Extracorporeal Circulation & ECMO Patents: Top Companies 2026
- 45.8% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 110 of 240 records in scope — nearly half the field sits with a handful of filers.
- Filing has flattened, not grown. Activity peaked at 11 records in 2024 after sitting at 8 in 2022, with no sustained upward trend since 2017.
- Zero recent-year filings from the historic leaders. Medtronic, Heartport, and other long-standing assignees show 0 filings in the latest year — the incumbents have gone quiet.
What this patent set covers
This landscape covers 240 published records at the intersection of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, cardiopulmonary bypass, and the specific technical sub-domains of oxygenator gas exchange, blood trauma and hemolysis, anticoagulation, centrifugal blood pumps, and circuit coating. The scope is defined by IPC classes A61M1, A61M60, and B01D63, which together capture devices for handling body fluids outside the body and the separation processes used inside them. Every record in scope carries an A61M classification, and a meaningful share also touches implants (A61F), diagnostic and surgical devices (A61B), and separation/filtration methods (B01D) — signalling that ECMO and bypass innovation rarely stays inside a single device category.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent year's count of 0 understates real activity already underway. The trend should be read through 2024, the last year with a substantially complete count.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The filing curve and the IPC composition together show a field that is well-mapped in its core claims but still branching into adjacent categories such as material analysis, water treatment separation, and digital processing — areas that were not part of ECMO's original claim territory.
A flat-to-declining filing curve
Filings ran at 7 in 2017, rose to a peak of 11 in 2024, and sat at 8 at the 2022 midpoint — a pattern that reads as flat or declining rather than growing, even before accounting for publication lag on the final partial year.
Concentrated in A61M, spreading into adjacent classes
Every record carries an A61M classification by construction of the search, while 18.8% also touch A61F (implants), 13.8% touch A61B (surgical devices), and 10.0% touch B01D (separation processes). Smaller but notable overlaps with A61K (9.2%), C02F (6.7%), G01N (6.7%), and G06F (5.8%) point to anticoagulant chemistry, water/fluid treatment methods, sensor-based monitoring, and software-driven circuit control entering the space from outside classic device engineering.
Shares are the percentage of the 240 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Extracorporeal Circulation and ECMO with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about extracorporeal circulation and ecmo and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA recent anticoagulation-coating filing
High anticoagulation ECMO and extracorporeal circulation consumable
The filing discloses a preparation method for ECMO and extracorporeal circulation consumables built around a four-step surface treatment: aminating the circuit surface, activating heparin groups, heparinizing the device and consumables, and modifying an enhancer layer. The stated result is a lower-cost, higher-biocompatibility anticoagulant tubing intended to expand clinical use.Filed by Wenzhou Safety (Emergency) Research Institute and Tianjin University, dated 2025-01-14 — among the most recent substantive filings in scope.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5769812A | System for cardiac procedures | 1,295 |
| 2 | US5584803A | System for cardiac procedures | 1,198 |
| 3 | US6726651B1 | Method and apparatus for differentially perfusing a patient during cardiopulmonary bypass | 865 |
| 4 | US5916193A | Endovascular cardiac venting catheter and method | 658 |
| 5 | US5558644A | Retrograde delivery catheter and method for inducing cardioplegic arrest | 547 |
| 6 | US5702368A | System for cardiac procedures | 538 |
| 7 | US5376114A | Cannula pumps for temporary cardiac support and methods of their application and use | 521 |
| 8 | US6733471B1 | Hemostatic system and components for extracorporeal circuit | 513 |
| 9 | US6508777B1 | Circulatory support system and method of use for isolated segmental perfusion | 483 |
| 10 | US5868702A | System for cardiac procedures | 475 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to be cited within the searched corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current technical relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the ranking, the trend, and the IPC spread are read together: a concentrated but inactive top tier, a plateaued filing rate, and technology bleeding into classes outside the historic device core.
The field is top-heavy but the leaders are quiet
The leading assignee alone accounts for 41 records, and the top 5 combined hold 110 of the 240 records in scope. Yet several of these same names — including the leader — show zero filings in the latest year, suggesting consolidation of past claim territory rather than active expansion.
Growth has plateaued since the mid-2010s
The filing count moved from 7 in 2017 to a peak of 11 in 2024, passing through 8 at the 2022 midpoint. That is not a growth curve; it is a mature field cycling around a stable filing rate, with no evidence of a new wave of entrants driving volume up.
Separation and filtration claims sit alongside the core device art
24 of 240 records carry a B01D separation-process classification alongside their A61M classification, confirming that oxygenator membrane and filtration mechanics are claimed as a distinct but overlapping layer rather than folded entirely into device claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to extracorporeal circulation and ecmo, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Medtronic Inc | OLSEN ROBERT W | 5 |
| Medtronic Inc | CARPENTER WALT L | 5 |
| OLSEN ROBERT W | YONCE LAURA A | 5 |
| OLSEN ROBERT W | CARPENTER WALT L | 5 |
| Maquet Cardiopulmonary GmbH | WESLEY SCOTT ASHTON | 4 |
| Maquet Cardiopulmonary GmbH | RALPH J EBLER | 4 |
| Maquet Cardiopulmonary GmbH | MEDART DANIEL | 4 |
| Maquet Cardiopulmonary GmbH | JONES DWAYNE | 4 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pairings link a single corporate assignee to named individual inventors rather than to other companies — collaboration here looks more like internal inventor credit than cross-company joint development.
