Dental Implant Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings have declined since the 2017 peak of 311, with the 2026 count (partial year) sitting at just 4 — a signal to read against the 18-month publication lag rather than as an abrupt collapse.
- The core dentistry class A61C carries 6,048 of 6,051 records, while adjacent classes like additive manufacturing (66) and image processing (62) remain comparatively thin — that gap is where claim space is still open.
- Momentum has stalled across the named leaders, with several major assignees showing 0 filings in the latest year and some down -100% YoY, suggesting consolidation of existing claims rather than new filing activity.
Filing growth compares 2021 (203 records) with 2024 (130) — 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 6,051 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the dental implant patent record shows
The dataset covers 6,051 patent families filed between 2015 and 2026 across dental implant hardware, restoration workflow and digital dentistry claims, drawn from records tagged against osseointegration surfaces, CAD-CAM restoration, intraoral scanning, implant abutment and dental prosthesis terms. Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 311 and has trended downward since, with the 2022 midpoint at 167 confirming a flat-to-declining trajectory rather than a single-year dip. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the low counts in the final one or two years understate real filing activity and should not be read as the technology cooling off.
Jurisdictionally, filings concentrate in the United States and at the EPO, with meaningful volume also routed through the PCT system, Canada, Israel and Austria. The IPC composition is heavily anchored in A61C dentistry and oral hygiene, with secondary weight in diagnosis and surgery (A61B), medicinal preparations (A61K) and sterilising methods (A61L) — a spread that points to implant surface chemistry and surgical workflow as the dominant claim territory, with digital and additive-manufacturing angles still comparatively underbuilt.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how the 6,051 families split across IPC subclasses.
A peak year behind us
Filings ran from 311 in 2017 down toward single digits by 2026, with the 2022 midpoint of 167 confirming the decline is gradual rather than a cliff. Read the final one to two years as incomplete, not as a demand signal.
Concentrated in core dentistry claims
A61C accounts for 6,048 of 6,051 records — essentially the entire corpus — while B33Y (additive manufacturing) and G06T (image processing) sit far lower at 66 and 62 respectively, marking the digital and manufacturing crossover as the least crowded claim territory.
Shares are the percentage of the 6,051 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Dental Implant Technology Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaThe documents everyone else cites
Attachment system for removable dental prosthesis and dental implant abutment
A dental prosthesis attachment system for an endosseous dental implant, comprising a removable dental prosthesis, a dental prosthesis portion secured to it, and a dental implant portion securable to the implant and removably engageable with the prosthesis portion. The prosthesis portion includes an open-ended sleeve with an inner cavity lined with retention material forming a protrusion or recess against the implant portion.Filed by eBay Inc. in 2015 — an example of how attachment-mechanism claims in this space have drawn filers well outside traditional dental device manufacturers.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5725376A | Methods for manufacturing a dental implant drill guide and a dental implant superstructure | 1,150 |
| 2 | US6382975B1 | Manufacturing a dental implant drill guide and a dental implant superstructure | 760 |
| 3 | US5967777A | Surgical template assembly and method for drilling and installing dental implants | 654 |
| 4 | US4960381A | Screw-type dental implant anchor | 448 |
| 5 | US5489210A | Expanding dental implant and method for its use | 442 |
| 6 | US5527182A | Implant abutment systems, devices, and techniques | 430 |
| 7 | US4713004A | Submergible screw-type dental implant and method of utilization | 344 |
| 8 | US20090298017A1 | Digital dentistry | 315 |
| 9 | US6283753B1 | Implant abutment systems, devices, and techniques | 297 |
| 10 | US5195892A | Bone-integrated dental implant system | 286 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate references — treat this table as a map of foundational prior art, not of current filing leaders.
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 decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, composition and citation data above.
The category has passed its filing peak
Volume ran from 311 filings in 2017 down through a midpoint of 167 in 2022 toward single digits by 2026. Even discounting the last two years for publication lag, the trajectory is a steady decline rather than a plateau, which points to claim space in core implant hardware being largely staked out.
Almost everything sits in one IPC subclass
A61C dentistry and oral hygiene dominates the corpus almost completely, with A61B, A61K and A61L trailing as secondary claim territory. Digital and manufacturing crossover classes — B33Y and G06T — carry a fraction of the volume, which is unusual for a device category this mature.
