Ultrasonic Welding Patents: Top Companies & Battery Tab Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees account for 75.0% of all 20 records in scope, with the leader alone holding 6 filings.
- Battery tab welding dominates recent citation activity. The most-cited records are almost all battery-tab ultrasonic welding equipment for soft-pack cells, not general plastics joining.
- Filing has flattened, not grown. Activity peaked at 2 records in 2018 and sits at 2 again at the 2022 midpoint, showing no clear upward trend through the dataset.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 20 published records at the intersection of ultrasonic welding technique and specific claim territory: energy director geometry, horn-and-booster tuning, visible-surface marking control, battery tab welding, and process monitoring via the power curve. The scope is deliberately narrow — it is not general ultrasonic welding, but the subset where applicants have staked claims on how the weld is designed, tuned or monitored rather than simply that ultrasonic energy was used.
Filings split between two physical domains that behave differently in the data: thermoplastic joint design (energy directors, marking control) and metal-to-metal battery tab welding, which pulls in a distinct set of Chinese battery-supply-chain filers. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year in the trend understates real activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 20 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filing trend is flat, not rising
Filings peaked at 2 records in 2018 and returned to the same level of 2 by the 2022 midpoint, with no sustained climb across the window. Given the ~18-month publication lag, the tail years are undercounted and should not be read as a decline in filing intent.
Plastics shaping and metal welding lead the classification mix
B29C (shaping of plastics) appears on 60.0% of the 20 records and B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) on 45.0%, confirming the dataset's dual character. B32B (layered products) reaches 30.0%, while H01M (batteries) at 15.0% marks the battery-tab welding subset — smaller in volume but concentrated in citations.
Shares are the percentage of the 20 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Ultrasonic Welding of Plastics and Metals with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about ultrasonic welding of plastics and metals and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Energy director design — GM Global Technology Operations LLC
An energy director for ultrasonic welding is built from two raised regions: a first raised region rising from the base surface of the component to be welded, and a second raised region rising from the first. Because the second region sits above the first, only the outer material melts during welding, leaving the first region intact to maintain a controlled adhesive bond line thickness.Filed 2021-10-28. The two-tier geometry targets a specific failure mode in thermoplastic ultrasonic welds: uncontrolled bond-line thinning when the entire energy director melts.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN109014554A | 软包装电池极耳超声波焊接方法及设备 | 12 |
| 2 | US20150129110A1 | Energy director joint design for ultrasonic welding of thermoplastics | 10 |
| 3 | CN216462426U | 一种具有除尘功能的电池极耳超声焊接装置 | 6 |
| 4 | CN210703078U | 一种锂电池极耳超声波焊接机 | 6 |
| 5 | CN209006870U | 软包装电池极耳超声波焊接设备及其焊头 | 4 |
| 6 | EP3068604A1 | Energy director joint design for ultrasonic welding of thermoplastics | 3 |
| 7 | US20210331427A1 | Energy director design | 2 |
| 8 | CN211162377U | 一种软包锂离子电池极耳超声焊接机焊头集尘吸尘罩 | 2 |
| 9 | WO2015073126A1 | Energy director joint design for ultrasonic welding of thermoplastics | 2 |
| 10 | KR1020240008002A | Horn angle asjustment apparatus for secondary battery tab ultrasonic waves welding machine and horn angle asj… | 1 |
Citation counts inside this searched corpus favour older publications; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not of current commercial weight.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns worth acting on before drafting claims in this space.
A small group holds most of the claim space
The top 5 assignees combined account for 75.0% of all 20 records in scope, with the leader holding 6 filings on its own. A new entrant should assume the core energy-director and horn-tuning claims near the leader's filings are already crowded.
Plastics and metal welding are both active, not one dominant
B29C (plastics shaping) and B23K (welding/soldering) both post substantial shares, meaning the dataset genuinely spans two adjacent but distinct claim territories. Drafting strategy should specify which domain a claim targets rather than treating ultrasonic welding as a single undifferentiated field.
