White Etching Crack Failures in Bearings: Patent Filing Trends and Who Holds the Claims
One filer, nearly the whole field. A single assignee accounts for 296 of 313 records in scope, with the remaining five ranked companies combined reaching only 311 (99.4%) of the total. Filings rose fast to a peak of 106 records in 2018, then declined. By the last complete filing year, 2024, annual volume had fallen to 8 records, down 53% from the 17 recorded in 2021. Publication lag of roughly 18 months means 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as a continued fall.
- 1强力物联网投资组合2016有限公司94.6%
- 2舍弗勒技术股份两合公司1.6%
- 3STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC1.3%
- 4株式会社电装1.0%
- 5印度理工学院马德拉斯分校1.0%
See the full white etching crack failures in bearings 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 white etching crack patents
What causes white etching crack failure in bearings?
White etching crack (WEC) is a subsurface failure mode where microstructural changes form beneath the raceway surface, leading to cracking and premature bearing failure well before the expected design life. The patent literature in this dataset ties WEC to several documented causal routes, including hydrogen ingress into the steel, electrical current passage through the bearing, and lubricant additive chemistry that can promote hydrogen generation at the contact surface. It is a particular reliability concern in wind turbine gearboxes, where the mechanical loading and electrical environment can combine to accelerate the failure.
Who holds the most patents on white etching crack solutions?
The ranked assignee list for this dataset is short — six companies — and heavily concentrated, with the leading filer accounting for 296 of the 313 records in scope. The remaining ranked assignees, including established bearing and driveline manufacturers plus at least one academic institution, hold far smaller counts by comparison. This concentration means that most of the patented monitoring and analytics approaches to WEC detection sit within a single portfolio, while mechanical and material-based fixes are more thinly spread across the other filers.
Is white etching crack patent activity still growing?
No. Filing activity peaked at 106 records in 2018 and has declined since, falling from 17 records in 2021 to 8 in 2024, a 53% drop over that three-year span using the last years with reliable complete data. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as evidence of a further decline. The overall pattern points to a technology area where early, broad filing has given way to more selective activity.
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 White Etching Crack Failures in Bearings 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.