Balloon Catheter Design Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 23.4% of all 7,486 records sit with just five assignees, so the compliance-curve and burst-pressure claims most designers will collide with are concentrated, not scattered.
- Filings peaked in 2017 at 300 and eased to 212 by 2024, a -12% move over that span, which reads as a maturing claim map rather than a shrinking field — recency is understated because publication lags filing by about 18 months.
- A61M and A61F together touch over half of all records, while sterilisation (A61L) and plastics shaping (B29C) classes are far thinner — a signal of where fresh claim territory still exists.
Filing growth compares 2021 (242 records) with 2024 (212) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 7,486 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the balloon catheter filing record actually shows
Balloon catheter design sits at the intersection of mechanical engineering and interventional medicine: rated burst pressure, compliance curve, crossing profile and refold capability are the recurring claim elements that separate one filing from the next. The dataset covers 7,486 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search string built around balloon and angioplasty catheter terms paired with the specific performance language — burst pressure, compliance curve, nylon balloon, inflation time — that distinguishes a design patent from a generic device filing.
The most-cited records in this corpus trace back to expandable intraluminal graft patents from the 1980s, a reminder that citation counts favour foundational, decades-old filings over current activity. Recent filing volume and IPC composition are the more reliable guide to where the field is now.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 7,486 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 300 in 2017 and had settled to 212 by 2024, a -12% move across that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up with filing, so treat the tail of the chart as incomplete rather than as a decline.
IPC subclass composition
A61M (devices for body fluids) and A61F (implants and prostheses) each cover roughly half of all records, confirming that most claims are written around fluid delivery and structural/implant mechanics rather than the drug or electrotherapy side of the field. A61L (sterilising) and B29C (plastics shaping) are present but far thinner, and A61N and A61P barely register — records can carry multiple classes, so these shares add to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 7,486 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Balloon Catheter Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about balloon catheter design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a representative claim
Balloon catheter having nonlinear compliance curve and method of using (US5447497A)
A balloon catheter, having a non-linear compliance curve, made up of a dual layered balloon, one balloon being a compliant balloon and the other balloon being a non-compliant balloon.Filed by Boston Scientific Scimed; issued 1995-09-05. Still a frequent reference point for dual-layer compliance-curve designs.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4733665A | Expandable intraluminal graft, and method and apparatus for implanting an expandable intraluminal graft | 6,224 |
| 2 | US4739762A | Expandable intraluminal graft, and method and apparatus for implanting an expandable intraluminal graft | 2,570 |
| 3 | US4776337A | Expandable intraluminal graft, and method and apparatus for implanting an expandable intraluminal graft | 2,265 |
| 4 | US5102417A | Expandable intraluminal graft, and method and apparatus for implanting an expandable intraluminal graft | 2,160 |
| 5 | US5195984A | Expandable intraluminal graft | 1,490 |
| 6 | US7534259B2 | Nonstented heart valves with formed in situ support | 1,455 |
| 7 | US5749890A | Method and system for stent placement in ostial lesions | 1,402 |
| 8 | US6895265B2 | Implantable sensor | 1,138 |
| 9 | US20040176672A1 | Implantable, retrievable, thrombus minimizing sensors | 1,058 |
| 10 | US20140163664A1 | Integrated system for the ballistic and nonballistic infixion and retrieval of implants with or without drug … | 965 |
Citation counts here are dominated by 1980s expandable intraluminal graft filings — a sign of foundational influence, not current filing activity. Use recent filing and IPC data, not this table, to judge where the field stands today.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three findings that change how a filer should read this space, drawn directly from the concentration, trend and receiving-office data above.
The top of the field is narrow, the tail is long
Five assignees hold 23.4% of all 7,486 records, and the top ten hold 32.3%. That leaves more than two-thirds of the corpus spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants, which is where most new applicants actually land.
Volume has eased, not collapsed
Filings ran from 242 in 2021 to 212 in 2024, a -12% move. That is a cooling from the 2017 peak of 300, consistent with a claim space that has filled in around its core mechanics rather than one that is being abandoned.