Battery tab welding draws the heaviest downstream attention
The most-cited record in the set concerns soft-pack battery tab ultrasonic welding, and several of the next most-cited records are also battery-tab equipment. This suggests battery manufacturing is where later filers are building on prior art most actively, even though it is a minority share of total records.
No sustained growth trend to date
The filing trend peaked at 2 records in 2018 and returned to 2 records at the 2022 midpoint rather than climbing steadily. Recent-year momentum by assignee shows no leader adding new filings in the latest year, though the ~18-month publication lag means the newest year is always understated.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ultrasonic welding of plastics and metals, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders cover the full assignee list this dataset returns — ten companies account for all 20 records, split between US/EU joint-design specialists and China-based battery-equipment makers.
A single assignee holds the largest filing block
The leading assignee's 6 records give it the strongest position in energy-director and joint-design claims, well ahead of the field. Any freedom-to-operate review in this space should start with its filings.
A compact group beneath the leader
Four more assignees join the leader to cover 75.0% of all records in scope, leaving the remaining five ranked companies to split the last quarter. This is a field with a defined leading group rather than one dominant filer alone.
Single-filing entrants fill out the ranking
From fifth place down to tenth, assignees hold single-digit filings, several at exactly 1 record. These include China-based battery-tab equipment and lithium-cell manufacturers entering with narrow, application-specific claims rather than broad joint-design patents.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Dukane IAS, LLC | 0 | — |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | — |
| Dukane Corporation | 0 | — |
| Zhuhai Xinwei Welding Equipment Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Emerson Corporation (Amprosu K.K.) | 0 | — |
| Jiangsu Yuanhang Jinli New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Jieway Power Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Guangzhou Jinheneng Ultrasonic Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on what you are trying to protect or clear.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leader
With one assignee holding 6 of 20 records, any new energy-director or horn-tuning filing should be checked against that assignee's claim scope first.
Explore in EurekaWatch the battery-tab welding cluster
Citation activity concentrates on soft-pack battery tab welding equipment even though it is a smaller share of total records, signalling where later filers are building.
Explore in EurekaDraft around the two-tier energy director design
US20210331427A1's staged-melt geometry is a specific, citable design; alternative bond-line control approaches are the practical way to avoid direct overlap.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
In this dataset of 20 records, one assignee leads with 6 filings, ahead of the rest of the ranked field. The top 5 assignees together account for 75.0% of all 20 records, so filing activity is concentrated rather than evenly spread. A freedom-to-operate search in this niche should prioritise the leader's portfolio before looking at the long tail of single-filing entrants.
Based on the filing trend in this dataset, activity peaked at 2 records in 2018 and was back to 2 records at the 2022 midpoint, showing no sustained upward trend across the window. Because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, the most recent years in any such trend are understated and should not be read as a real drop-off. Overall the pattern reads as flat rather than growing or declining sharply.
The dataset spans two adjacent IPC territories: B29C (shaping of plastics), appearing on 60.0% of the 20 records, and B23K (welding, soldering and brazing), on 45.0%. Plastics-side claims tend to cover energy director geometry and joint design, while metal-side claims cluster around battery tab welding equipment, particularly for lithium battery soft-pack cells. Because a single record can carry both classifications, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be treated as mutually exclusive categories.
The most-cited record in this dataset is a soft-pack battery electrode tab ultrasonic welding method, and several of the next most-cited records are also battery-tab welding equipment or machines. This reflects strong downstream interest from battery manufacturing, where tab-to-busbar joint quality is a manufacturing yield concern. Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older records, so this signals influence on later filers rather than a claim that battery welding is currently the largest filing category by volume.
US20210331427A1 covers an energy director built from two raised regions, where a second region sits above and melts before a first region beneath it, so the first region stays intact and preserves a controlled adhesive bond line thickness. This is a specific two-tier geometry aimed at preventing bond-line thinning during ultrasonic welding of thermoplastics, not ultrasonic welding or energy directors in general. A design that uses a single-tier energy director, or a different mechanism for controlling bond-line thickness such as mechanical stops or process-monitoring feedback, would sit outside this specific claim.
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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.