Medical Device & Implant Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 20.7% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 14,545 of the 70,149 records in scope, but a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants fills out the rest of the ranking.
- Filing volume cooled after a 2021 peak. Filings ran from 1,168 in 2021 down to 695 in 2024, a 40% decline over that three-year span — the clearest complete-year comparison the data supports.
- Surgery and body-fluid devices dominate the class mix. A61B (diagnosis & surgery) alone touches 12.8% of all records, more than triple the share of A61N electrotherapy or A61K medicinal-preparation classes.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,168 records) with 2024 (695) — 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 70,149 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape draws on 70,149 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 across medical equipment, surgical devices, cardiovascular devices, neurotechnology, wearable medical devices, biomedical materials and rehabilitation devices. The scope spans diagnostic and surgical instrumentation, implants and prostheses, body-fluid handling devices, sterilisation methods, electrotherapy and healthcare informatics — a field where mechanical, electronic and materials-science claims overlap heavily. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was.
Because a single medical device patent often names several related inventions across parent and continuation filings, family-level counts give a fairer picture of real invention volume than raw document counts. The concentration and technology-composition figures below use the full record set in scope, with denominators stated wherever a share is quoted.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 70,149-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the most claim density today.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 868 in 2017 to a peak of 1,168 in 2021, then eased to 695 by 2024 — a 40% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in under the usual publication lag and should not be read as a continued drop.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) accounts for 12.8% of the 70,149 records in scope, well ahead of A61M body-fluid devices at 5.2% and A61L sterilising & disinfecting at 4.8%. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 70,149 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Medical Devices, Implants & Dental Technology Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about medical devices, implants & dental technology patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Systems and methods of wirelessly powering wearable medical devices
The present disclosure describes various systems and methods of providing wireless power to one or more wearable medical devices. Specifically, the systems and methods are directed to novel power solutions that enable the use of smaller and more comfortable wearable medical devices. Satellite devices are disclosed that wirelessly receive power from a primary wearable medical device, and in a second embodiment one or more wearable medical devices are wirelessly supplied power via a nearby power supply source.Filed by TNO, published 2023-09-28 as US20230301518A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7404508B2 | Surgical stapling and cutting device | 4,163 |
| 2 | US5400267A | Local in-device memory feature for electrically powered medical equipment | 2,808 |
| 3 | US5468253A | Elastomeric medical device | 2,478 |
| 4 | US7419080B2 | Surgical stapling and cutting device with dual actuating control knob | 2,427 |
| 5 | US20070073341A1 | Method for operating a surgical stapling and cutting device | 2,426 |
| 6 | US6818018B1 | In situ polymerizable hydrogels | 2,412 |
| 7 | US7048687B1 | Limited use medical probe | 2,368 |
| 8 | US8579176B2 | Surgical stapling and cutting device and method for using the device | 2,219 |
| 9 | US8245898B2 | Surgical stapling and cutting device | 1,945 |
| 10 | US20110082538A1 | Medical device, kit and method for constricting tissue or a bodily orifice, for example, a mitral valve | 1,820 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on later filings, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Read together, the concentration, trend and citation data point to a field where claim space around core surgical and stapling mechanics is dense, while newer classes such as healthcare informatics remain comparatively open.
Leadership is concentrated but not locked
The five leading assignees combine for 14,545 of the 70,149 records in scope — meaningful share, but far short of a closed field. The ranked list of 100 companies shows a long tail of firms with modest filing counts, which is typical of a technology area built on decades of incremental mechanical and materials refinements.
Activity has eased from its 2021 peak
Filings peaked at 1,168 in 2021 and had fallen to 695 by 2024, the last year the data can treat as complete. That decline does not necessarily mean interest is fading — it may instead reflect consolidation of claim scope after a period of dense stapling, sterilisation and diagnostic filing.
Surgical and diagnostic claims dominate the mix
A61B alone touches more than one in eight of the 70,149 records, well ahead of body-fluid devices (A61M, 5.2%), sterilising methods (A61L, 4.8%) and implants (A61F, 3.8%). Healthcare informatics (G16H, 3.7%) and digital data processing (G06F, 2.4%) trail but represent the newer, software-adjacent edge of the field.
