Neurostimulation Waveform Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One assignee holds 198 of 279 records (84.6% with the next four combined) — a filing position that dwarfs everyone else tracked in this dataset.
- Filings grew 162% between 2021 and 2024 (13 to 34) — the clearest sign yet that waveform and temporal-pattern claims are an active filing priority, not a settled category.
- 91.4% of records sit in A61N (electrotherapy), but 27.6% also touch G16H (healthcare informatics) — software and algorithmic control layers are now claimed alongside the electrode and pulse hardware.
Filing growth compares 2021 (13 records) with 2024 (34) — 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 279 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 279 published records matching neurostimulation waveform and temporal-pattern claims — burst stimulation, coordinated reset, charge balance, energy-per-pulse control and tremor suppression among the qualifying terms — filed between 2015 and mid-2026. The scope spans implantable and non-invasive devices, and includes both the electrical waveform hardware and the software that composes or adapts it. Patent families, not raw document counts, are the unit used throughout, which keeps continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates from inflating any single assignee’s position.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so figures for 2025 and 2026 will keep rising as more applications publish; treat the most recent two years as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 279-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses those records fall under.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from 10 in 2017 to a peak of 50 in 2019, then continued at elevated levels; the 2021-to-2024 span alone shows growth from 13 to 34 filings, a 162% increase. 2025 and 2026 figures (down to 2 by 2026) reflect publication lag rather than a genuine slowdown.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
A61N (electrotherapy & radiation therapy) covers 91.4% of the 279 records, confirming this is fundamentally a hardware-and-electrode field. G16H (healthcare informatics, 27.6%) and G06F (electric digital data processing, 9.7%) show a secondary but real cluster of claims around programming interfaces and adaptive control software, with G06N (AI-based computing, 3.6%) still a small slice.
Shares are the percentage of the 279 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Novel Stimulation Waveforms and Temporal Patterns with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about novel stimulation waveforms and temporal patterns and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Method and apparatus for comparing neurostimulation patterns
A system for comparing neurostimulation waveforms built around a user interface that receives parameters defining a first waveform — differing pulses, differing pulse intervals — a storage device holding parameters of a second waveform, and a comparator that checks the two against each other.Filed by Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation, published 2018-10-02.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170224990A1 | Apparatuses and methods for neuromodulation | 256 |
| 2 | US20180043172A1 | Patient-guided programming algorithms and user interfaces for neurostimulator programming | 95 |
| 3 | US20150238762A1 | Methods for user control of neurostimulation to modify a cognitive state | 92 |
| 4 | US9399126B2 | Methods for user control of neurostimulation to modify a cognitive state | 68 |
| 5 | US20170106197A1 | User interface for neurostimulation waveform composition | 64 |
| 6 | US20170189686A1 | Method and apparatus for guided optimization of spatio-temporal patterns of neurostimulation | 53 |
| 7 | US20170189685A1 | Method and apparatus for composing spatio-temporal patterns of neurostimulation using a neuronal network model | 52 |
| 8 | US20170239486A1 | Clinical guidance user interfaces for neurostimulator programming | 46 |
| 9 | US10449371B2 | Patient-guided programming algorithms and user interfaces for neurostimulator programming | 39 |
| 10 | US20170189689A1 | Method and apparatus for optimizing spatio-temporal patterns of neurostimulation for varying conditions | 39 |
Citation counts reward older filings simply for having been in circulation longer; read this table as a map of influence on later filers, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are set against each other.
One filer sets the terms of this field
The leading assignee alone accounts for 198 of the 279 records in scope, and the top five combined reach 236 records — 84.6% of everything tracked here. Any new entrant is filing into a field where core waveform-comparison and programming-interface claims are already dense around a single company.
Activity is accelerating, not cooling
Filings climbed from 13 in 2021 to 34 in 2024. That three-year growth rate is the most reliable recent signal in this dataset, since 2025 and 2026 are still being filled in by publication lag rather than reflecting a real drop-off.
Software claims now ride alongside hardware
Beyond the 91.4% baseline in A61N electrotherapy, more than a quarter of records also carry a G16H healthcare-informatics classification, and nearly one in ten carries G06F. Waveform patents are increasingly claimed as a combination of pulse hardware and the interface or algorithm that composes it.
