Locking Plate Fixation Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Concentrated but not locked down. the top 5 assignees hold 24.0% of all 1,417 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 38.2% — leadership exists, but 60%+ of filings sit outside it.
- Filing has cooled from its 2018 peak. activity peaked at 94 records in 2018 and fell -48% from 2021 (54) to 2024 (28), the last year publication lag lets us call complete.
- Claim density is lopsided by function, not just by company. A61B (diagnosis & surgery) covers 80.5% of records versus 17.1% for A61F (implants & prostheses) — the fixation method, not the implant itself, is where most claims sit.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (28) — 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 1,417 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What locking plate fixation patents actually cover
Locking plate fixation sits at the intersection of trauma implants and surgical technique: patents in this set claim everything from angular-stable screw-plate interfaces to working-length and construct-stiffness optimisation, plate contouring, and periprosthetic fracture management around existing implants. The search set spans 1,417 published records from 2015 to the 2026-07-31 cut-off, drawn from filings that combine locking-plate or locking-screw terminology with angular stability, construct stiffness, plate contouring, periprosthetic fracture or implant-removal language.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity — 2024 is the last year that can be read as complete, and everything after it is still filling in.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,417-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A 2018 peak followed by a real pullback
Filings ran from 63 in 2017 to a peak of 94 in 2018, then declined; the 2021-to-2024 window alone shows a -48% drop (54 to 28 records). Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional given the ~18-month publication lag rather than evidence of a further slide.
Surgical technique dominates over implant hardware
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) appears in 80.5% of the 1,417 records, far ahead of A61F implants & prostheses at 17.1%. Smaller shares in G06F, G06T, B25B, B25F and B22F point to instrumentation, imaging-assisted placement and powder-metallurgy implant fabrication as secondary but persistent threads — each under 2% of records individually.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,417 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Locking Plate Fixation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about locking plate fixation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this set
US8709092B2 — Periprosthetic fracture management enhancements
Covers fracture fixation options after total hip or knee arthroplasty, including pre-engineered fixation contingencies built into femoral or tibial components, targeting devices for aligning fixed-angle locking screws in pre-drilled holes in an existing prosthetic or femoral nail, and alignment devices supporting periprosthetic fracture repair.Filed by Stryker European Operations Limited; granted 2014-04-29.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6248105B1 | Device for connecting a longitudinal support with a pedicle screw | 723 |
| 2 | US6425920B1 | Spinal fusion implant | 448 |
| 3 | US6436101B1 | Rasp for use in spine surgery | 421 |
| 4 | US5100405A | Locking cap for medical implants | 368 |
| 5 | US20080021474A1 | Methods and devices for intracorporeal bonding of implants with thermal energy | 321 |
| 6 | US20080065222A1 | Spinal fusion instrumentation, implant and method | 310 |
| 7 | US5947966A | Device for linking adjacent rods in spinal instrumentation | 301 |
| 8 | US20080300637A1 | Systems and methods for using polyaxial plates | 300 |
| 9 | US20090024161A1 | Methods and devices for utilizing thermal energy to bond, stake and/or remove implants | 295 |
| 10 | US20080039845A1 | Methods and devices for intracorporeal bonding of implants with thermal energy | 257 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; read this as a map of influence, not 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 decision
Three signals worth weighing before drafting claims in this space: how concentrated ownership really is, where the pullback in filing sits on the timeline, and which technical branch is actually crowded.
Leadership exists, but it is not a wall
The leading assignee holds 120 records and the top 5 combined hold 24.0% of all 1,417 records in scope. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants — a workable claim position does not require displacing a dominant incumbent.
A real pullback, not a data artefact
Filing volume fell from 54 records in 2021 to 28 in 2024, a -48% change over a window that is far enough back to be publication-complete. Combined with a 2018 peak of 94, this points to a field past its most active drafting period rather than one still accelerating.
