Thermal Spray Metallizing Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 72.7% concentration. The top 5 of 31 ranked assignees account for 112 of the 154 records in scope — filing here is dominated by a small group, not fragmented across many small players.
- 2017 was the peak. Filings crested at 13 that year; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a -100% change, though publication lag means the last two years understate real activity.
- Coating deposition dominates the claim map. C23C accounts for 59.1% of the 154 records, more than double the next-largest class, H01J at 31.2%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (0) — 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 154 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 154 published records at the intersection of thermal spray coating processes and steel protection performance criteria such as blast profile, sealer coats, coating bond strength, cathodic protection effect, porosity sealing and service life prediction, covering publications from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. The scope pulls together corrosion-protection coating chemistry with the process and quality-control language that distinguishes a claimed thermal spray system from a general coating patent.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 and has not returned to that level since; because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in the trend are still filling in and should not be read as a genuine slowdown on their own.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 154-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A single peak year, then decline
Filings rose to 13 in 2017, the high point of the series, then fell away; the 2021-to-2024 comparison shows a -100% change, a figure that should be read alongside the publication lag rather than as evidence of an ongoing collapse.
Coating deposition is the dominant class, but not the only one
C23C (coating and surface deposition) appears in 59.1% of the 154 records, well ahead of H01J (electron and discharge tubes, 31.2%) and H01L (semiconductor devices, 24.7%). B05D, B32B, H05H, B23K and C22C each sit between 10.4% and 13.6%, indicating that processing, layering, plasma and alloy-formulation claims are present but secondary to the core coating deposition art. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% of the record total and should not be added together.
Shares are the percentage of the 154 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Thermal Spray Metallizing for Steel Protection with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about thermal spray metallizing for steel protection and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this space
US20170275748A1 — Fully readable thermal spray coating
Embodiments of an iron-based coating configured to be thermally sprayed are disclosed. The iron-based coatings can be fully readable, thus allowing for thickness measurements to be performed on the coating with standard magnetic measuring equipment. Further, the iron-based coating can have advantageous properties, such as high hardness, high wear resistance, and high adhesion strength.Filed by Oerlikon Metco (US) Inc., published 2017-09-28 — the same year the overall filing trend peaked.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US8318327B2 | Low contamination components for semiconductor processing apparatus and methods for making components | 363 |
| 2 | US20030181065A1 | Low contamination components for semiconductor processing apparatus and methods for making components | 310 |
| 3 | US20040002221A1 | Productivity enhancing thermal sprayed yttria-containing coating for plasma reactor | 228 |
| 4 | US5198308A | Titanium porous surface bonded to a cobalt-based alloy substrate in an orthopaedic implant device | 167 |
| 5 | US5323954A | Method of bonding titanium to a cobalt-based alloy substrate in an orthophedic implant device | 112 |
| 6 | US20070084834A1 | Plasma torch with corrosive protected collimator | 109 |
| 7 | US20030049485A1 | Corrosion control coatings | 80 |
| 8 | US7300537B2 | Productivity enhancing thermal sprayed yttria-containing coating for plasma reactor | 71 |
| 9 | US20050150866A1 | Productivity enhancing thermal sprayed yttria-containing coating for plasma reactor | 69 |
| 10 | US6830622B2 | Cerium oxide containing ceramic components and coatings in semiconductor processing equipment and methods of … | 67 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings, since they have had more time to accumulate citations; treat the ranking as a signal of influence on later art, not of current commercial relevance.
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Three findings that shape where new claims can realistically land in this field.
Claim space is held by a small group
With 112 of 154 records concentrated among five assignees, freedom-to-operate work in this field starts by clearing those portfolios first, not by surveying the full 31-name ranking evenly.
Activity has not returned to its 2017 peak
The peak year, 2017 at 13 filings, has not been matched since; the 2021-to-2024 comparison shows a full reversal, though the two most recent years are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Coating deposition, not alloy formulation, is where claims sit
C23C outweighs every other subclass by a wide margin; C22C alloy-composition claims and B23K welding/brazing claims each sit near 10%, suggesting the deposition process itself is more heavily claimed than the underlying metallurgy.
