CGM Wearable On-Body Integration Patent Landscape 2026
The CGM wearable and on-body integration patent space is heavily concentrated, with Dexcom holding roughly one-third of the top-ranked filers’ combined output and the top five collectively accounting for the majority of the leading hundred filers’ records. Annual filing volume peaked in 2021 and has eased since, though publication lag makes the most recent period appear softer than it likely is.
Dexcom leads a tightly concentrated field; the top five dominate the leading filers
Dexcom holds the top position among the ranked applicants with 209 patent records, more than double the second-place Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings at 81 records and the third-place Medtronic MiniMed at 77 records. The University of Virginia. Patent Foundation occupies fourth place with 46 records, the only academic entrant in the upper tier.
The top five filers account for 57% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers — a high concentration ratio that signals established incumbents control the primary filing corridors. The gap between Dexcom and the rest of the field is the most pronounced structural feature of this landscape.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dexcom Inc | 209 | |
| 2 | Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings AG | 81 | |
| 3 | Medtronic MiniMed Inc | 77 | |
| 4 | University of Virginia Patent Foundation | 46 | |
| 5 | Abbott Diabetes Care Inc | 25 | |
| 6 | Tandem Diabetes Care Inc | 24 | |
| 7 | WellDoc Inc | 24 | |
| 8 | Insulet Corporation | 22 | |
| 9 | BECTON DICKINSON & CO | 21 | |
| 10 | Embecta Corp | 19 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Verily Life Sciences LLC | 16 | |
| 12 | Bigfoot Biomedical Inc | 15 | |
| 13 | Aita Bio Inc | 13 | |
| 14 | Allez Health Inc | 10 | |
| 15 | Pacific Diabetes Technologies Inc | 10 | |
| 16 | Glytec LLC | 9 | |
| 17 | Willow Lab Inc | 7 | |
| 18 | TT1 Prod Inc | 7 | |
| 19 | F HOFFMANN LA ROCHE & CO AG | 7 | |
| 20 | Roche Diabetes Care Inc | 6 |
Dexcom’s scale implies it has built broad defensive coverage across diagnosis and sensor-wear classes, making adjacent or design-around entry paths strategically important for challengers. Medtronic MiniMed and Ascensia both maintain substantial positions, suggesting a viable secondary tier, while the University of Virginia’s academic presence signals ongoing foundational research activity.
Patent families published in the most recent 18–24 months are routinely under-counted due to publication lag; figures for 2025 and 2026 should be treated as provisional lower bounds. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filings peaked in 2021 and have eased; sensor diagnostics dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend reveals a build-up from 2017 to a 2021 peak, followed by easing volume, while the IPC composition shows diagnosis and surgery (A61B) as the overwhelmingly dominant class with healthcare informatics (G16H) as a strong second layer.
Annual filing trend
Annual filings climbed from 45 records in 2017 to a peak of 119 in 2021, then moderated to the 59–79 range through 2023–2024. The 2025 and 2026 figures are provisional due to publication lag and should not be read as a further structural decline.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
A61B (Diagnosis & surgery) dominates the IPC mix, reflecting the sensor and wearable hardware core of the field. G16H (Healthcare informatics) is a substantial secondary layer, indicating that data management, decision support, and remote monitoring software are integral to applicants’ filing strategies. A61M (Devices for body fluids), G06F (Digital data processing), and G01N (Material analysis) form a third tier, with AI/ML (G06N) and wireless communication (H04L, H04W) present but relatively sparse.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Systems and apparatuses for protecting continuous …
Systems and apparatuses for securing and protecting diabetes management devices, such as continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices and insulin infusion sets. An apparatus comprises a base having multiple pairs of arms which can be attached to a band. The apparatus also comprises a shell for retaining a diabetes management device and which may be unitarily… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Medical systems, devices and methods | 1,212 |
| 2 | Systems and methods for leveraging smartphone feat… | 247 |
| 3 | Orthogonally Redundant Sensor Systems and Methods | 230 |
| 4 | Method and apparatus for providing analyte monitor… | 199 |
| 5 | Continuous glucose monitoring device | 188 |
| 6 | Systems and methods for patient monitoring using a… | 172 |
| 7 | Systems and methods for health data visualization … | 162 |
| 8 | Systems and methods for leveraging smartphone feat… | 137 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
The combination of high incumbent concentration, a post-peak filing curve, and thin coverage in adjacent technical branches creates a nuanced landscape where entry strategy matters as much as technical novelty.
