Intracardiac Echocardiography Patents: Leaders, Trends & Gaps 2026
- 22.9% concentration. the top five assignees combined account for 1,286 of the 5,619 records in scope, a narrower base than the long ranked tail suggests.
- Filings past their peak. annual filings ran from 271 in 2017 to a peak of 500 in 2020, then eased to 306 by 2024 (-37% from 2021's 487) — 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publication catches up to filing.
- Diagnosis and surgery dominates. A61B covers 63.6% of all records, while image-processing and informatics classes (G06T, G16H) sit under 3% each — a wide gap between mechanical claims and software claims.
Filing growth compares 2021 (487 records) with 2024 (306) — 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 5,619 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of intracardiac echocardiography, transseptal puncture and the imaging and navigation techniques that support them — catheter steering, image-plane control, thrombus detection, fluoroscopy reduction and operator learning. The scope spans 5,619 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from a search string that pairs the core imaging and access terms with the procedural and safety techniques that define how the devices are actually used in the lab.
The dataset sits squarely in structural hardware — needle and sheath design, catheter mechanics, valve and implant delivery — rather than in software-only imaging pipelines, and the technology composition below shows exactly how lopsided that split is.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 5,619 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose from 271 in 2017 to a peak of 500 in 2020, then declined toward 306 by 2024 — a 37% drop from 2021's 487. 2025 and 2026 counts are understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months; treat the last two years as incomplete, not as evidence of a further slowdown.
IPC technology composition
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) appears in 63.6% of all records, well ahead of A61F implants (36.5%) and A61M fluid-handling devices (26.9%). Electrotherapy (A61N), image processing (G06T), healthcare informatics (G16H) and sensing/positioning classes (G01N, G01S) each sit under 6%, marking where software and signal-processing claims remain thin relative to the mechanical core.
Shares are the percentage of the 5,619 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Intracardiac Echocardiography with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about intracardiac echocardiography and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited records
US20060064062A1 — Transseptal puncture needles and needle assemblies
The instant invention is directed toward transseptal puncture needles and transseptal puncture needle assemblies. More specifically, it relates to curved transseptal puncture needles and needle assemblies that facilitate insertion through curved transseptal introducers. Each curved transseptal puncture needle includes a needle tip with a tangential back bevel configuration, a reverse tangential back bevel configuration, or a conical reverse bevel configuration. The axial orientation of the needle tip relative to the needle curvature, whether on the concave side or convex side of the curved transseptal puncture needle, provides additional benefits.Filed by St. Jude Medical, Atrial Fibrillation Division, Inc., published 2006-03-23.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050137688A1 | Repositionable heart valve and method | 1,579 |
| 2 | US20040210304A1 | Prosthetic valve for transluminal delivery | 1,570 |
| 3 | US20050137686A1 | Externally expandable heart valve anchor and method | 1,498 |
| 4 | US20050137695A1 | Replacement valve and anchor | 1,481 |
| 5 | US20070043435A1 | Non-cylindrical prosthetic valve system for transluminal delivery | 1,275 |
| 6 | US5865791A | Atrial appendage stasis reduction procedure and devices | 1,274 |
| 7 | US20120130217A1 | Medical devices having electrodes mounted thereon and methods of manufacturing therefor | 1,239 |
| 8 | US20050137690A1 | Low profile heart valve and delivery system | 1,217 |
| 9 | US20070010876A1 | Externally Expandable Heart Valve Anchor and Method | 1,144 |
| 10 | US8190238B2 | Robotic catheter system and methods | 1,085 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; read them as markers of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of present-day relevance.
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 filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the records are broken down by assignee, technology class and filing year.
A moderate lead, not a lockout
The top five assignees combined hold 22.9% of all 5,619 records, and the top ten hold 34.5%. That leaves roughly two-thirds of the field spread across a long tail of the remaining ranked companies — concentrated enough to signal an active core, but far short of a market any single filer controls outright.
Volume cooling from a 2020 peak
Filings peaked at 500 in 2020 and have since eased to 306 by 2024, a 37% decline over that span. Several of the largest historical filers also show sharp year-on-year pullbacks in the most recent complete year, suggesting the wave of foundational filings has largely crested rather than that the field is closing.
