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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/handheld-and-portable-ultrasound-systems-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Ultrasound ImagingHandheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems: Patents, Leaders and Filing Trends
- 71.3% concentration. The top five assignees account for 72 of 101 records in scope — a field with a narrow set of controlling filers, not a fragmented one.
- Filings cooled sharply after 2021. From 10 filings in 2021 to 2 in 2024, an 80% decline over that span, though the 2020 peak of 26 suggests an earlier surge has already run its course.
- A61B dominates, G01S is the second axis. 94.1% of records touch diagnosis-and-surgery classifications, while 32.7% also claim radar/sonar/positioning elements — the two together define most of the contested claim space.
101
Published Records
71%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-80%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (10 records) with 2024 (2) — 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 101 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This review covers 101 published records matching handheld and portable ultrasound system claims filed or published between 2015 and 2026, filtered to documents discussing system-on-chip design, power consumption, thermal limits, wireless streaming, image-quality tradeoffs or device cost. The scope is narrow by design: it isolates the engineering compromises specific to miniaturised, battery-powered ultrasound hardware rather than ultrasound imaging broadly.
Filing activity peaked in 2020 and has since receded, a pattern consistent with an initial wave of platform-level claims being staked out before activity narrows toward incremental refinement. Publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, so the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will understate true filing activity and should not be read as a decline.
Filing activity by year, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 101-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2020 peak followed by a steep pullback
Filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 26 in 2020, then fell to 10 by 2021 and to 2 by 2024 — an 80% drop across that three-year window. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional given publication lag; they are not evidence of a further decline, only of incomplete data.
Diagnosis-and-surgery claims dominate, acoustics and vibration follow
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) appears in 94.1% of the 101 records, confirming that nearly every filing in scope touches core diagnostic device claims. G01S (radar, sonar & positioning) reaches 32.7%, and B06B (mechanical vibration generation) and G10K (acoustics) sit at 17.8% and 15.8% respectively — together they mark the transducer and beamforming layer as the second major axis of claim activity, well ahead of image processing (G06T, 8.9%) or healthcare informatics (G16H, 5.0%).
Shares are the percentage of the 101 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about handheld and portable ultrasound systems and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
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Representative and most-cited filings
Representative Filing
US20210405172A1 — High performance handheld ultrasound (Vave Health, 2021-12-30)
VAVE HEALTH, INC.
A handheld ultrasound device may comprise components configured to provide decreased size, weight, complexity, and power consumption. The handheld ultrasound device may comprise a beamformer configured to implement and compress a flag table in place of a delay table. These improvements can decrease the amount of memory used to generate ultrasound images, which can decrease the size, weight, and power consumption of the handheld imaging probe. Ultrasound image data on a handheld imaging probe can be compressed on the handheld imaging probe prior to transmission from the probe in order to decrease the amount of data transmitted from the probe.Abstract shown as filed; excerpted where the source text is truncated.
Most-cited records in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6569101B2 | Medical diagnostic ultrasound instrument with ECG module, authorization mechanism and methods of use | 209 |
| 2 | US20030139664A1 | Segmented handheld medical ultrasound system and method | 197 |
| 3 | US6962566B2 | Medical diagnostic ultrasound instrument with ECG module, authorization mechanism and methods of use | 159 |
| 4 | US20080208061A1 | Methods and systems for spatial compounding in a handheld ultrasound device | 141 |
| 5 | US20040181154A1 | Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging devices with fuel cell energy source | 133 |
| 6 | US6780154B2 | Segmented handheld medical ultrasound system and method | 121 |
| 7 | US20030009102A1 | Medical diagnostic ultrasound instrument with ECG module, authorization mechanism and methods of use | 67 |
| 8 | US20060025684A1 | Medical diagnostic ultrasound instrument with ECG module, authorization mechanism and methods of use | 55 |
| 9 | US7686766B2 | Medical diagnostic ultrasound instrument with ECG module, authorization mechanism and methods of use | 50 |
| 10 | US20170043189A1 | Acoustic module and control system for handheld ultrasound device | 48 |
Citation counts favour older documents simply by virtue of longer exposure; they signal historical influence on the field, not current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are set against each other: concentration at the top, a technology axis with a clear secondary cluster, and a filing curve that peaked several years ago.
Concentration
71.3%
of 101 records held by top 5 assignees
A narrow leading group controls the field
The leading assignee alone holds 30 of the 101 records in scope. Combined with the next four, the top five account for 71.3% of all filings — new entrants are filing into a space where the dominant claim territory is already staked by a handful of firms.
Top 10 combined reach 88.1% of all records.
