Intraoperative Awareness Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One inventor-led family dominates. BURTON DAVID and the related DAVID BURTON filings account for 23 of the ranked records, far ahead of the next entrant at 2.
- Filing has cooled from its 2022 peak. Filings ran 3 in 2021 to 2 in 2024, a -33% shift over that span, after peaking at 4 records in 2022.
- Claim activity is almost entirely under one IPC subclass. A61B covers 96.6% of the 29 records in scope, leaving healthcare informatics (G16H) and alarm systems (G08B) each at just 3.4-10.3%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 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.
What this landscape covers
Intraoperative awareness prevention patents cover the methods and systems used to detect and reduce the risk that a patient becomes conscious, even briefly, during general anaesthesia. The field sits at the intersection of anaesthesia depth monitoring and surgical patient monitoring, drawing on signal-processing techniques such as non-linear dynamic analysis of physiological signals, end-tidal anaesthetic concentration tracking, and alarm or reporting protocols designed to reduce medicolegal exposure. Most of the documented activity concentrates in one classification, A61B (diagnosis and surgery), with only thin coverage extending into informatics, alarm systems or fluid-handling devices.
The dataset in scope spans 29 published records filed between 2015 and 2026, with receiving-office activity concentrated in Australia and the United States. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so filing activity from 2025 onward is still being reported and should not be read as a decline.
Filing trend and technology composition
The chart below tracks published records by year against the IPC subclasses those records carry, using the 29 records currently in scope.
Filing trend: a modest, spiky field
Filings peaked at 4 records in 2022 and ran 3 in 2021 down to 2 in 2024, a -33% shift over that span. Volumes are low enough that year-to-year swings reflect a handful of filers rather than a broad market shift; 2025-2026 figures will rise as publications catch up.
Technology composition: one subclass dominates
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) appears on 96.6% of the 29 records in scope, meaning almost every filing touches core monitoring or surgical-device claims. G16H (healthcare informatics), A61M (body-fluid devices), G01R (electric/magnetic measurement) and G08B (alarm systems) each appear on only one to three records, at 3.4%-10.3% of the total — a sign that data-integration and alerting layers around the core sensing claims remain lightly claimed.
Shares are the percentage of the 29 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Intraoperative Awareness Prevention with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about intraoperative awareness prevention and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this space
WO2011017778A1 — Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system
The filing describes a method and system using non-linear dynamic (NLD) analysis — entropy or related complexity measures — applied to continuous or evoked physiological signals from a patient. It combines a biological signal evoked by patient stimulation with a non-linear analysis method capable of capturing temporal changes in signal order or regularity, then generates a measure indicative of the patient's level of anaesthesia and consciousness.Filed by BURTON, DAVID; published 2011-02-17. Part of the family that anchors the leading assignee position in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090054735A1 | System and method for remote monitoring of multiple healthcare patients | 222 |
| 2 | US20120277548A1 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 146 |
| 3 | US20060206011A1 | System and method for remote monitoring of multiple healthcare patients | 138 |
| 4 | WO2011017778A1 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 126 |
| 5 | WO2011017778A9 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 10 |
| 6 | AU2010282150A1 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 7 |
| 7 | US20200268313A1 | Anaesthesia and Consciousness Depth Monitoring System | 6 |
| 8 | US10595772B2 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 4 |
| 9 | EP2464283A1 | Anaesthesia and consciousness depth monitoring system | 3 |
| 10 | US20210290877A1 | Ventilator information display method and apparatus, ventilator, and computer storage medium | 1 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the records are grouped by assignee, year and classification.
One inventor-led family sets the baseline art
BURTON DAVID, together with the closely linked DAVID BURTON filings, holds 23 of the records in the ranking, with the next-placed assignee at only 2. Anyone filing in this space is filing against that baseline first.
Filing has thinned since the 2022 peak, not stopped
The field peaked at 4 records in 2022 and eased to 2 by 2024. That is a shift in a low-volume field, not evidence the technology is exhausted — and 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag.
Claim density sits almost entirely in one subclass
Nearly every record in scope touches A61B diagnosis-and-surgery claims. The remaining subclasses — informatics, alarms, fluid devices, electric measurement — appear on only one to three records each, suggesting the surrounding data and alerting layers are thinly claimed.