US and EPO carry the bulk of filing activity
The United States leads receiving-office volume, followed by the EPO and the PCT route, with Canada, Israel and Austria taking smaller but non-trivial shares. A filer weighing where to prosecute first should treat the US and EPO figures as the baseline competitive density to clear.
Foundational patents cluster around drill-guide and surgical-template claims
The most-cited records in the corpus are largely surgical template and drill-guide patents from the 1990s, which continue to anchor prior-art searches in implant placement methodology. New filings in this specific mechanical territory face a dense citation web to design around.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to dental implant technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where momentum has stalled
Recent-year filing activity across the named assignees points to a consolidation phase: several established players show zero filings in the latest year, with some down sharply from the year before.
Established implant makers show flat or declining recent activity
Both Nobel Biocare and Biomet 3i recorded zero filings in the latest year, each down -100% year over year. Straumann Holding, Dentsply Sirona, GC Corporation and Zimmer Biomet Dental Innovations also show zero in the latest year, consistent with the corpus-wide filing decline rather than company-specific retreat.
A small set of tight co-assignee partnerships anchors materials work
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest link — Dentsply Sirona and Degussa, at 20 shared families — pointing to a materials-science collaboration around restorative or implant-surface chemistry. A second Dentsply Sirona pairing with Sirona Dental Systems (18 families) reflects internal group filing rather than external partnership.
Filing strategy still centres on US and European prosecution
The receiving-office split shows the US and EPO carrying the largest shares of filings, with the PCT route at 714 indicating many applicants are preserving multi-jurisdiction options rather than committing early. Canada, Israel and Austria form a secondary tier worth checking for regional competitive density.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Nobel Biocare | 0 | -100% |
| Biomet 3i, LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Straumann Holding AG | 0 | — |
| Dentsply Sirona | 0 | — |
| GC Corporation | 0 | — |
| Implant Innovations, Inc. | 0 | — |
| AstraZeneca AB | 0 | — |
| ZIPPRICH HOLGER | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
The tables and trend charts above answer what has already been filed. The next step is testing a specific claim or design against that record.
Check a claim against the cited prior art
The most-cited records in this corpus, particularly the surgical template and drill-guide family, define the mechanical baseline that any new placement-method claim will be measured against.
Run a prior-art check in Eureka →Map the white space before drafting
The thin B33Y and G06T volumes suggest additive-manufacturing and image-processing crossover claims are still open; a claim scoped narrowly to one of those intersections has more room than a general implant-surface claim.
Explore white space in Eureka →Track assignee momentum, not just historical share
Several long-standing leaders show zero recent-year filings; confirming whether that reflects publication lag or genuine pullback changes how a competitive response should be timed.
Monitor assignee activity in Eureka →Common questions about dental implant patents
The dataset shows filings running from 311 in 2017 down through a midpoint of 167 in 2022 toward single digits by 2026. This pattern typically reflects a category where core mechanical and surface-chemistry claims were staked out early, leaving less open territory for straightforward hardware claims. It's also important to discount the final one to two years, since publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent activity is understated rather than genuinely absent.
The ranking in this dataset is dominated by established implant manufacturers, but recent-year momentum data shows several of them — including Nobel Biocare and Biomet 3i — recording zero filings in the latest year, some down -100% year over year. That suggests large incumbents are managing existing portfolios rather than actively expanding them right now. A full ranking by family count is rendered in the assignee table on this page.
A patent family groups all the related filings — continuations, divisionals, and equivalent filings in different countries — that stem from the same original invention. This dataset ranks 6,051 families rather than raw document counts, which avoids overweighting applicants who file aggressively across many jurisdictions or file multiple continuations on one invention. Family counts are the fairer basis for judging how many distinct inventions a company actually holds.
The IPC composition shows additive manufacturing (B33Y, 66 records) and image data processing (G06T, 62 records) as by far the thinnest categories compared to core dentistry claims (A61C, 6,048 records). That gap points to under-claimed intersections such as 3D-printed osseointegration surface textures, AI-assisted intraoral scan registration, and digital shade-matching for CAD-CAM restorations — areas where claim density is markedly lower than in traditional implant hardware.
Yes, in the sense that they remain the most-cited prior art in the field — the top-cited record in this corpus has 1,150 citations, almost double the next closest. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older records simply because they've had more time to accumulate references, so treat them as a signal of foundational influence on surgical template and drill-guide methodology rather than as evidence they still represent the state of the art.
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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.