Force Feedback Catheter Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentration is modest at the top. the top 5 assignees hold 27.7% of all 2,224 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 35.6% — leaving most of the field to a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Filing activity has plateaued, not fallen. 2021 to 2024 filings moved from 130 to 132, a +2% shift, while 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
- Consumer haptics dominates the claim space. G06F (electric digital data processing) appears on 67.8% of records, meaning device-interface and signal-processing claims sit far more densely than surgical-specific A61B claims at 11.4%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (130 records) with 2024 (132) — 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 2,224 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 2,224 published records matched against terms spanning catheter force feedback, haptic feedback and contact-force sensing, filtered further against technical qualifiers such as force resolution, transparency, safety threshold and sensor sterilization. The scope is deliberately cross-domain: filings originate from consumer electronics and gaming as much as from surgical robotics, because haptic rendering, contact-force estimation and perception-threshold claims are shared building blocks across those industries.
Reading this landscape means separating platform-level haptics claims — which are numerous and largely filed by consumer technology companies — from the narrower subset of records that touch catheter or surgical-navigation use directly. The IPC composition below makes that split visible: A61B (diagnosis and surgery) sits well behind G06F in raw share, which tells a filer where the crowded ground actually is.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,224-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 144 in 2017 to a peak of 182 in 2018, then held in a comparable band through 2024 (130 to 132, +2%). The 2025-2026 counts (42 for the partial latest year) are undercounts by construction, since publication trails filing by around 18 months — treat the recent-year dip as a reporting artifact, not a real slowdown.
IPC subclass composition
G06F leads at 67.8% of the 2,224 records, followed by A61B at 11.4%, G08B at 9.0%, G09B at 7.5%, A63F at 7.5%, G06T at 5.8%, H04M at 5.6% and B60K at 4.0%. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares sum past 100% and should be read as density per subclass, not as a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,224 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Force Feedback for Catheter Navigation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about force feedback for catheter navigation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
Modifying haptic feedback provided to a user to account for changes in user perception of haptic feedback
A system modifies data generating haptic feedback to account for changes in user perception of haptic feedback. The system identifies haptic data and determines an estimated amplitude of haptic feedback corresponding to a portion of the haptic data. Responsive to the estimated amplitude exceeding a threshold value, a refractory period is determined that will occur after the haptic feedback is applied to the user, and a subsequent set of haptic data is adjusted accordingly.Filed by Meta Platforms Technologies, this record frames perception-threshold adaptation as a refractory-period mechanism — a claim structure that recurs across the consumer-haptics side of this landscape.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6636197B1 | Haptic feedback effects for control, knobs and other interface devices | 684 |
| 2 | US20160259528A1 | Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interfaces for Manipulating User Interface Objects with Visual and/or Ha… | 487 |
| 3 | US6184868B1 | Haptic feedback control devices | 443 |
| 4 | US20160259413A1 | Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interfaces for Manipulating User Interface Objects with Visual and/or Ha… | 374 |
| 5 | US20170046024A1 | Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interfaces for Manipulating User Interface Objects with Visual and/or Ha… | 367 |
| 6 | US8374670B2 | Catheter having a force sensing distal tip | 341 |
| 7 | US20160259497A1 | Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interfaces for Manipulating User Interface Objects with Visual and/or Ha… | 338 |
| 8 | US20100073150A1 | Robotic catheter system including haptic feedback | 313 |
| 9 | US20160259499A1 | Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interfaces for Manipulating User Interface Objects with Visual and/or Ha… | 304 |
| 10 | US20120232780A1 | Asymmetric and general vibration waveforms from multiple synchronized vibration actuators | 293 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence on the field's vocabulary and claim structure, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs of the concentration, technology and citation data above.
A leader, then a long tail
The leading assignee holds 264 records, and the gap to fifth place (43) and tenth place (34) is steep. Below the top 10 (35.6% combined), the remaining 64.4% of records spread across a long tail — most of the ranked field files in low single digits, which is where freedom-to-operate analysis needs the most care, not less.