Filing is US-anchored with a solid PCT and EPO layer
The United States receiving office accounts for the largest single share of records, with Europe (EPO) and WIPO/PCT filings forming the next tier, and Australia and Canada behind that. A filer clearing the US position still has EPO and PCT exposure to check separately.
Fluid-delivery mechanics dominate the claim map
A61M and A61F between them touch over half of all records each, meaning most contested claim territory is in delivery-device and implant mechanics rather than in drug coating, sterilisation or electrotherapy adjacents, which remain comparatively thin.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to balloon catheter design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where momentum has stalled
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted by patent family. The leader holds 592 records; the field then falls off quickly toward the middle of the ranking, and further into a long tail of one-off filers.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 592 records, well clear of fifth place at 153 and tenth place at 116 — a steep drop-off that marks a genuine leader rather than a crowded top tier.
Even active filers have slowed sharply
Several of the more active historical assignees, including Shockwave Medical, Abbott Cardiovascular Systems, W. L. Gore and Medtronic Vascular, show sharp year-on-year drops or zero filings in the latest recorded year. Given the 18-month publication lag, this is as much a data-recency effect as a real pullback.
Named-inventor pairings are sparse and concentrated
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the strongest of them link a single company to a single named inventor rather than showing cross-company joint filing. Collaboration, where it exists, looks internal rather than inter-firm.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Shockwave Medical, Inc. | 5 | -76% |
| Abbott Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Obalon Therapeutics, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Reva Medical, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Medtronic Vascular, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Advanced Bifurcation Systems, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Cordis Corporation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The numbers above answer where the field stands. The next step is usually narrower: checking a specific claim against a specific competitor, or scoping a design-around.
Map a specific claim against the leader's portfolio
Run the compliance-curve or crossing-profile claim you are drafting against the top-ranked assignee's filings directly, rather than against the field average.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the thin IPC classes for early movement
A61N and B29C filings are rare now; a new filing there is easier to spot early than in the crowded A61M/A61F core.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on balloon catheter design patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 592 records, a clear margin over fifth place at 153 and tenth place at 116. That gap indicates a genuine leader rather than a crowded top tier, though the top ten assignees together still only account for 32.3% of the 7,486 records in scope, so most of the field sits outside their portfolios. Anyone doing freedom-to-operate work should check the leader's claims first, then work down the ranking rather than assuming coverage is evenly spread.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 300 and had eased to 212 by 2024, a -12% change across that three-year span. That reads as a maturing claim map rather than an abandoned field — the core compliance-curve and burst-pressure mechanics are well covered, which naturally reduces the rate of new filing in that specific territory. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not be read as a further decline.
The two dominant IPC subclasses are A61M (devices for introducing media into the body) at 53.9% of the 7,486 records and A61F (implants and prostheses) at 50.1%. A61B (diagnosis and surgery) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) form a second tier, while A61K, B29C, A61N and A61P are present but comparatively thin. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
US5447497A, assigned to Boston Scientific Scimed, claims a balloon catheter with a non-linear compliance curve built from a dual-layer balloon combining a compliant layer with a non-compliant layer. It is a frequently referenced filing for anyone designing dual-layer or non-linear compliance mechanics, meaning new designs using a similar layered approach need a careful claim-by-claim comparison rather than a general assumption of freedom to operate. It does not by itself block single-layer or uniformly compliant balloon designs, which sit outside its specific dual-layer construction.
The thinner IPC classes point to the likeliest under-claimed territory: sterilisation-compatible coatings that overlap A61L, plastics-shaping approaches to refold geometry under B29C, and electrotherapy-integrated balloon designs under A61N, all of which sit well below the 53.9% and 50.1% density seen in A61M and A61F. Co-assignee data also shows only ten recorded pairings across the whole corpus, suggesting collaborative or licensed development in this space is rare rather than saturated. New entrants have more room to establish a first claim in these adjacent branches than in the core compliance-curve and burst-pressure territory.
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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.