Energy-Based Vessel Sealing Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 80.5% concentration. The top five assignees combined hold 3,299 of the 4,096 records in scope — a field where the claim space near the core mechanism is largely occupied.
- Filing peaked in 2018 at 434. and 2021→2024 shows a -26% change (105 to 78); the two most recent years are still filling in under an 18-month publication lag.
- A61B carries 94.7% of records. while adjacent classes like B25J (robotic manipulators, 0.8%) and H05K (electronics assembly, 0.8%) sit far behind, marking the thinnest-claimed territory.
Filing growth compares 2021 (105 records) with 2024 (78) — 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 4,096 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the dataset covers and why it matters
Energy-based vessel sealing spans bipolar sealing, ultrasonic shears and the surgical-generator control logic that governs seal burst pressure, thermal spread, jaw pressure and sealing time. This landscape draws on 4,096 published records filed or published between 2015 and the 2026-07-31 cut-off, indexed against a search string that pairs the core instrument terms with the performance metrics engineers and reviewers actually claim around.
Because the field is old enough to have a settled core mechanism, most of the activity sits in continuations, control refinements and manufacturing variants rather than fresh mechanical inventions — which is exactly why the concentration at the top of the assignee ranking is worth reading carefully before filing anywhere near the jaw or generator control claims.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 4,096 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked in 2018 at 434 and the 2021-to-2024 window shows a -26% change (105 to 78). Treat 2025 and 2026 as understated rather than declining — publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years are still filling in.
IPC subclass composition
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) covers 94.7% of the 4,096 records, confirming this is fundamentally a surgical-instrument field. Smaller shares in A61N, G16H and A61M point to electrotherapy, informatics and fluid-device crossover, while B25J and H05K — robotics and electronics assembly — remain the thinnest-claimed adjacent classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 4,096 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Energy-Based Vessel Sealing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about energy-based vessel sealing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a representative claim
US9204919B2 — Vessel sealing instrument with reduced thermal spread and method of manufacturing therefor
An electrosurgical vessel sealing instrument having a first and a second opposing jaw member at a distal end thereof, wherein each jaw member includes a jaw housing, an inner tissue engaging surface, and an insulating layer disposed therebetween. The instrument moves the jaw members from a spaced position to a position where they cooperate to grasp tissue. The jaws include a tissue-contacting seal plate with obverse and reverse surfaces, and a series of ribs extend from the reverse surface of the seal plate into an insulating layer.Filed by Covidien LP, published 2015-12-08 — illustrates the seal-plate and insulating-layer construction that recurs across the top-cited records in this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6033399A | Electrosurgical generator with adaptive power control | 2,584 |
| 2 | US7160299B2 | Method of fusing biomaterials with radiofrequency energy | 2,505 |
| 3 | US7137980B2 | Method and system for controlling output of RF medical generator | 2,355 |
| 4 | US7473253B2 | Vessel sealer and divider with non-conductive stop members | 2,176 |
| 5 | US6398779B1 | Vessel sealing system | 2,166 |
| 6 | US20070173813A1 | System and method for tissue sealing | 2,104 |
| 7 | US20060064086A1 | Bipolar forceps with multiple electrode array end effector assembly | 2,082 |
| 8 | US7090673B2 | Vessel sealer and divider | 2,002 |
| 9 | US7776037B2 | System and method for controlling electrode gap during tissue sealing | 1,973 |
| 10 | US6228080B1 | Electrosurgical generator with adaptive power control | 1,922 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to be cited — read them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a measure of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-outs from the trend, the concentration figures and the class composition that matter more than the raw counts on their own.
The core mechanism is occupied
Five assignees combined account for 3,299 of the 4,096 records in scope. That level of concentration means jaw-geometry, seal-plate and generator-control claims near the mechanical core face dense prior art regardless of which specific competitor is checked first.
Slower, not stopped
The 2021-to-2024 window shows filings easing from 105 to 78 among the tracked leader, consistent with a maturing core rather than an active land-grab. Read 2025-2026 figures as provisional given the roughly 18-month publication lag.
