Weld NDT Phased Array Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Weld Nondestructive Testing with Phased Array: Patents Mapped Across Assignees and Filing Years
58.1% of records sit with five assignees. the top five combined hold 79 of 136 records in scope — a field concentrated at the top with a long tail below it. Filings ran from 6 records in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2019, then fell before rebounding sharply — 1 record in 2021 to 9 in 2024, an +800% swing over that span. 2025 and 2026 show fewer records because publication has not caught up with filing, not because activity stopped.
- 1ONTARIO POWER GENERATION INC34
- 2BAE SYSTEMS PLC16
- 3BAKER HUGHES CO13
- 4NORTH CHINA ELECTRICAL POWER RES INST8
- 5STATE GRID CORPORATION OF CHINA8
See the full weld nondestructive testing with phased array 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
Common questions on this landscape
Who holds the most patents in phased array weld inspection?
One assignee leads this landscape with 34 of the 136 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 8. The top five combined account for 58.1% of all records, and the top ten reach 79.4%. Below that the field has a long tail of companies with only a handful of filings each, typically utility operators, inspection service providers and drilling-equipment makers working narrower applications.
Is filing activity in weld phased array ultrasonic testing growing or slowing?
Filings peaked at 20 records in 2019, dipped, and then grew sharply again — from 1 record in 2021 to 9 in 2024, an +800% increase over that span. 2025 and 2026 show fewer published records, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual slowdown. 2024 is the most recent year the data supports treating as complete.
What patent classes cover phased array weld inspection technology?
The dominant class is G01N (material analysis and testing), present in 76.5% of the 136 records, covering the core inspection methods. G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) and G01B (length and dimension measurement) follow at 23.5% and 21.3%, reflecting scan-encoding and sizing-accuracy claims. Smaller shares appear in aerospace ground-installation, nuclear, electrical measurement, welding-process and drilling classes, since a single record can carry several classes at once.
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 Weld Nondestructive Testing with Phased Array covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. 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.