Ankle Foot Orthosis Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One filer, nine records. A single assignee accounts for 9 of the 12 records in scope, with the strongest co-assignee pairing built around a university research partnership.
- Filing already looks past its peak. The trend runs from 9 filings in 2017 to 0 in the most recent year, though publication lag of roughly 18 months means the last year or two will always read lower than they eventually settle.
- Physical therapy dominates the classification mix. A61H covers 75.0% of the 12 records, while additive manufacturing (B33Y) and informatics (G16H) each sit at a single record.
A small, concentrated field built around actuated bracing
Ankle foot orthosis and lower limb bracing patenting in this dataset is small in absolute terms — 12 published records — but far from evenly spread. Filing activity is anchored by an actuator-equipped knee ankle foot orthosis lineage, with the most-cited records in the set both describing that same device architecture. The classification mix leans heavily on physical therapy and massage (A61H) and implants and prostheses (A61F), with a secondary cluster in manipulators and robots (B25J) pointing to powered, sensor-driven assistance rather than passive bracing alone.
Receiving-office activity is led by Europe (EPO) and the United States, with Austria and India also present. That spread suggests the underlying inventions are being pursued for both device markets and manufacturing routes, rather than filed defensively in a single jurisdiction.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 12 records from different angles: when they were filed, and what they claim.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 9 in 2017 and have tapered toward 0 in the most recent, partial year. With fewer than four complete years once publication lag is factored in, a growth rate cannot be stated reliably from this data.
IPC subclass composition
A61H (physical therapy) appears in 75.0% of the 12 records, A61F (implants and prostheses) in 41.7%, and B25J (manipulators and robots) in 33.3%. Shares are computed against the full record count and sum to more than 100% because a single record can carry several IPC classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 12 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Ankle Foot Orthoses and Lower Limb Bracing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about ankle foot orthoses and lower limb bracing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited record in the set
Actuator-equipped knee ankle foot orthosis (US20200315899A1)
The control device calculates a thigh phase angle from a thigh orientation sensor at a given sampling point, maps that angle to pre-stored assisting-force control data, and drives an actuator unit to deliver the corresponding assisting force to a lower-leg brace at that same sampling point.Filed by Suncall Corporation; published 2020-10-08.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200315899A1 | Actuator-equipped knee ankle foot orthosis | 10 |
| 2 | EP3466395A1 | Actuator-equipped knee ankle foot orthosis | 6 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (2 of 2 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three findings stand out once the ranking, trend and classification data are read together.
One actuator lineage anchors the field
The leading assignee's 9 records, reinforced by co-assignee pairings with two university partners, form the technical and citation core of this dataset. Both most-cited records describe the same actuator-equipped knee ankle foot orthosis architecture.
Peak filing activity has already passed
The 2017 peak of 9 filings has not been repeated; recent years show a tapering count. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years understate true filing activity and should not be read as a confirmed decline.
Physical therapy claims dominate, fabrication claims are scarce
A61H and A61F together cover the great majority of records, while additive manufacturing (B33Y) and plastics shaping (B29C) each appear in only a single record. Manufacturing-route claims are the thinnest part of the current filing set.
European and US offices carry most activity
Europe and the United States account for the bulk of receiving-office filings, with Austria and India each contributing a smaller share. This points to device-market filing rather than a manufacturing-hub concentration.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ankle foot orthoses and lower limb bracing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is thin
The ranking below is the whole assignee list the dataset returns for this topic — 15 companies and individuals, not a top-50 or top-100 cut — and it runs from one repeat filer to a long tail of single-record entrants, several of them individual inventors.
A single corporate filer dominates the ranking
The top-ranked assignee holds 9 of the 12 records, filed in close partnership with two university co-assignees. No other entity in the ranking approaches that count.
A flat tail below the leader
Fifth place and tenth place both sit at 2 records, indicating the ranking drops quickly from the leader to a group of assignees filing only once or twice.
No assignee shows recent-year activity
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the leader and its university partners, shows 0 filings in the latest year. Given the publication lag, this reads as a reporting gap rather than confirmed inactivity.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Suncall Corporation | 0 | — |
| Kyoto Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
| Kyoto University | 0 | — |
| V RAMANI | 0 | — |
| SUJITH ROY S | 0 | — |
| S VENGATESWARAN | 0 | — |
| S KANAGARAJ | 0 | — |
| R R VENKATANARAYANAN | 0 | — |
Using this landscape for a filing decision
The dataset points to a narrow but occupied core and several thin branches. Two follow-up actions make the most of that.
Map the actuator-control claim boundary
Before drafting near powered knee-ankle-foot devices, work through what US20200315899A1 and its family actually cover on phase-angle-based assisting-force control, since that lineage carries both the leading assignee's filings and the field's citation weight.
Explore the claim scope in EurekaCheck additive-fabrication and informatics branches for freedom to operate
B33Y, B29C and G16H each appear in only a single record here, which is a thinner claim base than the physical-therapy core. Confirm that thinness before assuming the branch is genuinely open.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaCommon questions about ankle foot orthosis patents
In this dataset, one corporate assignee holds 9 of the 12 records in scope, well ahead of any other filer. That assignee's filings are reinforced by co-assignee partnerships with two university research groups, which together form the field's citation core. The rest of the ranking drops quickly to entities holding just one or two records, several of them individual inventors rather than companies.
The representative filing, US20200315899A1, claims a control method that calculates a thigh phase angle from a sensor reading, maps that angle to pre-stored assisting-force control data, and drives an actuator to deliver a matching assisting force to the lower-leg brace at the same sampling point. This is a sensor-to-actuator control loop claim, not a claim over ankle foot orthoses generally. Anyone designing a powered brace needs to check whether their control logic follows the same phase-angle-to-force mapping approach.
Filings peaked at 9 in 2017 and have tapered toward 0 in the most recent year, but that trend should be read cautiously. Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the last one to two years in any dataset understate true activity. With fewer than four complete years available once that lag is accounted for, a reliable growth or decline rate cannot be stated from this evidence.
The thinnest classification branches in this dataset are additive fabrication (B33Y), plastics shaping (B29C) and healthcare informatics (G16H), each appearing in only one of the 12 records, compared with 75.0% of records touching physical therapy (A61H). That gap suggests manufacturing-route claims, such as 3D-printed brace shells or sensor-driven alignment adjustment tied to informatics platforms, are far less contested than the actuator-control core.
Receiving-office data in this dataset shows Europe (EPO) with 5 filings and the United States with 3, followed by Austria and India with 2 each. That distribution points toward filers pursuing device markets in Europe and the US primarily, with smaller but notable activity from Austrian and Indian applicants.
Research Ankle Foot Orthoses and Lower Limb Bracing in depth with Eureka
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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.