Wire Drawing Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Wire Drawing and Cold Forming Patents: Mapping Who Files, What They Claim, and Where Space Is Still Open
26.8% concentration. The five leading assignees combine for 526 of 1,966 records in scope — a small group holds a real but not dominant share of the field. Filings rose from 19 in 2017 to a peak of 54 in 2021, then declined to 18 by 2024 — a -67% move over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years should be read as provisional rather than a continued fall.
- 1NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION8.7%
- 2KOBE STEEL LTD7.1%
- 3NV BEKAERT SA4.0%
- 4NIHON PARKERIZING CO LTD3.7%
- 5SUMITOMO METAL IND LTD3.4%
See the full wire drawing and cold forming 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 wire drawing and cold forming patents
Who holds the most patents in wire drawing and cold forming?
The dataset’s leading assignee holds 171 of 1,966 records, with the top five combined accounting for 526 records, or 26.8% of the field. That leaves the majority of records spread across a long tail of smaller filers, so a single company’s portfolio should not be treated as covering the whole technology area. Anyone doing competitive tracking should look at both the concentrated top and the fragmented remainder separately, since they behave differently for freedom-to-operate purposes.
Is patent filing in wire drawing technology increasing or declining?
Filings rose to a peak of 54 in 2021, then fell to 18 by 2024, a -67% change over that three-year span. However, publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 counts in most datasets are still incomplete and should not be read as a continuing decline. The fairest read is that activity cooled after 2021, with the true current trajectory not yet fully visible in published records.
What is the difference between B21C and C10M patent classes in this field?
B21C covers metal extrusion and drawing — the mechanical process of pulling wire through a die — and appears on 33.0% of the 1,966 records in this dataset, making it the single largest class. C10M covers lubricants, present on 19.3% of records, reflecting how central drawing lubricant formulation is to die wear and surface quality outcomes. A single patent record frequently carries both codes because drawing performance and lubricant chemistry are claimed together.
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 Wire Drawing and Cold Forming 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.