Filing activity centres on Australia and the US
Australia accounts for 14 of the receiving-office filings and the United States for 8, with WIPO, EPO and India each in single digits. That pattern tracks the leading assignee's home jurisdiction rather than a broad multi-region filing strategy.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to intraoperative awareness prevention, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| BURTON DAVID | DAVID BURTON | 9 |
| ST JACQUES PAUL J | PATEL NIMESH P | 2 |
| ST JACQUES PAUL J | HIGGINS MICHAEL S | 2 |
| PATEL NIMESH P | HIGGINS MICHAEL S | 2 |
Only 4 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, the strongest being the BURTON DAVID / DAVID BURTON pairing at 9 shared records, followed by two smaller pairings at 2 each. This is a field of largely solo filers rather than joint ventures or cross-licensed development.
Who is filing, and who has gone quiet
The ranking returned by this dataset covers 8 companies and individual filers, counted in records — not a top-50 or top-100 list. One name accounts for most of the volume; the rest filed once or twice.
BURTON DAVID / DAVID BURTON
This inventor-led family anchors the field, with 23 records against a fifth-place entrant at just 2. The strongest co-assignee pairing in the whole dataset (9 shared records) sits within this same name.
ST JACQUES PAUL J, PATEL NIMESH P, HIGGINS MICHAEL S
These names appear together in two of the dataset's four co-assignee pairs, suggesting a small collaborative team rather than independent filers. Their volume is far below the leader but consistent across records.
University of Pittsburgh (Commonwealth System of Higher Education)
An academic assignee appears in the ranking alongside the individual and corporate filers, pointing to research-stage interest in the underlying monitoring methods rather than a commercial product push.
Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics
A large medical device manufacturer sits in the ranking, signalling that established monitoring-equipment makers are watching this space even though their filing volume here is modest relative to the leading individual filer.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BURTON DAVID | 0 | — |
| DAVID BURTON | 0 | — |
| University of Pittsburgh (Commonwealth System of Higher Education) | 0 | — |
| ST JACQUES PAUL J | 0 | — |
| PATEL NIMESH P | 0 | — |
| HIGGINS MICHAEL S | 0 | — |
| Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| BURTON DAVID DR | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a narrow, low-volume field with one dominant filer and several thinly claimed adjacent branches.
Map claims against the leading family
Before drafting new claims in anaesthesia depth monitoring, run a detailed claim chart against the BURTON DAVID / DAVID BURTON family, since it accounts for the majority of the ranked records.
Explore claim charts in EurekaWatch the informatics and alarm layers
G16H and G08B classifications are present on only a handful of records each, which is where new entrants could stake defensible claims without contesting the core A61B art.
Run a white-space search in EurekaTrack publication catch-up through 2026
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, revisit the 2024-2026 filing counts periodically rather than treating the current dip as a settled trend.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking in this dataset is led by an inventor-associated family filed under the names BURTON DAVID and the closely related DAVID BURTON, together accounting for 23 of the 29 records in scope. The next assignee in the ranking holds only 2 records, so the field is heavily weighted toward this one filer rather than spread across several corporate players. Anyone entering this space should review that family's claims first, since it defines much of the existing prior art.
Filings ran from 3 in 2021 down to 2 in 2024, a -33% change over that span, after peaking at 4 records in 2022. That is a modest cooling in a low-volume field rather than a market-wide retreat, and it should not be read as the technology losing relevance. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025-2026 figures are still incomplete and will likely revise upward as more records publish.
Almost all records, 96.6% of the 29 in scope, carry an A61B classification, covering core diagnosis-and-surgery monitoring methods such as depth-of-anaesthesia measurement. Smaller numbers touch healthcare informatics (G16H), body-fluid devices (A61M), electric/magnetic measurement (G01R) and alarm systems (G08B), each appearing on only one to three records. That leaves the layers around the core sensing method — data integration, alerting, reporting — comparatively open.
Australia leads with 14 receiving-office filings, followed by the United States at 8, then WIPO (PCT), the European Patent Office and India each in single digits. This pattern likely reflects the home jurisdiction of the leading individual filer rather than a deliberate global filing strategy by multiple competitors. Companies assessing freedom-to-operate should weight Australian and US prior art most heavily given this concentration.
WO2011017778A1 and its related family members describe a specific method combining evoked biological signals with non-linear dynamic (entropy-based) analysis to measure anaesthesia depth, and it is among the most-cited records in this dataset. That specificity matters: claims tied to a particular signal-processing approach do not automatically block alternative monitoring methods, such as end-tidal anaesthetic tracking or different signal-analysis techniques. A design-around assessment should focus on the exact analytical method claimed rather than assuming the whole depth-monitoring category is closed.
Research Intraoperative Awareness Prevention in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole intraoperative awareness prevention corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.