Filing is US-anchored with a PCT tail
The United States receives the largest single share of filings at 116, ahead of the EPO at 46 and WIPO/PCT at 42. Smaller but non-trivial volumes land in Australia, Austria and Germany, suggesting a filing strategy built around a US core plus selective international protection.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to novel stimulation waveforms and temporal patterns, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranking is dominated by one assignee, with a long tail of single- and low-digit filers behind it. Momentum data shows even the leader's recent-year pace has cooled, which is more likely a publication-lag artefact than a real pull-back.
A single assignee dominates the ranking
The top-ranked assignee's 198 records dwarf the rest of the field; fifth place holds only 8 and tenth place 5. Recent-year momentum for this leader shows 2 filings in the latest year, down 50% year over year — read against the publication-lag caveat rather than as a genuine retreat.
A steep drop-off after the top few
Combined, the top 10 assignees hold 267 of 279 records (95.7%), leaving very little volume for the remaining 20 ranked entities. Several of the smaller assignees in this dataset show zero filings in the latest tracked year.
A tight inventor cluster around one team
Co-assignee pairing is limited to 10 identified pairs, with the strongest links — each appearing 6 times — all involving the same individual inventor paired with different collaborators. This points to a compact internal team rather than broad industry co-development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation | 2 | -50% |
| SECOND SIGHT MEDICAL PRODUCTS INC | 0 | — |
| CardioNomic Inc. | 0 | — |
| Biotronik SE & Co. KG | 0 | — |
| Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd. | 0 | — |
| WETMORE DANIEL Z | 0 | — |
| THAKUR ANIL | 0 | — |
| PAL SUMON K | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The concentration and composition patterns above raise questions that are worth running down before committing a filing strategy.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's core claims
With one assignee holding 84.6% of the top-5 volume, any waveform-comparison or programming-interface concept should be checked against that portfolio specifically, not just the field average.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTrack the software-hardware claim overlap
The G16H and G06F overlap with A61N suggests claims are increasingly drafted across both layers; a search built only around electrotherapy classes will miss this.
Explore IPC overlap in EurekaWatch for the 2025–2026 publication catch-up
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent slowdown after 2024 will revise upward as more applications publish — worth re-checking this dataset in six to twelve months.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee accounts for 198 of the 279 records tracked in this landscape, and the top five assignees combined hold 236 records — 84.6% of the total. That level of concentration means most core waveform-comparison and programming-interface claims already sit with a small number of companies. Anyone assessing freedom to operate in this space should start with that leader's portfolio specifically rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Filings grew from 13 in 2021 to 34 in 2024, a 162% increase over that three-year span, which is the clearest recent signal in the data. The apparent drop after 2024, down to figures like 2 in 2026, reflects publication lag rather than a real slowdown — patent applications typically take around 18 months to publish, so the most recent one to two years are always undercounted. The field should be read as accelerating through at least 2024, with 2025-2026 numbers still filling in.
Beyond the dominant A61N electrotherapy classification, which covers 91.4% of the 279 records, a meaningful share also carry G16H healthcare informatics classifications (27.6%) and G06F electric digital data processing (9.7%). This shows waveform patents are increasingly claimed as combinations of pulse-generation hardware and the software or interface used to program and adapt it, rather than as hardware alone. AI-based computing under G06N remains a small slice at 3.6%, suggesting adaptive algorithmic control is still an early, less-crowded claim area.
The most-cited record in this dataset covers apparatuses and methods for neuromodulation, followed by patents on patient-guided programming algorithms and user interfaces for neurostimulator programming, and on user control of neurostimulation to modify a cognitive state. These citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so they should be read as markers of historical influence on later filers, not as an indicator of which technology is currently most valuable.
Classification volume is comparatively thin in areas like AI-driven waveform adaptation (only 3.6% of records touch G06N), data-recognition interfaces for stimulation control (1.8% in G06K), and specific-application computing layers (6.8% in G16Z). These are areas adjacent to the dense A61N core but not yet heavily claimed, making them worth a closer look for a first-filer position. Given how concentrated the core hardware claims already are around one assignee, adjacent software and adaptive-control branches represent a more open path than re-filing on core waveform hardware.
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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.