Tribology and lubrication patents: who holds the claim space and where it thins out
Concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 30.1% of all 552 records in scope, and the ranked leaders extend to 45.5% among the top ten — the rest is a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. Annual filings rose to a peak of 33 in 2020, then declined from 19 in 2021 to 6 in 2024 — a 68% fall across that three-year window. Treat 2025 and 2026 as incomplete rather than as evidence of continued decline.
- 1YEDA RES & DEV CO LTD54
- 2KELSAN TECH41
- 3L B FOSTER RAIL TECHNOLOGIES CORP24
- 4UNIV REY JUAN CARLOS24
- 5MUBEA CARBO TECH GMBH23
See the full tribology & lubrication patent landscape analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Frequently asked questions
Who are the leading patent holders in tribology and lubrication?
The assignee ranking for this dataset returns 100 companies across 552 records, with one leading assignee holding 54 records, well ahead of fifth place at 23 and tenth place at 13. The top five assignees combined hold 30.1% of all 552 records, and the top ten hold 45.5%. Beyond that, filing activity spreads across a long tail of assignees with only a handful of records each, so the field is concentrated at the top but far from fully occupied.
Is patent filing in tribology and lubrication increasing or decreasing?
Annual filings peaked at 33 in 2020 and declined from 19 in 2021 to 6 in 2024, a 68% drop over that three-year span. That decline is measured on complete years only; 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as pending applications publish, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Based on current data through 2024, the trend is a genuine cooling rather than continued growth.
What technology areas dominate tribology and lubrication patents?
By IPC subclass share of the 552 records in scope, electric digital data processing (G06F) leads at 13.6%, followed by implants and prostheses (A61F) at 12.1% and core lubricants (C10M) at 10.0%. Material analysis and testing (G01N), medicinal preparations (A61K), railway auxiliary equipment (B61K), grinding and polishing (B24B) and earth/rock drilling (E21B) each account for roughly 6-10% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%, reflecting how often tribology claims overlap with sensing, biomedical and industrial-process technology.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Tribology & Lubrication Patent Landscape covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-08-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.