Periprosthetic Joint Infection Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 47.1% of all 295 records sit with just five assignees, so the filing map is concentrated rather than fragmented.
- Filings fell 54% from 28 in 2021 to 13 in 2024, the last year the data can treat as complete.
- A61K medicinal preparations touch 61.0% of records, meaning most protection is being built around antimicrobial agents rather than devices or diagnostics.
Filing growth compares 2021 (28 records) with 2024 (13) — 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 295 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) management spans the diagnostic tests that flag infection around an implant, the antibiotic-loaded materials used to treat it, and the surgical protocols — sonication culture, two-stage revision, debridement — that structure clinical response. This landscape draws on 295 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that reference biofilm formation, antibiotic-loaded cement, two-stage revision, sonication culture, alpha defensin testing or debridement protocols alongside periprosthetic joint infection or implant infection management.
Because publication typically lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in the trend chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. Read the 2024 figure, not the 2025 or 2026 figures, as the last reliable data point.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 295 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the underlying claims sit in.
A peak in 2020, then a real pullback
Filings rose from 42 in 2017 to a peak of 47 in 2020, then declined; the clearest complete-year comparison is 28 filings in 2021 against 13 in 2024, a 54% drop over that span. Treat 2025 and 2026 as still filling in rather than as evidence the field has cooled further.
Medicinal chemistry dominates the class mix
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears on 61.0% of the 295 records and A61P (therapeutic activity) on 43.4%, confirming that most claim activity is anchored in antimicrobial composition and therapeutic use rather than in the sterilising methods (A61L, 19.3%) or diagnostic assays (G01N, 21.4%; C12Q, 11.9%) that support clinical workflow around the implant.
Shares are the percentage of the 295 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Periprosthetic Joint Infection Management with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about periprosthetic joint infection management and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
Methods and techniques for diagnosing infections (US20250069749A1)
The filing describes a diagnostic device that trains a machine learning model on paired training data indicating high or low probability of periprosthetic joint infection, then feeds subject-derived data to that model to determine an infection likelihood — a data-driven diagnostic layer sitting alongside sonication culture and alpha defensin assays rather than replacing the surgical protocols themselves.Filed by CD Diagnostics, published February 2025.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20200138754A1 | Antimicrobials and methods of use thereof | 21 |
| 2 | US10426747B2 | Antimicrobials and methods of use thereof | 21 |
| 3 | WO2018046174A1 | New use of triazolo(4,5-d)pyrimidine derivatives for prevention and treatment of bacterial infection | 20 |
| 4 | WO2019113066A1 | Bacteriophage treatment for acne and biofilms | 19 |
| 5 | WO2017015652A1 | Bacteriophage for treating staphylococcus infections | 18 |
| 6 | US20140328902A1 | Antimicrobials and methods of use thereof for wound healing | 14 |
| 7 | US20080107707A1 | Polymerizable antimicrobial composition | 14 |
| 8 | US20200232983A1 | System and method for detecting a periprosthetic infection | 13 |
| 9 | WO2019158655A1 | Pyrimidine derivatives for prevention and treatment of bacterial infections | 12 |
| 10 | WO2019178274A1 | Treatment of implants with engineered antimicrobial amphiphilic peptides | 9 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more years to accumulate citations — read this 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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Three read-throughs from the concentration, class, and citation data above.
The field has a defined core, not an open field
With 139 of 295 records held by five assignees and 205 (69.5%) held by ten, a new entrant is filing into a landscape where composition and therapeutic-use claims are already dense. The leader alone accounts for 55 records, well ahead of the fifth-place assignee at 14.
Claims cluster on the drug, not the device or the protocol
Medicinal preparations (A61K) and therapeutic activity (A61P) between them touch the majority of records, while sterilising and disinfecting methods (A61L) and diagnostic assay classes (G01N, C12Q) are each claimed on a smaller share. That gap is where device- and workflow-level claims still have room.