Technique claims outnumber hardware claims
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) covers 80.5% of the 1,417 records against 17.1% for A61F (implants & prostheses). Most of the drafting activity in this dataset is about how a plate or screw is placed and stabilised, not about the physical implant form itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to locking plate fixation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who has slowed down
The ranked leaders in this dataset show a mix of steady large-scale filers and assignees whose activity has gone quiet in the most recent year — useful context before assuming any single company still owns a sub-area.
Scale without exclusivity
The top-ranked assignee holds 120 of the 1,417 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 49 and tenth place at 33. That gap shows real scale, but the drop-off after the leader is steep enough that mid-table positions remain contestable.
Most named leaders show flat or zero recent activity
Several long-standing assignees in this space, including Synthes, Spartek Medical, Crossroads Extremity Systems and P Tech, show zero filings in the latest year. Globus Medical and Smith & Nephew are the exceptions with recorded recent-year activity.
Co-filing is rare and clusters tightly
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, with the strongest links running between Smith & Nephew and its own regional and orthopaedic subsidiaries. Cross-company co-filing outside those internal pairings is minimal.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Globus Medical, Inc. | 2 | +100% |
| Smith & Nephew, Inc. | 1 | 0% |
| Synthes GmbH | 0 | — |
| Spartek Medical, Inc. | 0 | — |
| CROSSROADS EXTREMITY SYSTEMS LLC | 0 | — |
| P TECH LLC | 0 | — |
| Synthes USA | 0 | — |
| DePuy Synthes Products, Inc. | 0 | — |
Turning this landscape into a filing or FTO decision
The figures above set the boundaries; the next step is running your own claim language against this set.
Check freedom to operate against the leaders
With 24.0% of records held by five assignees and a further long tail beyond them, a claim chart against the leading holders' active families is the fastest way to confirm whether a proposed construct-stiffness or angular-stability claim is actually open.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaWatch the momentum shift, not just the totals
Several long-standing filers have gone quiet in the latest year while others have picked up. Tracking recency alongside volume avoids over-weighting a company's historical position.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on locking plate fixation patents
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 120 of the 1,417 records in scope, with the top 5 assignees combined holding 24.0% of all records and the top 10 combined holding 38.2%. That means no single company controls a majority of the field, and a long tail of smaller filers accounts for the rest. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at both the leader's specific claim scope and the wider spread rather than assuming one firm dominates.
Filing volume peaked at 94 records in 2018 and has since declined, falling from 54 records in 2021 to 28 in 2024 — a -48% drop over a window that is publication-complete. That is a genuine pullback from the peak drafting period, though it does not mean the field is closed; it means the most active phase of claim-staking has likely passed. Figures for 2025 and 2026 should be read as provisional given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication.
US8709092B2, assigned to Stryker European Operations Limited and granted in 2014, covers periprosthetic fracture management: pre-engineered fixation contingencies built into femoral or tibial implant components, targeting devices for aligning fixed-angle locking screws in pre-drilled holes in an existing prosthetic or nail, and alignment devices supporting the repair procedure. It is specific to fracture management around an existing prosthesis rather than general locking-plate hardware, so its blocking effect is concentrated on periprosthetic fracture workflows tied to hip or knee arthroplasty components.
A61B, the diagnosis-and-surgery subclass, appears in 80.5% of the 1,417 records in scope, making surgical technique and placement method the most heavily claimed dimension of this field. A61F, covering implants and prostheses themselves, appears in 17.1% of records — notably less crowded by comparison. Smaller subclasses tied to imaging, digital processing, hand tools and powder metallurgy each sit under 2% of records, suggesting more room to manoeuvre in fabrication and tooling than in technique claims.
Based on IPC composition, subclasses like G06F, G06T, B25B, B25F and B22F each account for roughly 1-2% of the 1,417 records, well below the 80.5% concentration in A61B surgical-technique claims. That gap suggests imaging-guided trajectory planning, digital construct-stiffness simulation, and powder-metallurgy fabrication of locking plates are comparatively open relative to the density of pure fixation-technique claims. Any first filing there should still be checked against the specific active families of the top-ranked assignees before drafting.
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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.