Titanium Alloy NDT / Inspection Patent Snapshot 2026
The titanium alloy NDT and inspection patent field is a small, still-growing niche dominated by a tight cluster of materials and aerospace specialists — Kobe Steel and Howmet Aerospace share the top rank, together with ATI Properties and General Electric forming a concentrated leading tier. Activity has accelerated sharply on a multi-year basis, with China and the United States the primary filing destinations.
A concentrated niche with two co-leading applicants and a clear aerospace/materials core
Kobe Steel and Howmet Aerospace each hold the top position in the applicant ranking, followed by ATI Properties, General Electric, and a group of individual inventors and research institutes. The top five filers account for 51% of the combined output of the ranked applicants visible in this query, confirming a high degree of concentration in what remains a compact corpus.
The tier gap between the two leaders and the rest of the field is notable: the third-ranked applicant ATI Properties holds less than half the patent records of either leader, and the ranking falls away quickly below that point. This suggests the field has a small number of deeply committed incumbents rather than a broad, distributed competitive base.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kobe Steel Ltd | 11 | |
| 2 | Howmet Aerospace Inc | 11 | |
| 3 | ATI Properties Inc | 5 | |
| 4 | General Electric Co | 4 | |
| 5 | Davis Mark R | 3 | |
| 6 | Arnold Matthew J | 3 | |
| 7 | Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai | 3 | |
| 8 | JX NIPPON MINING & METALS CORP | 2 | |
| 9 | Korea Institute of Materials Science | 2 | |
| 10 | BAE Systems PLC | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 12 | Baimtec Material Co Ltd | 1 | |
| 13 | Baoji Yongshengtai Titanium Industry | 1 | |
| 14 | Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution (Russia) | 1 | |
| 15 | Hitachi Engineering Co Ltd | 1 | |
| 16 | Hitachi Ltd | 1 | |
| 17 | Nippon Kokan KK | 1 | |
| 18 | Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine Group Corporation | 1 | |
| 19 | AVIC Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials | 1 | |
| 20 | Baoji Tongrun Metal Materials Co Ltd | 1 |
The leaders’ positions reflect long-standing industrial commitments to titanium product quality and structural integrity — Kobe Steel’s emphasis on alloy composition and non-ferrous treatment, and Howmet Aerospace’s focus on ultrasonic testing and welding-adjacent inspection, signal that the core technical challenge is ensuring flaw detectability in high-value aerospace forgings and billets.
The most recent 18–24 months of filing data are subject to publication lag and will be revised upward as more applications publish; trend readings for 2024–2026 should be treated as provisional. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Rising annual activity and a technology mix anchored in alloy science and ultrasonic testing
Two charts together capture the pace of competitive entry and the breadth of technical approaches: the annual filing trend shows when interest intensified, while the IPC branch breakdown reveals where innovation effort is concentrated and where it remains thin.
Annual filing trend
Filing volume was negligible before 2018, picked up gradually through 2022, and reached its highest recorded annual level in 2023 and 2024 with four records each. The recent-window growth rate of 200% confirms a genuine acceleration on a multi-year basis. Years 2024–2026 are likely undercounted due to publication lag, so the apparent plateau at the right edge of the chart should not be read as a slowdown.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
The IPC branch mix is led by C22C (alloys), followed closely by G01N (material analysis and testing) — together these two branches account for the majority of records and confirm that alloy specification and ultrasonic/analytical inspection are the field’s twin technical pillars. C22F (non-ferrous metal treatment) is the third-largest branch, reflecting the importance of thermomechanical processing to flaw detectability. Branches such as G06T (image data processing), G06F (digital data processing), and G06N (AI models) are present but small, marking an early-stage digitization layer on top of the physical inspection core.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fine grain titanium forgings and a method for thei… | 119 |
| 2 | Titanium alloys, methods of forming the same, and … | 66 |
| 3 | 一种钛合金管材及制造方法 | 28 |
| 4 | Titanium alloy billet having excellent flaw detect… | 16 |
| 5 | Forged titanium alloy material and method for manu… | 14 |
| 6 | 一种增材钛合金激光超声缺陷检测系统及激光超声相位相干成像检测方法 | 12 |
| 7 | 一种纤维增强钛基复材界面结合质量的超声检测方法 | 12 |
| 8 | 一种钛合金构件中夹杂缺陷尺寸的分析和统计方法 | 8 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Kobe Steel Ltd
Kobe Steel leads the ranking with 11 patent records, concentrated in alloy composition (C22C), non-ferrous metal treatment (C22F), and ultrasonic material testing (G01N 29). This breadth across both material specification and inspection protocol reflects a vertically integrated approach — controlling flaw detectability from alloy design through to billet qualification. Applicant momentum data are not available for the recent period, but the corpus depth suggests a long-standing and sustained filing program.
patent records: 11Howmet Aerospace Inc
Howmet Aerospace (previously RTI International Metals) is co-ranked at 11 patent records, with its technology emphasis weighted toward G01N 29 (ultrasonic material analysis and testing), alloy composition (C22C), and welding/brazing methods (B23K 35). This profile positions Howmet as the leading specialist in inspection-method innovation, particularly for forged and welded titanium components used in aerospace structures. Momentum data for the recent window are not separately available.
patent records: 11Frequently asked questions
The corpus currently covers 18 patent families in scope. This is a compact, specialist field, and the small absolute size means that individual filings carry above-average competitive significance.
Kobe Steel Ltd and Howmet Aerospace Inc are co-ranked at the top of the applicant list, each holding 11 patent records. ATI Properties Inc follows with 5 records, and General Electric Co holds 4. These four form the leading tier, with remaining applicants holding three records or fewer.
China and the United States are tied as the primary filing destinations, each accounting for 16 patent records. Europe (EPO) is the next most active jurisdiction with 8 records, followed by Japan with 6 and WIPO PCT with 4.
The visible IPC classes are C22C (alloys) and G01N (material analysis and testing), reflecting the field’s dual anchors in alloy specification and inspection methodology. C22F (non-ferrous metal treatment) is the third-largest branch, underlining the importance of thermomechanical processing to flaw detectability. Digital and AI-related branches (G06T, G06F, G06N) are present but small.
The field is classified as Growth stage. Annual filings are still rising, and the recent-window growth rate stands at 200%. The most recent 18–24 months of data are subject to publication lag and will likely be revised upward, so the current endpoint should not be read as a plateau.
Two branches stand out for their relative sparsity combined with plausible technical relevance: G06T (image data processing for defect characterization) holds only 5 patent records despite the established role of signal reconstruction in ultrasonic inspection, and G06N (AI-model-based inspection) holds only 2 records despite growing adoption of machine learning in adjacent NDT fields. Both represent observations of sparsity and should be evaluated further before treating them as validated R&D opportunities.
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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.
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