Neuromuscular Blockade Monitoring Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing is concentrated, with the top 5 assignees accounting for 94.9% of all 39 records in scope and the leader alone holding 18.
- Activity peaked in 2017 at 19 filings, and the years since show no comparable spike — though the most recent year is always understated due to publication lag.
- Diagnosis and surgery claims dominate, with A61B present on 87.2% of records, while healthcare informatics (G16H) sits at just 7.7%, leaving software-driven interpretation comparatively open.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 39 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Neuromuscular blockade monitoring patents cover the instruments and methods clinicians use to track how deeply a patient is paralysed by blocking agents during anaesthesia, and when it is safe to reverse that block. The core techniques in scope are train-of-four measurement, acceleromyography and electromyography sensing, along with the calibration steps and stimulation-current controls that make those readings reliable enough to guide dosing of a reversal agent.
The 39 records in scope span filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, filed across the United States, the EPO, WIPO, Germany, Canada and Italy. The field is narrow enough that a handful of assignees account for nearly all activity, which makes freedom-to-operate review tractable but also means new entrants are filing directly against a small number of established claim sets.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The trend and classification data below are drawn directly from the 39 records in scope; publication lag means the final one to two years will revise upward as more filings publish.
Filing trend: a 2017 peak, then a quieter decade
Filings rose to a peak of 19 in 2017 and have not returned to that level since. With growth not computable across a clean run of complete years, this reads less as an active filing wave and more as a field where the foundational claims were staked early and later activity has been incremental.
IPC composition: diagnosis and electrotherapy dominate
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) appears on 87.2% of the 39 records and A61N (electrotherapy & radiation therapy) on 41.0%, reflecting that most claims combine a sensing method with a stimulation apparatus. A61M (body-fluid devices) and G16H (healthcare informatics) trail well behind at 10.3% and 7.7% respectively, since counts overlap where a record carries more than one class.
Shares are the percentage of the 39 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Neuromuscular Blockade Monitoring with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about neuromuscular blockade monitoring and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art and a representative recent filing
US12059248B2 — Quantitative neuromusculature blockade sensing systems and methods
Neuromuscular monitoring is described that uses a novel lead assembly and a monitor that can select the appropriate electrodes on the lead assembly and calibrate the stimulation signals applied to the patient through the lead assembly. The monitoring can also set a noise floor value to reduce the likelihood of an erroneous train of four calculation. The present system can automatically sense train of four response of a patient and reduce the likelihood of false train of four indications.Filed by Blink Device Company, LLC; published 2024-08-13.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5131401A | Method and apparatus for monitoring neuromuscular blockage | 162 |
| 2 | US20190008453A1 | Method and system for neuromuscular transmission measurement | 54 |
| 3 | US20190223764A1 | Quantitative neuromusculature blockade sensing systems and methods | 22 |
| 4 | WO1992003974A1 | Method and apparatus for monitoring neuromuscular blockage | 15 |
| 5 | US20210038120A1 | Method and system for predicting patient recovery time from neuromuscular block | 9 |
| 6 | US20210076982A1 | Method and System for Monitoring Depth of Muscle Relaxation of a Patient | 8 |
| 7 | US20200093401A1 | Quantitative neuromusculature blockade sensing systems and methods | 5 |
| 8 | US20190357810A1 | Method and system for estimating patient recovery time utilizing neuromuscular transmission measurements | 5 |
| 9 | US11980461B2 | Method and system for monitoring depth of muscle relaxation of a patient | 2 |
| 10 | US11166648B2 | Method and system for estimating patient recovery time utilizing neuromuscular transmission measurements | 2 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, 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 findings stand out once the ranking, trend and classification data are read together.
A small group holds nearly the entire field
With the top 5 assignees covering 37 of the 39 records in scope and the leader alone at 18, this is not a fragmented field. Any new filer is working directly in the shadow of a handful of established portfolios rather than against a long, diffuse tail.
The active filing window has already passed its peak
Filings peaked in 2017 and have not returned to that level. Combined with the fact that the most recent year is always undercounted due to publication lag, the honest read is a field whose foundational claims were largely staked years ago.
Sensing-plus-stimulation claims dominate
Most records pair a diagnostic sensing method (A61B) with an electrotherapy or stimulation element (A61N, at 41.0%). Devices for body fluids and healthcare informatics are present but minor, at 10.3% and 7.7% respectively.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to neuromuscular blockade monitoring, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space still opens up
The ranked leaders account for nearly all activity in this dataset, but the classification data points to sub-areas none of them have claimed heavily.
The top-ranked assignee holds roughly half the field
At 18 of 39 records, the leading assignee's position is built on the earlier, denser filing years. Recent-year momentum across all six ranked assignees shows no new filings in the latest year, consistent with a field past its peak filing activity.
This is the entire ranked field, not a top-N cut
The assignee ranking returned here covers all 6 companies with records in scope, from 18 down to 2 at fifth place. There is no long tail of small filers beyond this group to speak of.
Filing is US-led with a meaningful European presence
The United States receives the largest single share of filings at 16, followed by the EPO at 9 and WIPO/PCT filings at 6. Germany, Canada and Italy each carry smaller counts, indicating the core commercial and regulatory focus sits in the US and Europe.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Blink Device Company | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| GE Precision Healthcare LLC | 0 | — |
| AXON MEDICAL INC | 0 | — |
| The Hong Kong Polytechnic University | 0 | -100% |
| Senzime Medical Products | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to a field with settled core claims and a few specific gaps rather than open ground everywhere.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top 5
Because 94.9% of the 39 records in scope sit with five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review can focus tightly rather than screen a long tail of small filers.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaWatch the informatics and recovery-prediction gap
G16H classification sits at only 7.7% of records, and recovery-time prediction appears in only one highly cited recent filing, suggesting software-side claims are comparatively open.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Filing in this field is concentrated: the ranked leader holds 18 of the 39 records in scope, and the top 5 assignees together account for 94.9% of all records. Only 6 assignees appear in the full ranking, and together they cover 100% of the dataset. This means there is no long tail of small independent filers beyond this small group, so any competitive review can focus on a short list of portfolios rather than screening hundreds of minor players.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 19 records and has not returned to that level in the years since. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year or two in any dataset will always look artificially low and should not be read as a real decline yet. Taken together, the pattern suggests the field's foundational claims were staked earlier in the period covered, with more incremental activity since.
Most records combine a diagnostic sensing method with a stimulation or electrotherapy element: A61B (diagnosis & surgery) appears on 87.2% of the 39 records, and A61N (electrotherapy & radiation therapy) on 41.0%. Devices for body fluids (A61M) and healthcare informatics (G16H) are present but much less common, at 10.3% and 7.7% respectively. Because a single record can carry more than one classification, these shares overlap and add to more than 100%.
The United States receives the largest number of filings at 16, followed by the European Patent Office at 9 and WIPO/PCT filings at 6. Germany, Canada and Italy each account for smaller counts. This distribution points to the US and Europe as the primary commercial and regulatory markets for neuromuscular blockade monitoring technology.
The IPC composition data suggests some sub-areas are thinner than the core sensing-and-stimulation claims, notably healthcare informatics at 7.7% of records, which covers software-based interpretation of train-of-four data and recovery-time prediction. That said, the top assignees hold a very high share of the field overall, so any new filing needs a careful freedom-to-operate check against the leader's and the other top-ranked portfolios before assuming a gap is genuinely open.
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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.