Health Privacy & Security Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2021 at 16 records and fell to 4 by 2024, a 75% drop over that three-year span — the sharpest contraction in the dataset.
- The top 5 assignees hold 37.2% of all 86 records while the top 10 hold 64.0%, so concentration builds fast past the fifth-ranked filer.
- Healthcare informatics (G16H) touches 41.9% of records far ahead of business-process and transmission classes, marking where claim space is most crowded.
Filing growth compares 2021 (16 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 86 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks 86 published records matched against health privacy and security terms — authentication tokens, encryption keys, security events, protected data, patient records and clinical decision support — layered onto healthcare-specific language. It captures where patient-data protection mechanics intersect with clinical workflow, rather than generic enterprise security filings that never reference health data or clinical decisions.
The scope spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, with United States filings dominating the receiving-office mix and PCT applications forming the largest non-national channel. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent years in any trend understate real filing activity and should be read as provisional.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 86-record set: activity over time, and where those records sit across IPC subclasses. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, the class shares below sum to more than 100% of records.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then contracted
Annual filings climbed from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 16 in 2021, then fell to 4 by 2024 — a 75% decline over that three-year window. Years after 2024 are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates, so the apparent tail-off should not be read as the field slowing.
Healthcare informatics carries the largest share
G16H (healthcare informatics) appears in 41.9% of the 86 records, well ahead of G06Q (business/admin data processing) and H04L (digital transmission), each at 25.6%. Wireless networking (H04W, 18.6%) and AI-based computing (G06N, 10.5%) show meaningful but secondary presence, pointing to where infrastructure and clinical logic claims overlap.
Shares are the percentage of the 86 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Health Privacy & Security Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaMost-cited and representative filings
US9419951B1 — System and method for secure three-party communications
A system and method for communicating information between a first party and a second party, comprising the steps of receiving, by an intermediary, an identifier of desired information and accounting information for a transaction involving the information from the first party, transmitting an identifier of the first party to the second party, and negotiating, by the intermediary, a comprehension function for obscuring at least a portion of the information communicated between the first party and the second party. The data transmission may be made secure with respect to the intermediary by providing an asymmetric key or direct key exchange for encryption of the communication.Filed by RPX Corporation, published 2016-08-16 — part of a family that also includes the two highest-cited records in this set.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US8316237B1 | System and method for secure three-party communications | 1,622 |
| 2 | US20060154642A1 | Medication & health, environmental, and security monitoring, alert, intervention, information and network sys… | 1,517 |
| 3 | US7181017B1 | System and method for secure three-party communications | 1,316 |
| 4 | US9419951B1 | System and method for secure three-party communications | 209 |
| 5 | US8904181B1 | System and method for secure three-party communications | 189 |
| 6 | US20140300490A1 | Wearable computing device for secure control of physiological sensors and medical devices, with secure storag… | 173 |
| 7 | WO2007027660A2 | Medication & health environmental, and security monitoring, alert, intervention, information and network syst… | 131 |
| 8 | US20190282324A1 | Augmented Reality Device for Providing Feedback to an Acute Care Provider | 129 |
| 9 | US20130145420A1 | Secure authentication using mobile device | 85 |
| 10 | WO2013096954A1 | Wearable computing device for secure control of physiological sensors and medical devices, with secure storag… | 67 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three signals stand out once the ranking, trend and IPC composition are read together: where claim density already exists, where activity has cooled, and where the technology composition points to unclaimed combinations.
Ownership concentrates fast after the leader
The single leading assignee holds 9 records, but by the tenth-ranked filer the cumulative share reaches 64.0% of all 86 records in scope. That leaves a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants below rank ten, typical of a field still being staked out rather than dominated by one player.
Activity cooled sharply after 2021
Filings fell from a peak of 16 in 2021 to 4 in 2024, a 75% contraction over three years. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, 2025-2026 figures are not yet reliable evidence of a continued decline, but the 2021-2024 drop itself is measured on complete years.