Post-peak with easing annual volume
The lifecycle stage is classified as Decline, with annual filings easing back from the 2021 peak of 119 records. The field is not collapsing — volumes in 2022–2024 remain materially above the 2017–2018 baseline — but the rapid growth phase has passed. New entrants should expect higher claim-density in the core sensor-wear and diagnostics corridors, making differentiation harder without a distinct technical angle.
Post-peak · 2021 highDexcom holds a structurally dominant position
With 209 patent records, Dexcom’s count exceeds the next two ranked filers combined. The top five filers account for 57% of the hundred largest filers’ combined records, leaving a long tail of smaller participants. Challengers such as Tandem Diabetes Care and WellDoc have recently entered or grown, but the gap to the leader is substantial enough that portfolio-building alone is an insufficient competitive strategy without freedom-to-operate analysis.
High concentrationCross-entity co-filing is minimal but present
The most active co-filing relationship identified is between Verily Life Sciences and Verily Health (2 joint records), and a single co-filed record links Dexcom with the University of Padua. The near-absence of collaboration signals that primary filers are pursuing independent IP strategies rather than joint development. This leaves open the possibility that academic or start-up partnerships could serve as a differentiated entry route for new participants.
Low co-filing activityUS-centric, with EPO and PCT as meaningful secondary filings
The United States leads by a wide margin, followed by Europe (EPO) and WIPO (PCT). Canada and Australia represent a meaningful third tier. Japan and China together account for relatively few records despite being major medical-device markets, suggesting either a strategic choice by incumbents to limit Asian prosecution or a genuine protection gap in those jurisdictions worth investigating for competitive entry.
US-dominant; Asia sparseGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Verily Life Sciences LLC | Verily Health Inc | 2 |
| Dexcom Inc | University of Padua | 1 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Dexcom leads on sensor diagnostics; Tandem and Virginia emerge as momentum players
The leading applicants share a common core in A61B (sensor diagnostics and surgery) but diverge sharply in secondary emphases: informatics software, pump-delivery hardware, power systems, and AI-driven clinical decision support each anchor a different competitor’s secondary filing corridor.
Dexcom Inc
Dexcom commands 209 patent records — the largest position in the ranked corpus — concentrated in A61B (sensor diagnostics), with substantial secondary coverage in G16H (healthcare informatics) spanning both device management and clinical decision support sub-classes. Recent filing momentum shows a –54% trend versus the prior period, consistent with the broader post-peak dynamic, but the portfolio’s breadth and depth mean it remains the reference point for freedom-to-operate assessments across the entire field.
patent records: 209Tandem Diabetes Care Inc
Tandem Diabetes Care holds 24 patent records and is classified as a new entrant in the recent-period momentum data, indicating its filing activity in this specific corpus is a recent development. Its technology emphasis spans both A61B (sensor diagnostics) and A61M (devices for body fluids, including infusion), the only top-tier filer with equal weight across both sensor-wear and insulin-delivery hardware — a positioning that reflects its integrated pump-CGM product strategy.
patent records: 24| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Dexcom Inc | 37 | ▼ -54% |
| Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings AG | 5 | ▼ -93% |
| Medtronic MiniMed Inc | 22 | ▬ 0% |
| University of Virginia Patent Foundation | 17 | ▲ new entrant |
| Abbott Diabetes Care Inc | 4 | ▲ new entrant |
| Tandem Diabetes Care Inc | 22 | ▲ new entrant |
| WellDoc Inc | 12 | ▲ +9% |
| Verily Life Sciences LLC | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served adjacent branches worth monitoring
Several IPC branches appear in the corpus at low share relative to the dominant A61B core, representing areas where activity exists but is sparse enough that a targeted filing program could establish a meaningful position. These are observations of relative sparsity; technical and commercial viability should be validated independently.
