| Abstract: |
Trends of thermal spraying technology in Japanese steel industry is summarized by investigating the patent applications filed in Japan Patent Office in the past 20 years from FY1990 to FY2009. The total number of patents filed in 8 Patent Offices (Japan, United States, Europe, China, Korea, Russia, Brazil and India), retrieved by the International Patent Classification symbol C23C4/00 ( IPC index key : Coating by spraying the coating material in the molten state ), is 15,082. The ratio of patent applications filed in each Patent Office is as follows: JP (39%), US (22%), EP (17%), CN (9%), KR (6%), RU (3%), BR (3%) and IN (1%). The database used in this study is from commercially available PatBase . The number of patent applications of thermal spraying technology (C23C4/00) in Japan is 4,369. Among these patents, the ratio of patents related to steel industry filed by major 6 Japanese steel companies is 13% of total patents of every industrial segment in Japan. These patents are classified according to (1) coating applications in the process of steel production lines, (2) performances and effects obtained by coatings, and (3) coating materials. In this paper, current status and future trend of thermal spraying technology in Japanese steel industry is discussed.
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