**3. Results and discussion**

#### **3.1 Amorphous alloy development: evolution of patent application**

The evolution of the number of patents and assignees in every decade since the 1970s is shown in **Figures 1** and **2**, respectively. Both figures show obvious increments in the numbers of both patents and assignees after 1990. From subsequent analysis, it was found that the first apparent growth in the number of patent

**Figure 1.** *Evolution of the number of patents.*
