Hydrogel Sealants for Surgery Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- 30.4% of all 3,058 records sit with the five leading assignees, a level of concentration that makes freedom-to-operate checks against those portfolios a first step, not an afterthought.
- Filings fell 66% from 2021 to 2024 (219 to 75), the most recent span the data can call complete once publication lag is factored in.
- A61L and A61K each cover roughly half the field (47.1% and 45.8% of records), meaning sterilisation chemistry and medicinal-preparation claims overlap on most filings rather than sitting apart.
Filing growth compares 2021 (219 records) with 2024 (75) — 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 3,058 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the hydrogel sealant patent record shows
Hydrogel sealants sit at the intersection of wound closure, tissue adhesion and controlled degradation, which is why the patent record for this topic spans 3,058 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026. The search terms combine sealant and crosslinked-hydrogel language with functional claims around gelation kinetics, swelling pressure, degradation rate, tissue adherence, delivery applicators and leak sealing, so the corpus captures both the material chemistry and the delivery hardware built around it. Patent families, rather than raw document counts, are the fairer unit here because they strip out continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates that would otherwise inflate a single invention’s footprint.
Filing offices skew toward the United States (1,006 records), Europe via the EPO (547) and the WIPO PCT route (459), with Australia, Canada and India each carrying a smaller but non-trivial share. That spread points to a field where applicants are seeking broad multi-jurisdiction protection early, consistent with a technology still being actively defended rather than one that has settled into regional niches.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 3,058-record corpus: publication volume by year, and the IPC subclasses those records carry.
Filings rose to a 2022 peak, then eased
Annual publications climbed from 154 in 2017 to a peak of 251 in 2022, then declined to 75 by 2024 — a 66% drop across that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, so the apparent tail should not be read as the field going quiet.
Sterilisation and medicinal-preparation claims dominate
A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) and A61K (medicinal preparations) each appear on roughly half of all records — 47.1% and 45.8% respectively — confirming that most hydrogel sealant filings claim both the material's antimicrobial or preservative handling and its active-agent delivery function together. Surgical and diagnostic device claims under A61B appear on 22.2% of records, while polymer-chemistry classes C08L and C08G sit further down at 7.9% and 6.8%, marking the underlying chemistry as a smaller but distinct claiming layer beneath the medical-use classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 3,058 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Hydrogel Sealants for Surgery with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about hydrogel sealants for surgery and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
Tunable covalently crosslinked hydrogels and methods of making the same (US20160256604A1)
The present invention provides, among other things, an elastomeric biomaterial having enzymatically cross-linked amino acid phenolic side chains to generate highly elastic hydrogels. Materials are characterised by tunable mechanical properties, gelation kinetics and swelling properties of these new protein polymers, and support encapsulation of cells. Methods of making and using the provided particles are also disclosed.Filed by Trustees of Tufts College, published 2016-09-08.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6818018B1 | In situ polymerizable hydrogels | 2,411 |
| 2 | US10349939B2 | Method of applying a buttress to a surgical stapler | 1,370 |
| 3 | US10136891B2 | Naturally derived bioabsorbable polymer gel adhesive for releasably attaching a staple buttress to a surgical… | 1,015 |
| 4 | US10172617B2 | Malleable bioabsorbable polymer adhesive for releasably attaching a staple buttress to a surgical stapler | 947 |
| 5 | US6264695B1 | Spinal nucleus implant | 882 |
| 6 | US6605294B2 | Methods of using in situ hydration of hydrogel articles for sealing or augmentation of tissue or vessels | 864 |
| 7 | US5906934A | Mesenchymal stem cells for cartilage repair | 861 |
| 8 | US10172618B2 | Low glass transition temperature bioabsorbable polymer adhesive for releasably attaching a staple buttress to… | 824 |
| 9 | US20170055986A1 | Medicant Eluting Adjuncts and Methods of Using Medicant Eluting Adjuncts | 818 |
| 10 | US10245034B2 | Inducing tissue adhesions using surgical adjuncts and medicants | 813 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers rather than of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing or licensing decision
Three signals from the dataset that change how a freedom-to-operate or white-space search should be scoped.
