White Etching Crack Bearing Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 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.
- Filing peaked in 2018, then cooled. After 106 records in the peak year, filings fell from 17 in 2021 to 8 in 2024 — a 53% drop over that three-year span, with 2025-2026 still filling in under publication lag.
- Claims cluster in monitoring, not metallurgy. Over 90% of records carry a control-and-regulating IPC class, and over 70% carry AI-model and digital-transmission classes — the crack-mechanism itself is a comparatively thin slice of the corpus.
Filing growth compares 2021 (17 records) with 2024 (8) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 313 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
White etching crack (WEC) failure is a subsurface bearing degradation mode linked to hydrogen ingress, electrical current passage, lubricant additive chemistry and microstructural change beneath the raceway. It causes premature bearing failure well short of design life, and it has been a persistent reliability problem in wind turbine gearboxes in particular. This landscape covers 313 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine white etching crack or white etching area terminology with one of the documented causal or mitigation routes.
The scope spans mechanical fixes such as coatings and race material changes alongside a much larger cluster of monitoring, sensing and data-analytics filings that treat WEC as a condition to be detected and predicted rather than a metallurgical problem to be solved outright. That split shapes almost everything else in this dataset, from the assignee ranking to the technology composition chart.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 313 records: how filing activity moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records actually sit in.
Filing trend: a sharp peak, then a multi-year decline
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.
Technology composition: monitoring dominates the claim space
G05B control-and-regulating systems appears in 90.1% of the 313 records, with H04L digital transmission and G06N AI-model computing each present in over 70%. These figures overlap heavily — a single record often carries several of these classes — which points to a corpus built around condition monitoring and predictive analytics platforms rather than distinct metallurgical or lubricant-chemistry claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 313 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on White Etching Crack Failures in Bearings with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about white etching crack failures in bearings and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Bearing assembly with stainless steel race (WO2022015791A1)
A multi-row tapered roller bearing assembly for a wind turbine gearbox includes first and second axially adjacent inner bearing races with oppositely skewed raceway surfaces relative to the bearing's central rotation axis, paired with axially adjacent outer races and tapered rolling elements. Less than all of the bearing races are constructed from stainless steel, targeting the electrical and corrosion pathways associated with white etching crack initiation.Filed by The Timken Company, published 2022-01-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190339688A1 | Methods and systems for data collection, learning, and streaming of machine signals for analytics and mainten… | 973 |
| 2 | US20200348662A1 | Platform for facilitating development of intelligence in an industrial internet of things system | 732 |
| 3 | US20210157312A1 | Intelligent vibration digital twin systems and methods for industrial environments | 715 |
| 4 | US20180284758A1 | Methods and systems for industrial internet of things data collection for equipment analysis in an upstream o… | 598 |
| 5 | US20200225655A1 | Methods, systems, kits and apparatuses for monitoring and managing industrial settings in an industrial inter… | 562 |
| 6 | US20200103894A1 | Methods and systems for data collection, learning, and streaming of machine signals for computerized maintena… | 513 |
| 7 | US20190171187A1 | Methods and systems for the industrial internet of things | 457 |
| 8 | US20190033845A1 | Methods and systems for detection in an industrial internet of things data collection environment with freque… | 409 |
| 9 | WO2019028269A2 | Methods and systems for detection in an industrial internet of things data collection environment with large … | 391 |
| 10 | US20220108262A1 | Industrial digital twin systems and methods with echelons of executive, advisory and operations messaging and… | 386 |
Citation counts favour older records in any searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence within this dataset, not of current technical importance.
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Three read-outs from the filing and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file or where to watch.
One assignee dominates the ranked field
The leading filer accounts for 296 of the 313 records in this dataset, with the next four ranked assignees combined adding only 15 more records to reach 311 (99.4% of the total). Anyone assessing freedom to operate here is really assessing one portfolio, not a competitive field.
Filing activity has cooled from its 2018 peak
After peaking at 106 records in 2018, annual filings dropped to 17 by 2021 and to 8 by 2024, a 53% decline over that span. Recent-year momentum data shows the dominant filer itself down 50% year-on-year in the latest tracked period, with the other ranked assignees at zero.
The corpus leans toward detection, not metallurgy
Nine in ten records in scope carry a control-and-regulating systems classification, and roughly three-quarters also carry AI-model or digital-transmission classes. That composition indicates most filers are patenting ways to sense and predict WEC failure rather than novel bearing materials or lubricant chemistries.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to white etching crack failures in bearings, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list is short and heavily skewed toward one filer, which leaves large parts of the underlying engineering problem addressed by only a handful of records.
A single portfolio dominates the ranking
The top-ranked assignee's 296 records dwarf every other filer in this dataset, meaning that most of the claim space captured here — largely monitoring, sensing and analytics filings tied to industrial equipment — sits with one entity.
Traditional bearing manufacturers hold a thin slice
Established bearing and driveline manufacturers appear in the ranking but with far smaller counts than the leading filer, reflecting a smaller number of targeted filings on race materials, coatings and assembly design rather than broad platform claims.
Research institutions contribute narrowly
At least one academic institution appears among the ranked assignees, indicating some research-stage interest in the failure mechanism itself, though its filing volume is small next to the dominant industrial portfolio.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Strong Force IoT Portfolio 2016 LLC | 1 | -50% |
| Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG | 0 | — |
| STRONG FORCE TX PORTFOLIO 2018 LLC | 0 | — |
| Denso Corporation | 0 | — |
| Indian Institute of Technology Madras | 0 | — |
| The Timken Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing data points to a field where claim space is concentrated in monitoring platforms, leaving the underlying mechanical and chemical causes of white etching crack comparatively open.
Map the mechanical and chemical routes separately
Because the majority of records here are monitoring and analytics filings, a search focused only on coatings, race materials and lubricant chemistry would likely surface a much smaller, more specific set of prior art worth reviewing claim by claim.
Explore this in EurekaTrack the dominant filer's momentum
With the leading assignee down 50% year-on-year in the latest tracked period and the rest of the ranked field at zero, near-term filing activity in this space is worth monitoring rather than assuming continued concentration.
Set up monitoring in EurekaTest draft claims against the representative filing
WO2022015791A1's race-material approach to WEC mitigation is a useful anchor for assessing whether a new mechanical or material-based claim sits clear of existing coverage.
Run a claim check in EurekaCommon questions on white etching crack patents
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.
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.
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.
The representative filing in this dataset, WO2022015791A1 from The Timken Company, illustrates one mechanical approach: constructing some but not all of a multi-row tapered roller bearing's races from stainless steel to address the electrical and corrosion pathways linked to WEC initiation. Other documented routes in the broader corpus include black oxide and alternative coatings, lubricant additive changes aimed at reducing hydrogen generation, and current-passage mitigation in gearbox assemblies. Separately, a large share of filings take a detection-based approach, using condition monitoring and predictive analytics rather than changing the bearing's materials or chemistry.
Because roughly 90% of the 313 records in scope carry a control-and-regulating systems classification and most also carry AI-model or digital-transmission classes, the corpus skews heavily toward monitoring and analytics platforms rather than the underlying mechanical or chemical fix. That leaves branches like lubricant additive formulation, stray-current mitigation hardware, and coating or race-material substitution comparatively under-claimed relative to the scale of the engineering problem. A team with a genuinely new metallurgical or chemical approach to WEC is likely to find a smaller, more specific prior-art set than the headline record count suggests.
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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.
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