Filing curve
26 in 2020
peak year filings
Activity has already passed its high point
Filings climbed from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 26 in 2020, then declined to 10 by 2021 and 2 by 2024 — an 80% fall across that window. This is a maturing filing curve rather than an emerging one, though publication lag means the very latest years are still filling in.
2024 is the most recent year treatable as complete.
Technology mix
94.1%
of records classified under A61B
Diagnostic-device claims anchor nearly every filing
Almost all records in scope touch A61B (diagnosis & surgery), with G01S (radar, sonar & positioning) as a distant but consistent second axis at 32.7%. Acoustics and mechanical-vibration classes sit further behind, suggesting the transducer layer is claimed less densely than the core device architecture.
Classes overlap; shares sum to more than 100% of the 101 records.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to handheld and portable ultrasound systems, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
Twenty-four companies make up the full ranked field, counted by patent family. Momentum has cooled across the leading names, with several showing no filings in the latest tracked year.
Leader
30 records
single largest filer
One assignee holds nearly a third of the field
The top-ranked assignee's 30 records represent close to a third of all 101 in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 6. That gap between first and fifth is itself informative: this is not an evenly distributed field.
Ranking covers 24 companies total, not a top-50 or top-100 cut.
Mid-field
6 records
fifth-place filer
A steep drop after the leading names
Filing counts fall quickly outside the top few positions — from 30 at the top to 6 by fifth place and 2 by tenth. The long tail below tenth place is made up of single- and low-digit filers rather than active programmes.
Top 10 combined hold 88.1% of the 101 records.
Momentum
0 in latest year
for several leading assignees
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among leaders
Several of the most prolific historical filers, including the top-ranked assignee, show zero filings in the latest tracked year, and one leading firm shows a -100% year-on-year change. This is consistent with the broader post-2021 pullback rather than any single company's retreat.
Publication lag means the latest year is always undercounted.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Exo Imaging, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | -100% |
| VAVE HEALTH INC | 0 | — |
| SonoSite, Inc. | 0 | — |
| BFLY Operations, Inc. (Butterfly Network) | 0 | — |
| Access Business Group International LLC | 0 | — |
| Rimaejin Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Signostics Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Using this landscape
The dataset points to where claim space is dense and where it thins out. What a team does with that depends on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio positioning, or scouting acquisition targets.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top 10
With 88.1% of records held by ten assignees, a freedom-to-operate review for any new handheld ultrasound design should start with those firms' claim sets before broadening further.
Run a claims search in Eureka →Watch the under-claimed branches
Wireless streaming, thermal management and alternative power sources show materially lower filing density than the core A61B diagnostic claims, which may leave room for narrower, defensible filings.
Explore white space in Eureka →Track post-2021 filer behaviour
Several leading assignees show no filings in the latest tracked year. Whether that reflects a genuine pullback or publication lag will only become clear as 2025-2026 data fills in.
Monitor assignee activity in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about handheld ultrasound patents
One assignee leads the ranked field with 30 of the 101 records in scope, noticeably ahead of the fifth-place holder at 6 records. The top five assignees combined hold 71.3% of all records, and the top ten hold 88.1%. This means the field is concentrated among a small group rather than evenly spread across many independent filers.
No — filing activity peaked in 2020 at 26 records and has declined since, falling from 10 in 2021 to 2 in 2024, an 80% drop over that three-year span. That said, publication typically lags actual filing by around eighteen months, so figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete and should not be read as confirming further decline. The clearest complete-year picture ends around 2024.
A61B, the diagnosis-and-surgery classification, appears in 94.1% of the 101 records, making it the dominant claim category by a wide margin. G01S, covering radar, sonar and positioning elements used in beamforming and probe positioning, appears in 32.7% of records as a clear second axis. Acoustics (G10K) and mechanical vibration generation (B06B) follow at 15.8% and 17.8% respectively, marking the transducer layer as a secondary but consistent focus.
Classes tied to power sources, wireless streaming and thermal management show comparatively thin coverage relative to the dense A61B diagnostic claims, and G01N (material analysis and testing) sits at just 3.0% of records. These lower-density branches are candidates for narrower, more defensible filings, though thin coverage in a search corpus is not proof an area is legally open — a freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignees' claim sets is still necessary before filing.
US20210405172A1, filed by Vave Health and published in December 2021, covers a handheld ultrasound device that uses a compressed flag table in place of a conventional delay table in its beamformer, reducing memory use and therefore size, weight and power consumption. It also covers on-probe compression of ultrasound image data prior to transmission, cutting the volume of data sent from the probe to a companion device. Anyone designing a battery-constrained handheld probe with on-device compression or a non-standard beamforming memory scheme should review this filing's specific claim language before finalising an architecture.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Handheld and Portable Ultrasound Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.