Advanced Wound Care Dressings Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 42.1% of all 1,522 records sit with just five assignees, so freedom-to-operate work in this field starts by clearing a short list, not a long one.
- Filings peaked in 2018 at 81 and have declined toward 15 by the most recent (partial) year — this is a maturing field, not a growing one.
- A61F dominates at 69.1% of records while electrotherapy-adjacent A61N sits at just 1.5%, marking a large gap between the crowded core and thinly-claimed edges.
What this dataset covers
This landscape draws on 1,522 published patent records filed between 2015 and 2026 across the wound dressing, negative pressure wound therapy, and advanced wound care space, filtered to records touching exudate management, antimicrobial dressing, moist wound healing, adherence and removal trauma, or biofilm disruption. The scope is defined by IPC classes A61F13 (absorbent articles), A61L15 (materials for bandages and dressings) and A61M1 (devices for introducing media into the body, including negative pressure systems). Records are drawn from receiving offices spanning the United States, Europe, WIPO, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in any trend line understates real activity — 2026 figures in particular should be read as a floor, not a final count. Family-level counting, used throughout the assignee ranking, gives a fairer picture of company activity than raw document counts because it removes the effect of continuations and multi-jurisdiction filing.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,522-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose to a peak of 81 in 2018, held near a midpoint of 73 in 2022, then declined to 15 by the most recent (partial) year — a pattern consistent with a field where core claim territory is already occupied rather than one still expanding.
IPC subclass composition
A61F (implants and prostheses, largely absorbent dressing structures) touches 69.1% of the 1,522 records, with A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) at 40.9% and A61M (devices for body fluids, including negative pressure systems) at 34.8%. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% — smaller classes such as A61N (electrotherapy, 1.5%) and B32B (layered products, 2.8%) mark the thinnest-claimed edges of the same dataset.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,522 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Advanced Wound Care Dressings with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about advanced wound care dressings and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this dataset
US5512041A — Wound dressing for promoting moist wound healing
A wound dressing for promoting moist wound healing comprising a backing sheet coated with a pressure-sensitive adhesive, an absorbent pad adhered to the adhesive, and a net extending across the pad and adhered to the adhesive. The perimeter of the pad is completely surrounded by a portion of the adhesive. The backing sheet comprises a strip of stretchable, liquid-permeable, non-woven fabric and a semi-occlusive film, with the fabric strip on the interior side carrying the adhesive.Filed by Scott Health Care; illustrates the layered-structure, moist-healing claim style that recurs across the most-cited records in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4906240A | Adhesive-faced porous absorbent sheet and method of making same | 1,429 |
| 2 | US7799965B2 | Wound dressings with anti-microbial and zinc-containing agents | 1,362 |
| 3 | US5556375A | Wound dressing having a fenestrated base layer | 1,332 |
| 4 | US20070055209A1 | Self contained wound dressing apparatus | 648 |
| 5 | US7569742B2 | Self contained wound dressing with micropump | 586 |
| 6 | US8568386B2 | Orientation independent canister for a negative pressure wound therapy device | 489 |
| 7 | US8251979B2 | Orientation independent canister for a negative pressure wound therapy device | 476 |
| 8 | US9017302B2 | Thin film wound dressing | 444 |
| 9 | WO2007030601A2 | Self contained wound dressing with micropump | 415 |
| 10 | US20070078366A1 | Self contained wound dressing with micropump | 382 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings, since they have had longer to accumulate references — treat them as a signal of influence on subsequent filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
Three figures from this dataset carry direct implications for anyone deciding where to file, litigate or design around.
The core is already claimed by a small group
The top five assignees combined account for 641 of the 1,522 records in scope, or 42.1% of the field. The leader alone holds 278 records, with fifth place at 70 — a steep drop-off that marks a genuine gap between the largest holder and the rest of the field.
Filing activity is declining, not accelerating
Volume rose to a peak of 81 records in 2018, held near 73 at the 2022 midpoint, and has fallen to 15 in the most recent (partial) year. Read alongside the 18-month publication lag, this points to a field where the pace of new filing has slowed rather than one still building momentum.