The top of the field is dense, not the whole field
Combined, the five leading assignees hold 930 of the 3,058 records in scope, and the ranked ten extend that to 42.2%. That leaves well over half the corpus spread across a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants, so a competitor scan needs to cover both the concentrated leaders and that tail separately.
The 2022 peak has not been sustained through the last complete filing year
Annual filings peaked at 251 in 2022 before falling to 75 by 2024, a decline the dataset can confirm because 2024 is the most recent year unaffected by publication lag. Years after that are still filling in and should not be read as a continuation of the drop.
Most filings claim sterilisation and medicinal function together
Nearly half of all records sit in A61L and a near-identical share in A61K, and because a record can carry both classes, the overlap between antimicrobial handling claims and active-agent delivery claims is the norm rather than the exception in this field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to hydrogel sealants for surgery, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the collaboration patterns sit
The leader board is concentrated at the top, but the strongest co-filing relationships trace to a single group of inventors rather than to broad industry alliances.
One assignee leads by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee holds 261 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 91 and the tenth at 61, which is the steepest single drop in the ranking and marks a clear leader rather than a tight cluster at the top.
Collaboration is narrow and inventor-anchored
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest three all connect the same corporate assignee to individual named inventors, pointing to an internal inventor group rather than cross-company joint development.
Recent-year activity has thinned across former leaders
Several previously active assignees, including two with a -100% year-over-year change, show no records in the latest year. Given the publication lag, this is as likely to reflect filings still working through the pipeline as a genuine pullback.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Cilag GmbH International | 1 | — |
| Incept LLC | 0 | -100% |
| ETHICON ENDO SURGERY LLC | 0 | — |
| ANGIOTECH INT AG (CH) | 0 | — |
| Ethicon Inc. | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of California | 0 | -100% |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | 0 | -100% |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape points to next questions rather than final answers — each one narrows the search further.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top five
With 30.4% of records held by five assignees, any new filing in gelation kinetics or tissue-adherence claims should be checked against those portfolios before drafting.
Start a claim searchTrack the post-2024 filing pipeline as it publishes
The 2021-2024 decline is confirmed, but 2025-2026 records are still arriving; revisit the trend once those years clear the publication lag.
Monitor this topicProbe the under-claimed branches directly
Thinner classes like C08G and A61M sealant integration may hold room for a first-mover claim rather than a workaround.
Explore white spaceCommon questions about hydrogel sealant patents
The assignee ranking in this dataset is led by a single company holding 261 of the 3,058 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 91. The top five assignees combined hold 30.4% of all records, and the top ten hold 42.2%, which means the field has a clear leader plus a long tail of smaller filers. Anyone assessing competitive position should treat the leader's portfolio as the primary freedom-to-operate check and the remaining ranked companies as secondary but still relevant.
Filings rose from 154 in 2017 to a peak of 251 in 2022, then fell to 75 by 2024, a 66% decline over that three-year span. That 2021-2024 window is the most recent period the data can treat as complete, because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in, so the apparent falloff in the most recent one or two years should not yet be read as the technology losing momentum.
Sterilising and disinfecting claims under A61L appear on 47.1% of the 3,058 records, and medicinal-preparation claims under A61K appear on 45.8%, meaning nearly half the field claims both functions together in the same filing. Surgical and diagnostic device claims (A61B) cover 22.2% of records, while the underlying polymer chemistry classes, C08L and C08G, sit lower at 7.9% and 6.8%. That gap suggests most applicants are protecting the medical-use application of the hydrogel rather than the base polymer chemistry itself.
The composition data shows condensation-polymer backbones (C08G) and body-fluid device integration (A61M) carrying noticeably lower record shares than the dominant A61L and A61K classes, which points to thinner claim density in those areas relative to the sealant chemistry core. Swelling-pressure-controlled delivery applicators and degradation-rate-tunable crosslink chemistries are similarly less represented. These are not guarantees of open white space, but they are the branches where a competitive search is more likely to find room to file a first claim rather than a workaround.
US6818018B1, covering in situ polymerisable hydrogels, carries the highest citation count in this corpus at 2,411 citations, well ahead of the next most-cited records, which relate to buttress and staple-attachment adhesives. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate references, so this signals historical influence on later filers rather than current commercial dominance.
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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.