Within this 958-record dataset, one assignee leads clearly with 184 records, well ahead of the rest of the ranked field. The next four assignees combined bring the top-five total to 359 records, or 37.5% of all records in scope. Beyond the top ten, filing activity spreads thinly across a long tail of companies with only a handful of records each, so the field is concentrated at the top but not dominated by a single monopoly on the underlying technology.

Filing peaked in 2017 at 67 records and has trended down since. Comparing 2021 to 2024, the most recent years that can be treated as complete, filings fell from 37 to 26 records, a 30% decline. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so it is premature to call the most recent years a continuation of that decline rather than a reporting gap.

Alloy composition (IPC class C22C) and powder metallurgy (B22F) are the two largest classes, covering 39.6% and 34.1% of the 958 records respectively. Earth and rock drilling applications (E21B) appear in 21.4% of records, reflecting heavy use of tungsten carbide in downhole cutting tools, while inorganic chemistry (C01B) covers precursor chemistry like ammonium paratungstate at 19.5%. Because records often carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total, which is expected.