ECG Electrodes and Skin Interface Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. the five leading assignees hold 27.2% of all 1,858 records in scope, and the top ten hold 36.5% — well short of a monopoly on the space.
- Filings have cooled from their 2019 peak. activity peaked at 140 records in 2019 and fell from 126 in 2021 to 54 in 2024, a 57% drop over that span, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in.
- Diagnosis and electrotherapy dominate the claim space. A61B covers 71.3% of records and A61N 34.0%, while adhesives (C09J, 3.9%) and sterilising methods (A61L, 3.7%) remain comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (126 records) with 2024 (54) — 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 1,858 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps patent families addressing ECG electrode and skin-interface technology — dry and gel electrodes, contact impedance monitoring, long-term adhesion, and sterilisation approaches for reusable sensors. The corpus spans 1,858 records published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search combining electrode hardware terms with skin-contact and reliability problems: irritation, impedance drift, adhesion longevity and reuse.
The dataset favours patent families over raw document counts where possible, since families neutralise continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplication. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart understate real filing activity and should not be read as a slowdown on their own.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,858-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2019 peak followed by a real but partial decline
Filings rose from 67 in 2017 to a peak of 140 in 2019, then eased to 126 by 2021 and 54 by 2024 — a 57% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as publication catches up; they should not yet be read as continued decline.
Diagnosis and electrotherapy classes dominate
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) appears on 71.3% of records and A61N (electrotherapy) on 34.0%, reflecting the electrode's dual role in sensing and therapy delivery. Supporting classes — healthcare informatics (G16H, 5.8%), medicinal preparations (A61K, 5.7%), adhesives (C09J, 3.9%) and sterilising methods (A61L, 3.7%) — are filed far less densely, which is where claim space is least occupied.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,858 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on ECG Electrodes and Skin Interface with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about ecg electrodes and skin interface and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Complete ECG contact impedance determination (US20230172548A1)
The filing covers a method and apparatus that monitor multiple ECG electrodes connected to a body, determine contact impedance for each electrode — separating resistive and capacitive components — as current is driven through them in a set pattern, and use that determination to reduce false lead-off alarms.Filed by Drägerwerk, published 2023-06-08.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20060085049A1 | Active electrode, bio-impedance based, tissue discrimination system and methods of use | 1,041 |
| 2 | US5078134A | Portable device for sensing cardiac function and automatically delivering electrical therapy | 1,010 |
| 3 | US20040147969A1 | System for detecting, diagnosing, and treating cardiovascular disease | 764 |
| 4 | US5662108A | Electrophysiology mapping system | 763 |
| 5 | US6491647B1 | Physiological sensing device | 748 |
| 6 | US4928690A | Portable device for sensing cardiac function and automatically delivering electrical therapy | 684 |
| 7 | US20170055896A1 | Systems and methods to monitor repositioning of a patient | 677 |
| 8 | US6569160B1 | System and method for detecting electrode-tissue contact | 642 |
| 9 | US10226187B2 | Patient-worn wireless physiological sensor | 626 |
| 10 | US6990370B1 | Method for mapping heart electrophysiology | 587 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-outs from the concentration, trend and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file or partner next.
A leader, then a long tail
The leading assignee holds 159 records against a fifth-place figure of 48 and a tenth-place figure of 28 — a sharp drop-off after the top few. With the top ten holding just 36.5% of all records, the remaining two-thirds of filings sit outside the ranked leaders, in a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
Recent-year activity has cooled at the top
Several of the most active assignees show sharp year-over-year declines in their latest reported year, some falling to zero. That pattern, combined with the corpus-wide drop from 126 filings in 2021 to 54 in 2024, suggests the leaders are not currently pressing new claims as hard as in 2019-2021 — though publication lag means the final 2025-2026 counts are not yet settled.
Citation weight sits with older foundational filings
The most-cited records in this corpus date to the 1990s and 2000s and concern bio-impedance electrode discrimination and portable cardiac sensing — foundational work that newer filings must design around or build on. High citation counts here signal influence on the field's vocabulary, not that the underlying claims are still commercially central.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ecg electrodes and skin interface, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span cardiac device makers, diagnostics specialists and materials companies, with co-filing patterns pointing to a small number of tight R&D partnerships.
A clear top filer, not a dominant one
The leading assignee's 159 records outpace the field, but at 27.2% of all 1,858 records for the top five combined, no single company controls the space. New entrants filing narrow, well-drafted claims in adjacent branches still have room to build a defensible position.
Co-assignee pairs cluster around one filer
The dataset surfaces ten identifiable co-assignee pairs, with the strongest links — each appearing on 7-8 shared filings — all involving the same corporate filer paired with individual named inventors, suggesting a stable internal R&D team rather than a cross-company alliance.
US filings lead, but PCT and EPO both matter
The United States accounts for the largest single share of receiving-office filings at 734, with Europe (EPO) at 312 and WIPO/PCT filings at 216 indicating that a meaningful share of applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection from the outset rather than filing US-only.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Bardy Diagnostics Inc | 2 | -75% |
| Zoll Medical Corporation | 1 | 0% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Element Science Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Akouos Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Masimo Corp | 0 | — |
| 3M Company | 0 | — |
| ACIST Medical Systems Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The trend and concentration data point to specific next steps depending on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate or looking for a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top filers
With 36.5% of records held by the ranked top ten, any new electrode or impedance-monitoring filing should be checked against those assignees' active claims before drafting.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaScope the under-claimed adhesive and sterilisation branches
Adhesives (3.9%) and sterilising methods (3.7%) carry far lower filing density than the core diagnosis classes, which is where a narrowly drafted claim has the best chance of standing clear of prior art.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about ECG electrode patents
The leading assignee in this corpus holds 159 records, well ahead of the fifth-place figure of 48 and tenth-place figure of 28. Even so, the top five assignees combined hold only 27.2% of the 1,858 records in scope, and the top ten hold 36.5%, so the field is led rather than dominated by any single company. The remaining majority of filings sit with a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants across the full 100-company ranking.
Filings peaked at 140 records in 2019, rose again to 126 in 2021, then fell to 54 by 2024 — a 57% decline over that three-year window. That decline is real for the years it covers, but 2025 and 2026 counts are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Treat the most recent one to two years on any trend chart as understated rather than as evidence of continued decline.
Diagnosis and surgery classifications (IPC A61B) appear on 71.3% of the 1,858 records, and electrotherapy classifications (A61N) appear on 34.0%, reflecting that most filings address sensing, monitoring or therapy delivery through the electrode. Supporting areas like healthcare informatics, medicinal preparations, adhesives and sterilising methods each cover under 6% of records, meaning claim density there is much lower than in the core sensing and therapy classes.
Adhesive chemistries for long-wear electrodes (C09J, 3.9% of records) and sterilisation methods for reusable electrodes (A61L, 3.7%) both carry markedly lower filing density than the dominant diagnosis and electrotherapy classes. That gap does not mean these problems are unsolved, but it does mean fewer claims currently occupy that space, which is where a narrowly scoped new filing is less likely to collide with existing prior art. Contact-impedance drift compensation is a related area worth checking for the same reason.
US20230172548A1, filed by Drägerwerk and published 2023-06-08, covers a method for determining contact impedance across multiple ECG electrodes by driving current through them in a set pattern and separating the resistive and capacitive components of each electrode's impedance. The stated purpose is reducing false lead-off alarms in ECG monitoring systems. Anyone building impedance-based lead-off detection with capacitive-component separation should review this filing's claim scope directly rather than relying on the abstract alone.
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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.