The dataset in scope contains 78 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine extravasation- or infiltration-specific claim language with a sensing modality such as bioimpedance, optical sensing, skin temperature or sensor patches. The two most-cited records, both from the early 2000s, cover conductivity-reconstruction methods for tissue monitoring during intravascular infusion. More recent filings, including a 2024 grant from Augustine Biomedical, shift toward temperature-differential sensing built directly into the IV line. Most records are classified under either A61M (body fluid devices) or A61B (diagnosis and surgery), which together account for the large majority of the field.

The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 29 organisations, counted in patent families, with the leader holding 14 families and a clear step down to a second tier around 11. The field mixes device manufacturers with academic and hospital-system co-filers; several of the strongest co-assignee links sit between a research institute and the hospital it partners with for clinical validation. It is not a two-player market: the ranking runs a long tail down to single-digit family counts, which suggests room for a well-targeted new entrant rather than a locked-up space.

Two approaches dominate the patent record: bioimpedance sensing, which measures conductivity changes in tissue to infer fluid leakage, and temperature-differential sensing, which compares skin temperature near the catheter entry point against a second point near the catheter tip. Optical sensing and flow/volume-rate correlation appear in the search terms but show up in only a small fraction of the IPC-classified records. Healthcare informatics and AI-based signal classification for alarm logic are present but thin, each covering close to or under 5% of the 78 records in scope, which marks them as comparatively open ground.

Filing peaked in 2017 at 9 records for the year and has not returned to that level since. Looking only at years complete enough to compare fairly, the count moved from 2 in 2021 to 3 in 2024, a +50% change, though both figures are small in absolute terms. Filings from 2025 onward will look artificially low for a while yet because patent publication typically lags the original filing date by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years of any trend chart should be read as a floor, not a final count.

US11957873B2, granted to Augustine Biomedical and Design in April 2024, claims a device using paired temperature sensors positioned near the IV entry point and near the catheter tip, connected to an electronic thermometer that compares the two readings to flag a temperature differential consistent with extravasation. It blocks straightforward implementations of dual-point skin temperature comparison for this specific diagnostic purpose. It does not, on its face, block bioimpedance-based detection, optical sensing, or single-sensor temperature approaches that use a different comparison logic, which is why alternative sensing modalities remain a viable design-around path.