A plateau, not a decline
Filings moved from 130 in 2021 to 132 in 2024, essentially flat. The 2025-2026 counts look lower only because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; nothing in this data supports calling the field's momentum weak.
Surgical claims are a minority slice
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) sits at 11.4% of records versus G06F's 67.8%. Most of the claim density in this search sits in general digital-processing and interface art rather than surgical-specific mechanisms, which narrows where a catheter-specific novelty argument actually has room.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to force feedback for catheter navigation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the openings sit
The ranked assignee list spans consumer electronics, gaming peripherals and surgical robotics — a mix that reflects the shared technical vocabulary of haptic rendering rather than a single competitive set.
Consumer haptics sets the pace
The top assignee's filing volume outpaces the rest of the ranked field by a wide margin, built on platform-level haptic-rendering and device-interface claims rather than catheter-specific mechanisms.
Corporate-affiliate filing is the main pattern
The strongest co-assignee pairing links two related corporate entities, and the next-strongest pairs are individual co-inventors filing jointly — this landscape shows little sign of arm's-length joint ventures between unrelated companies.
A narrower, more specialised group
Surgical-robotics assignees file a smaller share of the overall volume but concentrate more tightly on contact-force sensing and safety-threshold claims directly relevant to catheter navigation, rather than the broader haptic-rendering claims that dominate the consumer side.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Inc. | 1 | -67% |
| BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. | 1 | -50% |
| Immersion Corp | 0 | — |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 0 | — |
| Ultrahaptics IP Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| DAV | 0 | — |
| MANI ALEX HAMID | 0 | — |
| Haptech Inc | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape above sets the boundaries; the next step is narrowing to the claims and assignees that matter for a specific product or freedom-to-operate question.
Map claims against a specific device design
Run a targeted claim-chart comparison against the most-cited records and the leading assignees' recent filings to see where a specific sensor or feedback mechanism sits relative to existing claim scope.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches over time
Sensor sterilization, single-use constraints and operator-training feedback are thin today; monitor them quarterly to catch new entrants before the space fills in.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
This landscape tracks 2,224 published records matched against catheter force feedback, haptic feedback and contact-force sensing terms, narrowed with technical qualifiers like force resolution and safety threshold. Not all of these are surgical-specific: A61B (diagnosis and surgery) accounts for only 11.4% of records, while general digital-processing art under G06F accounts for 67.8%. Anyone scoping freedom-to-operate should filter further to the catheter-relevant subset rather than treating the full 2,224 as surgical prior art.
The ranked assignee list of 100 companies is led by a filer with 264 records, well ahead of fifth place at 43 and tenth place at 34. The top 5 combined hold 27.7% of all 2,224 records and the top 10 hold 35.6%, leaving a long tail of entrants with only a handful of filings each. The leading names span consumer electronics, gaming peripherals and surgical robotics rather than a single industry, since haptic-rendering claims are shared technical building blocks across those sectors.
Filing activity held roughly flat between 2021 and 2024, moving from 130 to 132 records, a +2% change. The peak filing year to date was 2018 at 182. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing activity, so those most recent years should not be read as a decline.
G06F (electric digital data processing) is the most heavily claimed subclass, appearing on 67.8% of the 2,224 records, followed by A61B (diagnosis and surgery) at 11.4% and G08B (signalling and alarm systems) at 9.0%. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than partition the field. The pattern shows that most claim density sits in general interface and signal-processing mechanisms, not surgical-specific hardware.
Sub-areas tied to sensor sterilization, single-use force-sensor constraints, and operator-training feedback loops show thinner claim density relative to the dominant haptic-rendering art. These branches sit at the intersection of surgical-specific requirements (reusability, sterilization, training) and general haptic-feedback mechanisms, and the broader consumer-haptics filers have not claimed heavily there. A first claim in these areas would likely combine a specific sterilization or single-use mechanism with a force-feedback sensing method, rather than relying on generic haptic-rendering language.
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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.