Stapling and cutting mechanics anchor the citation graph
The most-cited record in the set, a surgical stapling and cutting device patent, has been cited 4,163 times — an order of magnitude above typical filings in this corpus. Several of the other most-cited records share the same stapling and cutting lineage, suggesting that mechanical actuation claims in surgical instruments remain a heavily referenced foundation for later filings.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to medical devices, implants & dental technology patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 100 companies across the full 70,149-record set. Filing behaviour splits between a handful of established device makers with sustained, broad portfolios and a much larger group of occasional or single-filing entrants.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee's filing count is more than eight times that of the fifth-place entrant (987 records), pointing to a portfolio built on sustained, multi-year filing across several device categories rather than a single product line.
The drop-off past the leader is steep
By tenth place, filing counts have fallen to 772 records, and the top 10 combined account for 26.9% of all 70,149 records in scope. The remaining 90 ranked companies fill in the rest with progressively thinner portfolios.
Momentum is cooling even among active filers
Several of the assignees with recent-year activity show sharp year-over-year declines in the latest year, consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 easing in filing volume rather than any single company's retreat. Read the very latest year cautiously, since publication lag understates it for every filer.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Medtronic, Inc. | 4 | -67% |
| Zoll Medical Corporation | 1 | -95% |
| Boston Scientific International Ltd. | 1 | -83% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 1 | -80% |
| Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska | 1 | -67% |
| Cordis Corporation | 0 | — |
| Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Covidien LP | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio benchmarking or spotting a filing gap.
Check freedom-to-operate around stapling mechanics
The dense citation cluster around surgical stapling and cutting devices suggests this sub-area carries the heaviest prior art. Any new mechanical actuation claim in surgical instruments should be checked against that lineage before drafting.
Explore stapling device prior art in EurekaWatch the healthcare informatics and wearable-power classes
G16H and wireless-power-for-wearables claims sit at comparatively low density next to A61B and A61M. That gap narrows every filing cycle as digital health and remote monitoring claims accumulate.
Track informatics filing activity in EurekaBenchmark against the concentrated top of the ranking
With the top 10 assignees holding 26.9% of all records in scope, a benchmarking exercise against those portfolios will surface where a smaller filer's claims genuinely differ rather than overlap.
Compare assignee portfolios in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The assignee ranking behind this landscape covers 100 companies across 70,149 records, and it is dominated at the top by a single leading filer with 8,389 records, more than eight times the fifth-place count of 987. The top five combined hold 20.7% of all records in scope, and the top ten hold 26.9%. Beyond the leading tier, the ranking thins quickly into a long tail of companies with far smaller filing counts, so no single competitor other than the leader controls a dominant share of the field.
Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 1,168 records and had fallen to 695 by 2024, a 40% decline over that three-year span — the most recent period the data can treat as complete. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is a publication-lag artefact rather than a genuine drop, since publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months. Any conclusion about the field slowing should rest on the 2021-to-2024 comparison, not on the partial final years.
Diagnosis and surgery, IPC subclass A61B, is the single densest area, touching 12.8% of the 70,149 records in scope. Devices for handling body fluids (A61M) and sterilising or disinfecting methods (A61L) follow at 5.2% and 4.8% respectively, with implants and prostheses (A61F) close behind at 3.8%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these percentages are not mutually exclusive and add up to more than the total record count.
Relative to the dense surgical and sterilisation classes, healthcare informatics (G16H, 3.7% of records) and digital data processing (G06F, 2.4%) carry noticeably lighter claim density. Specific sub-areas such as wireless power transfer for wearable devices, informatics interoperability standards and rehabilitation-device actuation feedback show up as thinner in filing volume relative to core mechanical and sterilisation claims. These are not empty spaces, but they are less crowded than the stapling, cutting and sterilisation clusters that anchor the field's citation graph.
Citation counts in this corpus are useful as a signal of influence on later filings, but they systematically favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations. The most-cited record here, a surgical stapling and cutting device patent, has 4,163 citations, an order of magnitude above most other filings in the set. Treat high citation counts as evidence that a claim area was foundational, not as proof that it remains the most commercially relevant area today.
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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.