with a vehicle-body or forming-process element rather than sitting in either class alone.
B23K 41.3% · B62D 36.0% · B21D 34.4%
Momentum
-25%
change 2021 → 2024
Volume has eased from its 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 37 in 2017 and, on the years that can be treated as complete, moved from 8 in 2021 to 6 in 2024. That is a real three-year decline, not a publication-lag artefact — though 2025-2026 figures will still revise upward.
2017 peak: 37 records
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to tailor welded and tailored blanks, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who's filing
The ranked leaders and the long tail behind them
The ranking covers 49 companies counted in records — the full set the data endpoint returns, not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Above that group sits a steep drop: the fifth-ranked assignee holds 8 records, the tenth holds 7.
Leader
120
records
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked filer holds 120 of the 247 records in scope — nearly half the entire dataset on its own. Filing strategy for anyone else in this space has to be read against that leader's claim footprint first.
Nippon Steel is the leading filer in this set
Top 5 vs. top 10
66.0% → 81.0%
share of 247 records
Concentration deepens quickly, then flattens
The top five hold 66.0% of all 247 records; extending to ten filers adds only another 15 points, reaching 81.0%. Past the tenth position the field spreads into a long tail of single- and low-digit filers.
Top 10 combined: 200 records
Co-filing
9 pairs
co-assignee combinations
Collaboration is limited and steel-centric
Only nine co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, the strongest linking two steelmakers on nine shared records. Most filers here prosecute independently rather than jointly, which keeps freedom-to-operate analysis relatively cleaner but also means fewer signals of cross-industry partnership.
Strongest pair: 9 shared records
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Nippon Steel Corporation | 0 | — |
| NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORP | 0 | — |
| ArcelorMittal SA | 0 | -100% |
| Kikuchi Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Arcelor France SA | 0 | — |
| Kobe Steel, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Martinrea International Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this from here
The landscape points at where claim density sits and where it doesn't. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate position takes a closer read of the specific claims involved.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's claim set
With one assignee holding roughly half the records in scope, any new filing on weld-line position or joint-strength thresholds should be checked against that portfolio before drafting.
Explore the leader's claims in Eureka →Probe the thin classes before assuming they're open
B32B, B21C and G06F each cover under 6% of records here. That can mean genuine white space or simply that filers describe the same work under a different primary class — worth verifying claim by claim.
Run a deeper class query in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about tailor welded blank patents
A tailor welded blank is a sheet-metal blank made by joining two or more pieces of different thickness, grade or coating before stamping, typically by laser or resistance welding. In this patent dataset the claims cluster around the joint itself — weld line position, thickness transition across the joint, and joint strength after forming — rather than the stamping step alone. Records combine a welding-process class (B23K) with a vehicle-body or sheet-forming class (B62D, B21D), reflecting that most patents cover the joining method as applied to a specific automotive part.
Filing in this scope is concentrated: the top-ranked assignee alone accounts for 120 of the 247 records, and the top five combined hold 66.0% of everything published. Steel producers dominate the leader group rather than automakers directly, which fits the pattern of steelmakers patenting the blank-production process and licensing or supplying it into vehicle assembly. The ranking covers 49 companies in total, with a steep drop after the top ten filers, who together hold 81.0% of records.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 37 records and has since eased. On the years that can be treated as complete, the count moved from 8 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a -25% change over that span. The most recent one to two years in the chart will still revise upward because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so a slow-looking 2025 or 2026 does not by itself mean filing has stopped.
The technology classes with the lowest representation relative to the core welding and forming classes are B32B (layered products and laminates), B21C (metal extrusion and drawing) and G06F (digital data processing), each covering under 6% of the 247 records in scope. That points toward multi-layer laminate blank constructions, extrusion-based thickness transitions, and automated weld-line inspection software as areas with comparatively less claim density. These are candidate areas to investigate further rather than confirmed gaps, since a thin class count can also mean filers describe similar work under a different primary classification.
US20260216818A1, filed by JFE Steel Corporation and dated 2026-07-30, claims a tailor welded blank with a butt joint containing a stir zone and adjacent thermo-mechanically affected zones, where the stir zone is split into upper and lower regions in the thickness direction. The claims tie joint strength and thickness in the stir zone to defined ratios against the base-metal properties, aimed at keeping press workability high even with thin steel sheets. It is the newest record in this dataset and illustrates the current technical focus on joint microstructure rather than simply weld placement.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tailor Welded and Tailored Blanks covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.