G06N · AI and machine learning models
G06N accounts for roughly 3% of IPC-level records in this corpus — low relative to the volume of glucose-prediction and adaptive-dosing applications being developed commercially. The sparse coverage is notable given that AI-driven glycemic forecasting and personalized alert thresholds are active product-development areas. An entrant with novel model architectures or on-device inference optimized for wearable power constraints could claim a relatively uncrowded filing corridor. Entry path: claims anchored in low-latency edge inference or privacy-preserving federated learning for CGM data would differentiate from the informatics (G16H) claims already filed by incumbents.
Search this in Eureka →H04L / H04W · Wireless and network communication
H04L (Digital information transmission) and H04W (Wireless communication networks) together account for roughly 2% of IPC-level records each — a thin layer given that continuous data streaming from wearable sensors to phones, cloud backends, and clinical systems is a fundamental architectural requirement of every CGM platform. The sparsity may reflect that incumbents file communication aspects under A61B or G16H rather than the dedicated communications classes. An entrant focusing on secure low-power BLE/UWB protocols, mesh networking for clinical settings, or interference-resilient wearable radio designs could find this branch relatively open. Entry path: hardware-protocol claims distinct from the application-layer informatics already claimed by major filers.
Search this in Eureka →How leading filers differ across technology routes
Route coverage across the main technology branches in the current evidence set.
| Player | A61B 5 · Diagnosis & surgery | G16H 40 · Healthcare informatics | G16H 20 · Healthcare informatics | G16H 50 · Healthcare informatics | A61M 5 · Devices for body fluids |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dexcom Inc | Strong · 204 | Moderate · 86 | Emerging · 36 | Moderate · 46 | Emerging · 4 |
| University of Virginia Patent Foundation | Strong · 44 | Strong · 38 | Strong · 38 | Strong · 32 | Strong · 27 |
| Medtronic MiniMed Inc | Strong · 75 | Moderate · 29 | Moderate · 24 | Moderate · 23 | Emerging · 9 |
| Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings AG | Strong · 81 | Emerging · 8 | Absent | Emerging · 5 | Absent |
| Tandem Diabetes Care Inc | Strong · 24 | Moderate · 5 | Moderate · 7 | Absent | Strong · 24 |
| WellDoc Inc | Strong · 23 | Absent | Strong · 14 | Strong · 23 | Absent |
| Abbott Diabetes Care Inc | Strong · 25 | Moderate · 6 | Moderate · 9 | Emerging · 3 | Moderate · 8 |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 632 patent families in scope. Patent-record counts used in applicant rankings can exceed this figure because a single family may be counted across multiple jurisdictions or IPC classes.
Dexcom Inc is the top filer with 209 patent records, more than double the second-ranked Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings at 81 records and third-ranked Medtronic MiniMed at 77 records. This gap is the defining structural feature of the landscape.
The lifecycle is classified as Decline based on annual filings easing back from a 2021 peak of 119 records. The multi-year window still shows substantial activity relative to 2017–2018 levels, and the most recent 18–24 months are under-counted due to publication lag, so the current trough may be shallower than the raw figures suggest.
The United States leads with 322 patent records, followed by Europe (EPO) at 128 and WIPO (PCT) at 86. Canada and Australia form a meaningful third tier. Japan and China together account for relatively few records despite being major medical-device markets.
The University of Virginia Patent Foundation is the only academic entrant in the upper tier, ranked fourth overall with 46 patent records. Its filing emphasis spans A61B (sensor diagnostics) and G16H (healthcare informatics decision-support sub-classes). Oregon Health and Science University, the University of Hong Kong, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and the University of Padua (co-filing with Dexcom) also appear in the broader ranked corpus.
G06N (AI and machine learning models) accounts for roughly 3% of IPC-level records despite widespread commercial interest in glycemic forecasting. H04L and H04W (wireless and network communication) each account for roughly 2%, thin relative to their importance in CGM system architecture. G01N (material analysis and testing) represents about 4% of records and may offer entry paths in novel electrochemical sensing materials.
Ready to map your own CGM wearable patent landscape?
Join 18,000+ innovators using PatSnap Eureka to map any technology landscape: search 2B+ patents and papers, surface key assignees, and generate a report like this in minutes.
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.