Medical Linear Accelerator Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 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.
- Filing has fallen sharply since the 2020 peak. From 734 records in 2020, activity dropped from 715 in 2021 to 253 in 2024, a 65% decline over that span — 2025 onward is still filling in due to publication lag.
- Radiation therapy claims dominate, but the field spans further. A61N covers 48.6% of records, while H05H (particle accelerators) and G21K (radiation handling) each still cover over 10%, pointing to real breadth beyond the treatment head.
Filing growth compares 2021 (715 records) with 2024 (253) — 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 12,642 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 12,642 published patent records filed or published between 2015 and 2026 that combine linear accelerator hardware terms — waveguide design, treatment head, gantry rotation — with beam and dose-control concepts such as beam energy, dose rate and target cooling. The search string ties mechanical and electron-beam engineering claims to the clinical delivery constraints that define a working medical linac, rather than treating radiotherapy and accelerator physics as separate fields.
Records carry IPC classes spanning electrotherapy and radiation therapy (A61N), diagnosis and surgery (A61B), particle accelerators (H05H) and nuclear radiation measurement (G01T), reflecting that a modern linac design patent typically touches beam generation, dose measurement and clinical delivery in a single filing.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Publication volumes, growth trajectory and the IPC classes that structure the field.
A 2020 peak followed by a sustained pullback
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.
Radiation therapy claims anchor the field; particle-accelerator and measurement classes add real depth
A61N (electrotherapy and radiation therapy) appears on 48.6% of the 12,642 records in scope, well ahead of A61B (16.7%) and A61K (14.8%). H05H (plasma and particle accelerators, 14.3%) and G21K (particle and radiation handling, 10.4%) show that a meaningful share of filings address the accelerator physics rather than only the clinical delivery system. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 12,642 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Medical Linear Accelerator Design with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about medical linear accelerator design and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative recent filing
Linear accelerator for generating high x-ray doses
An X-ray generation system is configured to generate an X-ray beam configured to be delivered to a patient undergoing radiation therapy. The X-ray generation system includes a linear accelerator system configured to generate an electron beam configured to impinge a target configured to respond to the incident electron beam by emitting an X-ray beam configured to deliver an X-ray dose rate to the patient in a range of 40 Gy/s to 1000 Gy/s within a treatment delivery window.Filed by RadiaBeam Technologies; published as US20240090112A1 on 2024-03-14.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US8285367B2 | Vasculature and lymphatic system imaging and ablation associated with a reservoir | 1,072 |
| 2 | US5760395A | Method and apparatus for laser-controlled proton beam radiology | 622 |
| 3 | US5838759A | Single beam photoneutron probe and X-ray imaging system for contraband detection and identification | 617 |
| 4 | US20120190964A1 | Vasculature and lymphatic system imaging and ablation | 522 |
| 5 | US6230501B1 | Ergonomic systems and methods providing intelligent adaptive surfaces and temperature control | 522 |
| 6 | US20160242855A1 | Real-Time Surgical Navigation | 519 |
| 7 | US5027818A | Dosimetric technique for stereotactic radiosurgery same | 502 |
| 8 | US20090093728A1 | Vasculature and lymphatic system imaging and ablation associated with a reservoir | 447 |
| 9 | US20050234327A1 | Robotic arm for patient positioning assembly | 442 |
| 10 | US6842502B2 | Cone beam computed tomography with a flat panel imager | 416 |
Citation counts favour older, well-established records inside this corpus and should be read as a signal of influence, not of current technical relevance.
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Three patterns stand out once concentration, timing and technology composition are read together.
The top of the field is concentrated, but not dominant
The five leading assignees combined account for 18.9% of all records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 27.5%. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of the remaining ranked assignees, consistent with a field where clinical device makers, university programmes and accelerator specialists all hold active positions.
Post-peak filings have contracted sharply
After peaking at 734 records in 2020, filings fell from 715 in 2021 to 253 in 2024. That is a real, complete-year decline rather than an artefact of publication lag, since 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as closed out.
Beam physics claims sit alongside clinical delivery claims
Beyond the 48.6% share held by A61N, meaningful shares fall under H05H (particle accelerators, 14.3%) and G21K (particle and radiation handling, 10.4%). This indicates that filers are not only patenting treatment-head and dose-control mechanisms but also the underlying accelerator and beam-handling physics.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to medical linear accelerator design, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
A handful of established radiotherapy equipment makers hold the largest positions, with co-filing patterns pointing to long-running university and industry partnerships.
One filer holds a clear lead
The top-ranked assignee in this landscape recorded 800 records, well ahead of the fifth-place assignee at 318 and tenth place at 192. That gap between first and fifth place is the steepest drop in the ranking.
University-industry pairs recur in the co-assignee data
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset. The strongest, a University of California and University of Florida research foundation pairing, spans 69 shared records; a Varian-affiliated pair spans 64; a Hitachi and Hokkaido University pairing spans 24.
Momentum has slowed across the largest filers
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum shows a sharp pullback: the leading filer dropped 89% year-on-year to a single record in the latest year, and several others show no filings at all in the latest year. This mirrors the broader post-2021 decline but is most visible among the largest historical filers.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Varian Medical Systems, Inc. | 1 | -89% |
| Elekta AB | 0 | -100% |
| Accuray LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Xyleco, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Varian Medical Systems International AG | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Karyopharm Therapeutics, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions for teams deciding where to file or partner.
Test a claim against the most-cited prior art
The most-cited records in this landscape date back to the 1990s and 2000s, meaning any new treatment-head or beam-delivery claim needs to be checked against decades-old, heavily cited foundational filings before drafting.
Run a prior-art check in EurekaMap the white space in beam-physics claims
H05H and G21K classes show real filing depth but sit well below A61N, suggesting under-claimed intersections between accelerator physics and clinical dose control worth scoping in detail.
Explore white space in EurekaWatch for renewed filing after the post-2021 pullback
With 2024 filings down 65% from 2021 and the largest assignees showing near-total pullback in the latest year, any recovery in filing activity will be an early signal worth tracking as 2025-2026 data completes.
Track filing trends in EurekaCommon questions on medical linac design patents
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.
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.
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%.
US20240090112A1, titled 'Linear accelerator for generating high x-ray doses,' was filed by RadiaBeam Technologies and published on 2024-03-14. It describes a linear accelerator system that generates an electron beam directed at a target, producing an X-ray beam delivered to a patient at a dose rate specified in a range of 40 Gy/s to 1000 Gy/s within a defined treatment delivery window. The claims are notable for tying a specific high dose-rate range to the accelerator and target configuration, which is relevant to anyone designing FLASH-therapy or high-dose-rate delivery systems.
Comparing IPC class density against the dominant A61N category suggests thinner claim coverage in areas like target cooling architecture, real-time waveguide tuning, and gantry-mounted uptime or reliability diagnostics, since these sit at the intersection of the less-crowded H05H and G21K classes rather than the heavily filed core treatment-head claims. This does not mean the areas are unpatented, but that filing density is comparatively lower relative to core dose-control and beam-generation claims. Teams considering these branches should still run a full prior-art search, since low density in this dataset is a starting signal, not a guarantee of open claim space.
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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.