Healthcare informatics anchors the field
G16H appears in 41.9% of records, well ahead of the transmission and business-process classes that each sit at 25.6%. AI-based computing (G06N) and material analysis (G01N) each cover only 10.5% of records, suggesting clinical-decision security paired with modern ML pipelines is comparatively lightly claimed.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to health privacy & security patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders sit alongside a long tail of smaller filers, several of them holding only one or two records. Co-assignment activity is limited, with just 7 recorded pairs in the entire dataset.
A single leader, no runaway dominance
The top-ranked assignee holds 9 of the 86 records in scope, with the fifth-ranked filer at 5 and the tenth at 4. That gradient — steep at the top, flattening quickly — means no single entity controls the field outright.
Collaboration is rare in this set
Only 7 co-assignee pairs appear across all 86 records, and the strongest recurring pairing links the same small cluster of related entities. Most filings in this landscape are single-assignee efforts rather than joint ventures.
US-centric filing with a PCT bridge
United States filings account for 55 of the 86 records, with WIPO (PCT) applications the largest non-national channel at 14. Filing volume through India, Israel, Europe and Australia is comparatively thin, suggesting international protection is still being built out.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| PRINCETON BIOCHEMICALS INC | 0 | — |
| Maier Fenster | 0 | — |
| Gal Ehrlich | 0 | — |
| MAIER FENSTER | 0 | — |
| GAL EHRLICH | 0 | — |
| 423 ENTERPRISES LLC | 0 | — |
| Trustees of Dartmouth College | 0 | — |
| Zoll Medical Corporation | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with a settled core and a thinning edge. The next step is deciding whether to file into the crowded informatics claims or target the adjacent combinations that remain lightly covered.
Map claim overlap before drafting
Before drafting new claims in healthcare informatics or transmission security, check the most-cited filings in this set for overlapping mechanics — several trace back to the same underlying family.
Explore the citation network in EurekaTrack the post-2024 filing gap
The 2021-2024 drop is real, but 2025-2026 data is still incomplete. Revisit filing counts once publication catches up before drawing conclusions about the field's current direction.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaProbe the under-claimed combinations
AI-assisted clinical decision authentication and wireless sensor record encryption both sit below the density of the core classes, and may offer cleaner freedom-to-operate.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking covers 47 assignees, none of which dominates the field outright. The top-ranked filer holds 9 of the 86 records in scope, and the top 5 combined account for 37.2% of all records — a meaningful lead, but far from a monopoly. Below the top 10, which together hold 64.0% of records, there is a long tail of assignees with only one or two filings, indicating the field is still open to new entrants rather than locked up by incumbents.
Filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 16 in 2021, then fell to 4 by 2024 — a measured 75% decline over that three-year window. Because patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, the 2025-2026 figures in any dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as proof the field is dying. The 2021 peak likely reflects a wave of pandemic-era telehealth and remote-monitoring security filings working through the system.
Healthcare informatics (IPC class G16H) is the largest single category, appearing in 41.9% of the 86 records in scope. Business and administrative data processing (G06Q) and digital transmission (H04L) each follow at 25.6%, with wireless communications (H04W) close behind at 18.6%. Because a single filing can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%, and the pattern shows most filings blend clinical workflow logic with generic security or transmission mechanics.
US9419951B1, assigned to RPX Corporation and published in 2016, claims a method for secure three-party communication using an intermediary that negotiates a comprehension function to obscure information exchanged between two parties, secured via asymmetric key or direct key exchange. It sits within a family that includes two of the most-cited records in this entire dataset, so its core mechanics — intermediary-brokered, key-based obscuring of a data exchange — are heavily documented prior art. New filings should differentiate on the specific data type protected, the trigger for the security event, or the AI-assisted decision layer rather than the general three-party intermediary structure itself.
The clearest gaps sit at the intersection of the lightly claimed classes — G06N (AI-based computing) and G01N (material analysis), each covering only 10.5% of the 86 records — and the dominant healthcare informatics core. Combinations like AI-assisted clinical decision authentication or wireless sensor patient-record encryption appear thin relative to the crowded informatics and transmission classes. Co-assignment is also rare across the dataset, with just 7 recorded pairs, suggesting joint-development filings in this space remain uncommon and could offer a differentiated filing strategy.
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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.