Who holds the ranked positions, and where the openings are
The ranking covers 100 companies counted by record, not a top-50 or top-100 cut of a larger universe — it is the whole ranking the dataset returns. Reading it alongside recent-year momentum shows which positions are defended and which are effectively dormant.
One assignee holds more than a third of the top 5's combined total
The leading assignee's 41 records dwarf the fifth-place count of 14, and the tenth-place assignee holds just 6 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a winner-heavy field rather than an evenly spread one.
Historic leaders are not filing in the current year
Assignees including the top-ranked corporate filer and several hospital and university assignees show zero filings in the latest year. That does not mean they have exited the space — publication lag means recent filings may not yet be visible — but it does mean their public claim activity has gone quiet for now.
New institutional filers are entering around anticoagulant coatings
The most recent substantive filing in scope comes from a research institute and university pairing rather than an established medical device incumbent, filing on heparin-based circuit coating — a sign that anticoagulation surface treatment is attracting filers outside the traditional device manufacturer base.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Medtronic Inc | 0 | — |
| HEARTPORT INC | 0 | — |
| The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia | 0 | — |
| The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York | 0 | — |
| GIPSON KEITH | 0 | — |
| CARDEON CORP | 0 | — |
| Maquet Cardiopulmonary GmbH | 0 | — |
| JARVIK ROBERT | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The ranking and trend data answer who and how much; deciding where to file or design around requires reading the actual claim language behind the highest-cited and most recent records.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top-cited records
The five most-cited records in this landscape date back years but still anchor the citation graph in cardiac procedure systems and perfusion catheters — any new device claim touching those mechanisms should be checked against them first.
Explore prior art in EurekaTrack the quiet incumbents for renewed activity
Several top-ranked assignees show zero filings in the latest year despite holding large historic portfolios. A licensing or acquisition move by any of them would show up first in new filings before it shows up in the market.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaScope claims around the under-claimed branches
Anticoagulant surface chemistry, hemolysis sensing, and software-driven perfusion control show thinner direct coverage than the core device classes — each is a candidate for a narrower, more defensible first claim.
Draft claim scope in EurekaCommon questions about ECMO and extracorporeal circulation patents
The ranking is led by a single corporate assignee with 41 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 14 and the tenth-ranked assignee at 6. The top 5 assignees combined hold 110 of the 240 records in scope, or 45.8% of the field, which makes this a concentrated rather than fragmented landscape. That said, several of the leading names show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, so current portfolio size does not necessarily indicate current filing momentum. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at both the cumulative ranking and the recent-year activity separately.
Based on the filing trend in this dataset, activity is flat to declining rather than growing. The count stood at 7 in 2017, reached a midpoint of 8 in 2022, and peaked at 11 in 2024 before falling off in the partial final year. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year's low count is expected and should not be read as a sudden drop in R&D activity. Over the full window, though, there is no sustained upward trajectory of the kind seen in genuinely expanding technology areas.
US12194220B2, filed by Wenzhou Safety (Emergency) Research Institute and Tianjin University and dated 2025-01-14, discloses a preparation method for anticoagulant-coated ECMO and extracorporeal circulation consumables. The method covers surface amination of the circuit, activation of heparin groups, heparinization of the device and consumables, and a final enhancer modification step. Anyone developing heparin-coated circuit tubing or consumables using a comparable multi-step surface treatment sequence should review this filing's specific claim steps before finalizing a coating process, since the value here lies in the exact sequence rather than the general idea of heparin coating.
The technology composition data shows dense coverage in the core A61M device classification, which by definition covers every record in scope, alongside meaningful overlap with implants (A61F, 18.8%) and surgical/diagnostic devices (A61B, 13.8%). Comparatively thinner overlap appears in software-driven processing (G06F, 5.8%) and material analysis/testing (G01N, 6.7%), suggesting sensor-driven monitoring and digital perfusion control are less densely claimed than the mechanical and chemical aspects of extracorporeal circuits. These lower-density branches are reasonable starting points for a novelty search before drafting new claims, though a full freedom-to-operate check against the top-cited records is still necessary.
In this dataset, the top 10 assignees account for 66.7% of all 240 records in scope, and the top 5 alone account for 45.8%. That is a steep concentration curve, with a fast drop from the leader's 41 records down to 6 records at the tenth position. Co-filing between different corporate entities is also rare, with only 10 co-assignee pairs identified, most of which link a company to named individual inventors rather than to other firms. Together this points to a field shaped by a small number of long-standing patent holders rather than broad, distributed innovation activity.
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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.