Medical Linear Accelerator Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
Medical linear accelerator design patents: who leads, and where filing has cooled
18.9% concentration at the top. The top 5 of 100 ranked assignees combined for 2,394 of 12,642 records in scope, with a long tail of single-digit filers behind them. Filings rose to 704 in 2017 and peaked at 734 in 2020, before falling from 715 in 2021 to 253 in 2024 — a 65% decline over that three-year window. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures (down to 10 in the most recent partial year) are not yet complete and should not be read as a continued collapse.
- 1ELEKTA AB6.3%
- 2VARIAN MEDICAL SYSTEMS INC4.7%
- 3SIEMENS HEALTHINEERS INTERNATIONAL AG2.8%
- 4SIEMENS MEDICAL SOLUTIONS USA INC2.6%
- 5XYLECO INC2.5%
See the full medical linear accelerator design analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions on medical linac design patents
Who holds the most patents in medical linear accelerator design?
The ranking in this dataset covers 100 assignees, with the leading filer recording 800 records against a total of 12,642 records in scope. The top 5 assignees combined hold 18.9% of all records, and the top 10 hold 27.5%, which leaves the majority of filings distributed across a long tail of smaller filers including university programmes and specialist accelerator manufacturers. This pattern indicates a field with an established leadership group but no single dominant monopoly on core claims.
Is patent filing in medical linac technology growing or slowing down?
Filings peaked at 734 records in 2020 and then declined from 715 in 2021 to 253 in 2024, a 65% drop over that three-year period using the most recent complete years available. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the apparent drop-off in the very latest years should not yet be read as a continuation of the trend. Based on complete-year data through 2024, filing activity has genuinely contracted from its 2020 peak.
What technical areas do medical linac patents cover besides the treatment head?
While electrotherapy and radiation therapy claims (A61N) cover 48.6% of the 12,642 records in scope, a substantial share also falls under particle and plasma accelerator technology (H05H, 14.3%) and particle and radiation handling (G21K, 10.4%). Diagnosis and surgery claims (A61B, 16.7%) and medicinal preparation claims (A61K, 14.8%) also appear frequently, reflecting that linac patents often bundle imaging, dosing and therapeutic compound claims alongside the accelerator hardware itself. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to well over 100%.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Medical Linear Accelerator Design covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.