Influence skews toward older semiconductor-adjacent filings
The highest-cited records in this corpus relate to low-contamination components for semiconductor processing rather than steel protection directly, a reminder that citation counts favour age and cross-domain reach over current relevance to steel protection use cases.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to thermal spray metallizing for steel protection, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list covers 31 companies counted across the 154 records in scope; it is the whole ranking the dataset returns, not a curated top-50 or top-100.
One assignee holds more than a third of the corpus
The leading assignee's 54 records dwarf the fifth-place count of 9 and the tenth-place count of 5, a gap that widens further down the ranking and marks this as a field with a dominant incumbent rather than several evenly matched competitors.
A small cluster of individual inventors co-files repeatedly
The strongest co-assignee pairs recur at counts of 5 and 6 records, pointing to a tight inventor-assignee cluster working consistently together rather than broad industry-wide collaboration.
No leading assignee shows recent-year activity
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the top-ranked filer, shows zero records in the latest year; given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this reflects the pipeline still filling in rather than a confirmed stop in filing.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Lam Research Corp | 0 | — |
| Thermoceramix | 0 | — |
| Phoenix Solutions Co | 0 | — |
| Praxair S.T. Technology Inc | 0 | — |
| Oerlikon Metco (US) Inc | 0 | — |
| ODONNELL ROBERT J | 0 | — |
| DAUGHERTY JOHN E | 0 | — |
| ABBOTT RICHARD C | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to a concentrated core and a thinner set of adjacent branches; the next step is deciding which of those branches justifies a first claim.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top 5
With 72.7% of records held by five assignees, any new filing in coating bond strength or porosity sealing should be checked against those portfolios before broader searching.
Run a freedom-to-operate scanWatch for the 2025-2026 pipeline to fill in
The apparent drop after 2021 is partly a publication-lag artefact; revisit the trend once 2025 filings finish publishing to see whether activity has genuinely declined.
Track filing activityTest claims in the under-claimed branches
Service life prediction and cathodic protection verification carry lighter claim density than core coating deposition — a plausible place for a defensible first claim.
Explore white space with EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 31 assignees across 154 records, and the field is concentrated rather than fragmented: the top 5 of those 31 hold 112 records, or 72.7% of everything in scope. The single leading assignee alone holds 54 records, far ahead of the fifth-place holder at 9. This means a competitive review should prioritise the leader's portfolio first rather than treating all 31 names as equally significant.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 13 records and has since declined, with the 2021-to-2024 window showing a -100% change. However, publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as confirmation of a stopped field. A fair reading is that activity has cooled from its 2017 high, with the most recent trend still uncertain.
C23C, covering coating and surface deposition, is the dominant class at 59.1% of the 154 records in scope. H01J (electron and discharge tubes) and H01L (semiconductor devices) follow at 31.2% and 24.7% respectively, reflecting overlap with plasma-based deposition equipment used across both steel coating and semiconductor processing. Smaller but still notable classes include B05D coating processes, B32B layered products, H05H plasma technology, B23K welding and brazing, and C22C alloys, each between 10.4% and 13.6%.
US20170275748A1, filed by Oerlikon Metco, describes an iron-based coating designed to be thermally sprayed and to remain fully readable by standard magnetic thickness-measurement equipment after application, while also delivering high hardness, wear resistance and adhesion strength. It was published in 2017, the same year filing activity in this landscape peaked. Anyone developing a thermally sprayed iron-based coating with magnetic-measurement compatibility should review its claims closely before finalising a coating formulation.
The technology composition data shows coating deposition (C23C) claimed far more heavily than adjacent branches such as service life prediction modelling, cathodic protection effect verification, or porosity-sealing topcoat chemistry, each of which ties to the search scope but shows lighter representation in the class breakdown. These branches sit closer to quality control and performance verification than to the core deposition process itself, which is where most of the concentrated filing has occurred. A first claim built around measurable service-life or cathodic-protection verification methods, rather than the deposition process itself, is more likely to avoid the densest prior art.
Citation counts here favour older filings simply because they have had more time in circulation to be cited, which is why the most-cited records, such as US8318327B2 at 363 citations, relate to semiconductor processing components rather than steel protection directly. This does not mean those records are more commercially relevant to steel protection today; it means they are older and cross-referenced widely within the searched corpus. Citation counts should be read as a signal of historical influence, not as a ranking of current importance to steel protection applications.
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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.