Home Sleep Apnea Testing Patents: Who Leads 2026
- 70.6% concentration. The top 5 assignees combined account for 48 of the 68 records in scope — a field with a clear head, not a diffuse one.
- +1600% filing growth. Filings ran from 1 in 2021 to 17 in 2024, the last year publication lag lets us treat as complete, before peaking at 21 in 2023.
- One class dominates. A61B (diagnosis & surgery) covers 88.2% of the 68 records; every other IPC subclass sits under 11%, pointing to a single crowded core and thinner adjacent branches.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (17) — 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 68 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the home sleep apnea testing patent record shows
Home sleep apnea testing sits at the intersection of diagnostic hardware and signal-processing software: airflow sensors, oximetry channels and scoring algorithms that turn overnight recordings into an apnea-hypopnea index without a lab-based polysomnography study. The 68 records in scope span filings from 2015 through mid-2026, concentrated heavily under A61B (diagnosis and surgery), with smaller but real activity in A61M body-fluid devices, A61N electrotherapy and G16H healthcare informatics.
Filing activity was negligible before 2021, then accelerated sharply through a 2023 peak before easing into the most recent, still-incomplete years. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures understate real activity and should not be read as a slowdown.
Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset covers 68 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from US, PCT, EPO and national filings, and classified across eight IPC subclasses relevant to home sleep apnea testing.
A rapid but recent build-up
Filings stayed at zero or near-zero through 2017-2020, then rose from 1 in 2021 to a peak of 21 in 2023, with 2024 — the last complete year — at 17, a +1600% increase over the 2021-2024 span. Read the final one to two years as incomplete rather than declining.
One dominant class, several thin ones
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) appears on 88.2% of the 68 records, making it the field's core claim territory. A61M, A61F, A61N and G16H each sit between roughly 6% and 10%, and A61G, A61K and F24F trail further still — evidence of a crowded core with lighter-touch coverage on the diagnostic-adjacent branches.
Shares are the percentage of the 68 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Home Sleep Apnea Testing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about home sleep apnea testing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Method, machine-learning model and detecting device for home sleep apnea testing (US20240350080A1)
The filing describes detecting sleep-disordered-breathing events by combining an arousal signal representing an autonomic arousal with an SDB-signal, then generating a confirmation signal that ties the SDB-signal to the arousal event. A sensor system paired with a processing unit implements the detection, positioning the claims around signal-fusion logic rather than a single sensor type.Filed by Koninklijke Philips N.V., published 2024-10-24.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20150320588A1 | WhipFlash [TM]: Wearable Environmental Control System for Predicting and Cooling Hot Flashes | 236 |
| 2 | US6183423B1 | Breathing disorder prescreening device and method | 102 |
| 3 | US6379311B1 | Breathing disorder prescreening device and method | 70 |
| 4 | WO2016093927A2 | Systems and methods of identifying motion of a subject | 52 |
| 5 | US20170347951A1 | Systems and methods of identifying motion of a subject | 28 |
| 6 | US10179064B2 | WhipFlash [TM]: wearable environmental control system for predicting and cooling hot flashes | 22 |
| 7 | US20210007659A1 | System and method for sleep disorders: screening, testing and management | 7 |
| 8 | WO2025101224A2 | Adaptive deep brain stimulation for sleep stage targeting to treat sleep dysfunction | 4 |
| 9 | US20200297273A1 | Systems and methods of identifying motion of a subject | 4 |
| 10 | US10638972B2 | Systems and methods of identifying motion of a subject | 4 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence rather than of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the records are broken down by concentration, growth and classification.
The lead group is small and entrenched
With the top 5 assignees combined holding 70.6% of all 68 records, and the top 10 accounting for the entire ranked set, new entrants are filing into a field where claim space near the core sensing and scoring methods is already staked out by a handful of players.