Robotics integration is thin
Only 34 records (0.8%) touch B25J manipulators and robots, and 32 (0.8%) touch H05K electronics assembly, against 3,880 records (94.7%) in the core surgical-instrument class A61B. Robotic and electronics-integration claims sit well outside the crowded centre.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to energy-based vessel sealing, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Covidien AG | Cardinal Health 529 LLC | 92 |
| Covidien LP | University of Tennessee Research Foundation | 12 |
| Ethicon Inc. | Sam Tech Corp | 11 |
| Sherwood Services AG | JOHNSON KRISTIN D | 10 |
| Sherwood Services AG | DYCUS SEAN T | 10 |
| Sherwood Services AG | TETZLAFF PHILIP MARK | 7 |
| Sherwood Services AG | BUYSSE STEVEN PAUL | 7 |
| Covidien LP | University of North Carolina at Charlotte | 6 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus; the strongest pairing spans 92 shared records between two related corporate entities, well ahead of the next pairs at 12 and 11 — a sign of internal corporate restructuring showing up in the filing record rather than open cross-licensing.
Who holds the ranking and where the field is still open
The assignee ranking returned by the data endpoint covers 100 companies, counted in records — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the full set the search returns. The gap between the leader and the rest is stark: leader at 939 records, fifth place at 156, tenth place at 40.
One filer dominates the ranking
The leading assignee's 939 records dwarf fifth place at 156 and tenth place at 40 — a drop-off steep enough that a newcomer's freedom-to-operate analysis should start with this single filer's portfolio, not the ranking as a whole.
A long tail below rank ten
Ten assignees combined hold 3,734 of the 4,096 records (91.2%), leaving the remaining 90 ranked companies to split a small fraction of the field. Most single-filer entrants sit far from the mechanical core.
Leaders are pulling back, not out
Recent-year momentum among the largest historical filers shows sharp year-over-year declines — one falling 75%, others reporting zero in the latest year. This tracks with the -26% multi-year trend and the publication lag rather than signalling exit from the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| APPL MEDICAL RESOURCES CORP | 1 | -75% |
| Ethicon Inc. | 0 | — |
| Covidien LP | 0 | -100% |
| Covidien AG | 0 | — |
| Sherwood Services AG | 0 | — |
| ETHICON ENDO SURGERY LLC | 0 | — |
| Cilag GmbH International | 0 | -100% |
| Ethicon Endo-Surgery LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape numbers point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, competitive tracking or claim drafting.
Map the leader's live portfolio
With one assignee holding 939 of 4,096 records, any filing near jaw geometry, seal-plate construction or generator control should start with a claim-by-claim map of that single portfolio rather than the full ranking.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest claims against the under-claimed classes
B25J and H05K each sit at 0.8% of records — draft and stress-test a first claim in robotic jaw actuation or generator electronics packaging against the existing corpus before committing search budget elsewhere.
Run a claim chart in EurekaTrack momentum, not just totals
The -26% multi-year trend and the recent-year pullbacks among top filers suggest watching for the next filing cycle rather than assuming the field has gone quiet — 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaCommon questions about energy-based vessel sealing patents
One assignee leads the ranking with 939 of the 4,096 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 156 and tenth place at 40. The top five assignees combined hold 3,299 records, or 80.5% of all records in scope, and the top ten hold 91.2%. This level of concentration means most freedom-to-operate work in this field should begin with the leading one or two portfolios rather than a broad sweep of the full ranking.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 434 records and has since eased; the most recent complete-year comparison shows a -26% change from 105 records in 2021 to 78 in 2024. Figures for 2025 and 2026 in the dataset are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as a continuation of decline. The pattern is consistent with a maturing core mechanism rather than an expanding one.
US9204919B2, assigned to Covidien LP and published in December 2015, claims a vessel sealing instrument with opposing jaw members separated by an insulating layer, where a tissue-contacting seal plate has ribs extending from its reverse surface into that insulating layer. The stated purpose is reducing thermal spread during sealing. Anyone designing a jaw assembly with a similar rib-into-insulation construction for thermal management should review this claim set closely, since it sits inside the most heavily filed segment of the corpus.
The technology composition shows A61B (surgical instruments) covering 94.7% of the 4,096 records, while adjacent classes are comparatively thin: B25J (robotic manipulators) and H05K (electronics assembly) each sit at 0.8%, and H04N (video) and H04L (digital transmission) sit at 1.0% and 0.9% respectively. These crossover areas — robotic jaw actuation, generator electronics packaging, video-assisted verification, wireless telemetry — are under-claimed relative to the mechanical core and are worth checking before assuming prior art blocks a new filing.
Recent-year momentum data shows sharp pullbacks among the historically largest filers, including one assignee down 75% year over year and several reporting zero filings in the latest tracked year. This reflects both the general -26% multi-year trend and the roughly 18-month publication lag that understates the most recent years. It does not necessarily mean these companies have exited the space, but it does mean current activity is harder to read from the latest published year alone.
Research Energy-Based Vessel Sealing in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole energy-based vessel sealing corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.