Electrotherapy-adjacent dressings remain thinly claimed
Against A61F's 69.1% share, A61N sits at just 1.5% of the 1,522 records and B32B (layered products) at 2.8%. These are not niche curiosities — they sit inside the same search scope as the crowded core, which makes them a plausible place to look for openings.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to advanced wound care dressings, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where momentum has stalled
The assignee ranking covers the 100 companies the data endpoint returns, counted by patent family. Recent-year momentum figures show activity slowing even among the largest holders.
A single holder sets the ceiling
The leading assignee holds 278 of the 1,522 records in scope — more than triple the count at fifth place (70). Any competitive filing strategy in this space has to account for this holder's claim footprint first.
The top ten control roughly six in ten records
Combined, the top ten assignees hold 908 of 1,522 records — 59.7% of the dataset. Beyond tenth place, the ranking thins into a long tail of single- and low-digit filers, which is where most freedom-to-operate risk outside the leaders will sit.
Even top holders show no recent-year filings
Several of the largest assignees in this dataset, including multiple entities tied to co-assignee pairs, show zero filings in the latest year with year-over-year declines of -100% where a prior-year baseline exists. That is consistent with the overall downward filing trend rather than a company-specific pullback.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Covidien LP | 0 | — |
| Smith & Nephew Inc | 0 | -100% |
| ConvaTec Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| T J Smith & Nephew Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| Smith & Nephew PLC | 0 | -100% |
| Coloplast A/S | 0 | — |
| Medtrade Products Ltd | 0 | — |
| ConvaTec Technologies Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a mature core and a thinner set of adjacent branches. Two directions follow from that.
Map the top holder's claim boundaries precisely
With one assignee holding 278 of 1,522 records, a claim-by-claim review of that portfolio is the highest-value next step before committing to a filing direction in the crowded A61F core.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches for real openness
Low record shares in A61N and B32B could mean genuine white space or simply low commercial interest — the only way to tell is to pull the underlying claims and check for adjacent blocking art.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about advanced wound care dressing patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 278 of the 1,522 records in scope, more than three times the count held by the fifth-placed assignee at 70. The top five assignees together account for 42.1% of all records, and the top ten account for 59.7%. Beyond that point the ranking thins into a long tail of smaller filers, so competitive analysis should weight the leaders heavily but not ignore the tail entirely.
No — filing volume peaked at 81 records in 2018, held near 73 at the 2022 midpoint, and has declined to 15 by the most recent (partial) year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the final year or two of any trend understates true activity, but the multi-year decline predates that lag effect. This pattern is more consistent with a maturing, already-claimed field than an expanding one.
A61F (implants and absorbent article structures) appears in 69.1% of the 1,522 records, making it the dominant classification by a wide margin. A61L (sterilising and disinfecting materials) and A61M (devices for body fluids, including negative pressure systems) follow at 40.9% and 34.8% respectively. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages overlap rather than summing to 100%, but the ordering shows where claim density is highest.
The thinnest-claimed classes within this same search scope are A61N (electrotherapy, 1.5% of records) and B32B (layered laminate structures, 2.8%), compared with A61F's 69.1%. That gap does not guarantee an open filing position — it could reflect lower commercial interest rather than true openness — but it is a reasonable starting point for a design-around or white-space search focused on electrotherapy-integrated or laminate-structure dressings.
US5512041A, assigned to Scott Health Care, claims a wound dressing built from a backing sheet with pressure-sensitive adhesive, an absorbent pad fully surrounded by adhesive at its perimeter, and a net across the pad, with the backing sheet itself formed from a stretchable liquid-permeable fabric strip laminated to a semi-occlusive film. Its claims are specific to that layered construction and adhesive arrangement rather than to moist wound healing generally. Anyone designing a new absorbent dressing with a different backing architecture or adhesive placement should still run a focused freedom-to-operate check against it given how frequently it is cited in this dataset (1,429 citations).
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
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.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.