Hardware claims dominate over software
A61B diagnosis-and-surgery claims touch 63.6% of records, and A61F and A61M implant and fluid-device classes each cover over a quarter of the field. Image-processing (G06T) and informatics (G16H) classes sit at 2.5% and 1.4% respectively — a mechanical-heavy landscape with comparatively little software-layer claiming so far.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to intracardiac echocardiography, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The leading assignee sits well ahead of fifth place, but the gap to the ranked tail narrows quickly, and recent-year filing counts from several historically dominant names have dropped sharply.
A clear front-runner
The leading assignee holds 375 records, more than double the fifth-place count of 172 and well ahead of tenth place at 103. That gap suggests a filer with a genuinely broad portfolio rather than one that simply files often in a narrow niche.
Pullback among historical leaders
Several of the largest historical assignees show steep year-on-year declines in the latest year — one down 68%, another down 81%, and others reporting zero filings that year. Read these cautiously given publication lag, but the direction across multiple large filers at once is a genuine signal of a slowing filing cadence, not noise from a single company.
Filing partnerships are limited but concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest pair — a device maker filing jointly with a needle and sheath specialist — appears 22 times, well ahead of other pairings. Joint filing is the exception here, not the norm.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Edwards Lifesciences Corp | 13 | -68% |
| Boston Scientific International Ltd | 6 | -81% |
| Boston Scientific Medical Device Ltd | 6 | -25% |
| Shifamed Holdings LLC | 1 | -80% |
| Biosense Webster (Israel) Ltd | 0 | -100% |
| St. Jude Medical, Atrial Fibrillation Division, Inc. | 0 | — |
| CardioMech AS | 0 | -100% |
| Baylis Medical Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or identifying acquisition targets.
Check freedom-to-operate on the mechanical core
With A61B, A61F and A61M claims covering the bulk of records, any new needle, sheath or catheter-steering design should be checked against the leading assignees' portfolios before development proceeds.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaTrack the software-layer gap
Image-processing and informatics classes remain thin relative to the mechanical core, which is where a differentiated filing strategy is more likely to find open claim space.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch filing momentum, not just historical volume
Several leading assignees show sharp pullbacks in recent-year filings; monitoring who continues to file through the lag period will indicate who is still investing in the space.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on intracardiac echocardiography patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 375 of the 5,619 records in scope, more than double the fifth-place count of 172. The top five assignees combined account for 22.9% of all records, and the top ten account for 34.5%, which means concentration is real at the very top but the majority of filings still come from a long tail of smaller filers. Names include major structural heart and electrophysiology device makers alongside smaller specialist entrants.
Filings rose from 271 in 2017 to a peak of 500 in 2020, then declined to 306 by 2024, a 37% drop over that three-year span. The 2025 and 2026 figures in any dataset like this will look lower still, but that is a publication-lag artefact — patent applications typically take about 18 months to publish, so the most recent one to two years always understate true filing activity. The honest read is that volume has cooled from its 2020 peak, not that the field is closing.
US20060064062A1, assigned to St. Jude Medical's Atrial Fibrillation Division and published in 2006, claims curved transseptal puncture needles and needle assemblies with specific tip bevel configurations — tangential back bevel, reverse tangential back bevel, and conical reverse bevel — oriented relative to the needle's curvature. A new design should be checked against these specific bevel-and-curvature combinations rather than against transseptal puncture generally, since the claims are narrowly drawn to tip geometry. Designs using different tip geometries or non-curved needle bodies may sit outside its scope, but that requires a specific claim-by-claim comparison.
IPC composition shows a sharp drop-off outside the mechanical core: A61B, A61F and A61M together cover the large majority of records, while image-processing (G06T, 2.5%), healthcare informatics (G16H, 1.4%) and sensing/positioning classes (G01N and G01S, under 1% each) are thinly represented. Areas like automated image-plane registration, real-time thrombus-detection algorithms and fluoroscopy-free navigation software sit in this thinner band. That does not guarantee open white space — it means fewer records to search against — so a targeted clearance check is still warranted before filing there.
The United States leads as a receiving office with 2,172 filings in this dataset, followed by the European Patent Office at 1,126 and the WIPO PCT route at 760. Australia, Canada and Germany follow at 303, 271 and 239 respectively. This distribution reflects where applicants seek the broadest early protection before deciding on national phase entry, and it is a reasonable guide to where competitive clearance searches should start.
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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.