Welded Pipe Manufacturing Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
Welded Pipe Manufacturing Patents: Concentration, Trends and Open Claim Space
64.1% of all 518 records in scope sit with just five assignees, and 77.4% with ten — this field is held tightly at the top with a long tail below it. Filings peaked at 13 records in 2017. The 2021-to-2024 window — the most recent span with complete publication — shows a drop from 10 to 5 records, a 50% decline; 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as later-filed applications publish.
- 1SHELL OIL CO196
- 2SHELL INTERNATIONALE RESEARCH MAATSCHAPPIJ BV54
- 3NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION45
- 4CRC EVANS PIPELINE INTERNATIONAL INC21
- 5JFE STEEL CORP16
See the full welded pipe manufacturing 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 welded pipe manufacturing patents
Who are the leading patent holders in welded pipe manufacturing?
The dataset’s assignee ranking is led by a single company holding 196 of the 518 records in scope, with the top five assignees combined accounting for 64.1% of all records and the top ten reaching 77.4%. This is a concentrated field: integrated steelmakers and oilfield-service specialists dominate the core claims, while a long tail of around 100 ranked companies holds smaller numbers of filings each. Anyone entering the space should expect to negotiate around, or clearly design outside, the leading holders’ claims rather than find open ground at the centre of the field.
Is patent filing activity in welded pipe manufacturing growing or shrinking?
Filing peaked at 13 records in 2017 within this dataset, and the most recent complete three-year window shows a decline from 10 records in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a 50% drop. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower still, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than a confirmed continuation of the slowdown. A fair read is that filing has cooled from its 2017 peak, with the true 2025–2026 level not yet visible in published data.
What technology areas dominate welded pipe manufacturing patents?
By IPC subclass, E21B (earth and rock drilling, i.e. well applications) leads at 44.4% of the 518 records, followed by G01N (material analysis and testing) at 19.9% and B23K (welding, soldering and brazing) at 18.3%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive segments. The pattern indicates that a large share of patenting activity protects how welded pipe is applied and tested downhole, not only how the weld itself is formed.
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 Welded Pipe Manufacturing 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.