Complete-year filings are down, not just publication lag
The three-year drop from 28 to 13 filings is measured on years the dataset treats as complete, so it is a real decline rather than an artefact of the 18-month publication lag that understates 2025-2026.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to periprosthetic joint infection management, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | Biomx Ltd. | 11 |
| Peptilogics, Inc. | University of Pittsburgh – Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education | 5 |
| University of Liège | Gerswal AG | 2 |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | Biomx Ltd. | 2 |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | ZAK NAOMI BLUMA | 1 |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | WEINSTOCK EYAL | 1 |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | SUDAKOV KOBI KONSTANTIN | 1 |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | SOREK ROTEM | 1 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset; the strongest pairing occurs 11 times, well ahead of the next pairings at 5 and 2, suggesting a small number of research partnerships account for most of the joint filing in this space.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 57 companies and research institutions across the full 295-record dataset — not a top-50 or top-100 cut.
One filer sits well clear of the field
The leading assignee's 55 records are close to four times the fifth-place count of 14, indicating a filer with a sustained, multi-year programme rather than a single burst of activity.
Below the top ten, filing is thin
Once the top ten assignees (69.5% of records) are accounted for, the remaining 47 assignees share the rest, several with only one or two families on record — a pattern consistent with academic and single-product filers rather than sustained portfolios.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet across the board
Several assignees that were active earlier in the window, including one filer with a -100% year-on-year change, show zero filings in the latest year captured — consistent with the broader pullback in complete-year filings from 2021 to 2024.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| University of Liège | 0 | — |
| JOHNSON LANNY LEO | 0 | — |
| Peptilogics, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| ContraFect Corp. | 0 | — |
| Original G B.V. | 0 | — |
| Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Globus Medical, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| InfectoTest GmbH | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a concentrated core and a quieter recent filing period — the next step is deciding what that means for a specific claim or entity.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top assignees
With 47.1% of records held by five filers, a new composition or therapeutic-use claim in this space is likely to sit near existing coverage. Run the specific claim language against the leading assignees' portfolios before drafting.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaMap the diagnostic and device white space
Sterilising methods and diagnostic assay classes carry noticeably lower filing density than medicinal preparations. That gap is worth testing against a specific device or workflow concept.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The assignee ranking covers 57 companies and institutions across 295 records, and it is led by one assignee with 55 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 14. The top five assignees together hold 47.1% of all records in scope, and the top ten hold 69.5%. That leaves a long tail of over 45 assignees sharing the remainder, many with only a handful of filings each.
Filings peaked at 47 in 2020 and have declined since; comparing the two most recent complete years, 2021 (28 filings) to 2024 (13 filings) shows a 54% drop. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not yet be read as a further decline. The clearest signal is the 2021-2024 comparison.
Medicinal preparations (IPC class A61K) appear on 61.0% of the 295 records in scope, and therapeutic activity of compounds (A61P) on 43.4%, making antimicrobial composition and use the dominant claim territory. Diagnostic and testing classes such as G01N (21.4%) and C12Q (11.9%) and sterilising methods under A61L (19.3%) are present but claimed less densely, since a record can carry multiple IPC classes these shares sum to more than 100%.
US20250069749A1, filed by CD Diagnostics and published in February 2025, describes a machine-learning diagnostic method that trains a model on labelled infection-indicator data and then applies it to subject data to estimate periprosthetic joint infection likelihood. It is a data-processing and diagnostic-inference claim rather than a device or assay chemistry claim, so it is most relevant to teams building predictive or decision-support layers on top of existing sonication culture or alpha defensin test data, rather than to those developing the underlying assay chemistry itself.
Filing density is comparatively light in sterilising and disinfecting methods (A61L, 19.3% of records) and in enzyme- and DNA-based testing (C12Q, 11.9%) relative to the dominant medicinal preparation classes above 60%. Specific sub-areas such as sonication-culture instrumentation, antibiotic-elution kinetics from spacer cement, and bacteriophage-based biofilm disruption show fewer dense filing clusters than the core antimicrobial composition space, making them worth a targeted freedom-to-operate check before drafting new claims there.
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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.