Growth is real but recent
The jump from 1 filing in 2021 to 17 in 2024 shows the field only recently became active at scale, with 2023 as the peak year so far at 21 filings. Recent-year momentum figures for individual leading assignees show 0 filings in the latest year across several, consistent with the general 18-month publication lag rather than a pullback.
Diagnostic claims dominate, adjacent branches are lighter
A61B's 88.2% share against the 68-record base confirms this is fundamentally a diagnostic-method field. The next largest classes, A61M and A61F, sit near 10% and 9% respectively, meaning device-integration and implant-adjacent angles are far less contested.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to home sleep apnea testing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Thirty assignees make up the entire ranked set the data endpoint returns, with clear separation between the leader and the rest.
A single filer well ahead of fifth place
The leading assignee holds 17 records against 5 for the fifth-ranked entrant and 4 for tenth, a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-plus-tail structure rather than an evenly spread field.
University-industry pairings recur
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest links running through a university system paired repeatedly with the same academic and individual co-inventors, suggesting sustained joint research programmes rather than one-off co-filings.
Filing is US- and PCT-heavy
The United States leads receiving offices with 27 records, ahead of WIPO/PCT at 15 and the EPO at 13, with smaller volumes at national offices in Austria, Germany and Australia. That split points to the US as the primary commercial market being protected first.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| University of Washington | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| EctoSense NV | 0 | — |
| Regents of the University of California | 0 | — |
| NOX MEDICAL EHF | 0 | -100% |
| The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford | 0 | — |
| STARR PHILIP | 0 | — |
| SMYTH CLAY | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe what has been filed; the next step is testing a specific claim or design concept against that record.
Check freedom-to-operate on a sensing method
Run a proposed airflow-sensor or oximetry-channel design against the leading assignees' claim scope before committing engineering resources.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaTrack the leading assignees' next filings
Set up ongoing monitoring on the top-ranked assignees to catch new publications as the 2025-2026 filing lag closes.
Set up monitoring in Patsnap EurekaDraft into the under-claimed branches
Use the gate chips above as a starting point for claim drafting in informatics-driven scoring or ventilation-integrated sensing, where filing density is lower.
Start drafting in Patsnap EurekaFrequently asked questions
The dataset used for this landscape contains 68 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from US, PCT, EPO and national filing offices. This counts patent families rather than raw document duplicates, which gives a fairer picture than counting every continuation or national-phase filing separately. Coverage runs up to a 2026-07-31 data cut-off, so the most recent months are still incomplete.
Thirty assignees make up the full ranked list returned for this dataset, and the top 5 combined hold 70.6% of all 68 records in scope, with the top 10 accounting for the entire set. The leading assignee alone holds 17 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked entrant at 5. This is a concentrated field with a clear leader-plus-tail structure rather than one spread evenly across many small filers.
Filings grew sharply, from 1 in 2021 to 17 in 2024, a +1600% increase over that span, with a peak of 21 filings in 2023. The apparent dip in 2025 and 2026 is an artefact of publication lag, which typically runs about 18 months behind actual filing, not a genuine slowdown. Any read of the trend should treat 2024 as the last complete year.
The large majority, 88.2% of the 68 records, fall under IPC class A61B covering diagnosis and surgery, reflecting the field's core focus on diagnostic sensing and scoring methods. Smaller shares sit in A61M (body-fluid devices, 10.3%), A61F (implants and prostheses, 8.8%), A61N (electrotherapy, 5.9%) and G16H (healthcare informatics, 5.9%). Because a single record can carry multiple classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record base.
The classification data points to lighter filing density outside the core A61B diagnostic methods, particularly around healthcare informatics (G16H, 5.9%), electrotherapy-linked responses (A61N, 5.9%) and ventilation integration (F24F, 2.9%). These branches sit well below the 88.2% concentration in A61B, suggesting less-contested claim space for scoring-pipeline software, electrotherapy-triggered interventions, or airflow sensing integrated with ventilation hardware. A freedom-to-operate check against the leading assignees is still advisable before filing into any of these areas.
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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.