Force Feedback in Robotic Surgery: Patents, Leaders and Filing Trends
Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 200 of 482 records in scope (41.5%), and the top 10 hold 60.4% — a narrow group of filers controls most of the documented claim space. Filings peaked at 62 in 2018, cooled in the years after, then rose again — 9 in 2021 climbing to 17 in 2024, an 89% increase over that span. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in rather than as a genuine slowdown.
- 1AUTOCONNECT HOLDINGS LLC50
- 2ETHICON INC44
- 3MBL LTD44
- 4EURO ATOMIC ENERGY COMMUNITY (EURATOM)35
- 5JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY27
See the full force feedback in robotic surgery analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about force feedback patents in robotic surgery
Who holds the most patents on force feedback in robotic surgery?
The dataset ranks 100 assignees by record count, with the leading assignee holding 50 records against 27 at fifth place and 12 at tenth — a steep drop rather than a gradual taper. The top 5 assignees combined hold 200 of the 482 records in scope, or 41.5%, and the top 10 combined hold 60.4%. That concentration means a small number of filers control most of the documented claim space around core force and haptic sensing architectures, so any freedom-to-operate check should start with those leading positions rather than the long tail.
Is patent filing activity for surgical force feedback growing or slowing?
Filings peaked at 62 in 2018, then declined before rebounding: 9 filings in 2021 climbed to 17 in 2024, an 89% increase over that three-year span. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are still incomplete and should not be read as a slowdown. Taken together, the pattern looks like renewed engineering interest after a mid-decade lull rather than a maturing or declining field.
What does EP3148472A1 actually cover?
EP3148472A1, filed by The Johns Hopkins University and published in 2017, covers a multi-force sensing instrument with a strain sensor at one position on a tool shaft and a second strain or torque-force sensor further toward the proximal end, combined by a signal processor to resolve the magnitude and position of a lateral force component. The claim structure is built around separating axial and lateral force measurement along a single shaft using two spaced sensing points rather than one. Anyone designing a tip-force or grip-force sensing instrument for a robotic surgical tool should check this architecture specifically, since it predates much of the later filing activity in the space.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Force Feedback in Robotic Surgery covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.