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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/quantitative-ultrasound-tissue-characterization-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Medical ImagingQuantitative ultrasound tissue characterization patents: who is filing, and where the field is still open
- One leader, a long tail. the top-ranked assignee holds 31 records against a fifth-place count of 6 and a tenth-place count of 4 across 16 ranked companies.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. 2023 was the high point at 14 records; the last complete year (2021→2024) shows a 50% decline, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in.
- Diagnosis claims dominate the class mix. A61B appears in 81.7% of the 71 records in scope, while AI-adjacent classes like G06N sit at only 11.3%, well behind the imaging core.
71
Published Records
-50%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
16
Active Filers Ranked
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (2) — 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.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this landscape covers
Quantitative ultrasound tissue characterization uses measurable acoustic parameters — backscatter coefficient, attenuation, speed of sound — rather than qualitative B-mode images to grade tissue state, most commonly for conditions like hepatic steatosis. The claim space spans the acquisition hardware, the calibration and phantom-validation methods that make the measurements reproducible across systems, and the downstream classification models applied to the resulting parametric maps. This search scope pulls 71 published records from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, filtered on quantitative ultrasound and attenuation coefficient imaging language combined with claim-level terms covering backscatter coefficient, hepatic steatosis grading, system calibration, speed of sound, phantom validation and reproducibility.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any filing trend will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be. Family-level counting, used throughout this ranking, is the fairer unit here since it strips out continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates that would otherwise inflate a single underlying invention.
Filing activity and IPC composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 71-record set: activity over time, and where those records sit across the IPC classification.
Filing trend: a 2023 peak followed by a real but early-stage decline
Annual publications rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 14 in 2023. The only year-pair clean enough to trust for a growth statement is 2021 to 2024, where counts fell from 4 to 2 records, a 50% drop. Years after 2024 are still being backfilled by the publication pipeline and should not be read as a continued decline yet.
IPC composition: diagnosis and testing classes anchor the field
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) touches 81.7% of the 71 records, confirming that most filings are framed as medical diagnostic apparatus or method claims rather than pure signal-processing disclosures. G01N (material analysis) and G06V (image recognition) follow in the 19-24% range, with G01S, G06T, G16H and G06N each present in a meaningful minority of records. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares sum past 100% and should be read as overlap, not as a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 71 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited records in this set
Representative Filing
Quantitative ultrasound using fundamental and harmonic signals
SIEMENS MEDICAL SOLUTIONS USA, INC.
The system stores echo signal power spectra of a reference phantom across fundamental and harmonic frequency bands, then acquires matching spectra from a region of tissue. Backscatter coefficients derived from the fundamental band and the harmonic band are computed separately from these paired spectra, giving two independent quantitative measures of the same tissue region rather than relying on a single frequency band.Filed by Siemens Medical Solutions USA, published 2020-09-24.
Highest-citation records, 2015-2026
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160120502A1 | System and method for classifying and characterizing tissues using first-order and second-order statistics of… | 29 |
| 2 | WO2014186899A1 | System and method for classifying and characterizing tissues using first-order and second-order statistics of… | 25 |
| 3 | US6641537B2 | Multi-zone transmitter for quantitative ultrasound and image measurement | 21 |
| 4 | US20210080573A1 | Quantitative Ultrasound Imaging Based on Seismic Full Waveform Inversion | 20 |
| 5 | US20210215642A1 | Systems and Methods For Imaging Cortical Bone And Soft Tissue | 19 |
| 6 | US11693113B2 | Quantitative ultrasound imaging based on seismic full waveform inversion | 19 |
| 7 | US20220299476A1 | Systems and Methods for Ultrasonic Characterization of Permafrost, Frozen Soil and Saturated Soil Samples | 15 |
| 8 | US20030018263A1 | Multi-zone transmitter for quantitative ultrasound and image measurement | 14 |
| 9 | US20180189947A1 | Systems and methods for prediction of tumor response to chemotherapy using pre-treatment quantitative ultraso… | 13 |
| 10 | US20110076660A1 | Phantom for a quantitative ultrasound device | 13 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings that have simply had more time to accumulate citations; read them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data means for a filing decision
Three signals worth weighing before scoping new claims in this space.
Concentration
31 vs 6
leader vs fifth place
One assignee dominates, then a steep drop-off
The top-ranked assignee holds 31 of the tracked records; by fifth place the count is already down to 6, and tenth place sits at 4. This is a field with a clear incumbent surrounded by a long tail of smaller and single-invention filers rather than a cluster of evenly matched competitors.
Ranking covers 16 companies, the full list the data endpoint returns.
Momentum
-50%
2021 to 2024 change
Growth has cooled from the 2023 peak
Filings climbed to a high of 14 records in 2023 before easing. The only reliable year-on-year comparison, 2021 versus 2024, shows a 50% decline. Treat 2025-2026 counts as incomplete rather than as confirmation the field is winding down.
Publication lag of roughly 18 months affects the most recent years most.
Class mix
81.7%
of 71 records carry A61B
Diagnostic framing dominates over pure algorithmic claims
A61B appears in the large majority of records, while AI-classification codes like G06N appear in just 11.3%. Most applicants are still anchoring claims in diagnostic apparatus and method language, with machine-learning elements folded in as a feature rather than filed as the primary invention.
Shares sum past 100% because records carry multiple IPC codes.
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Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to quantitative ultrasound tissue characterization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is active, and what they are not yet claiming
The ranked leaders cluster around a small set of academic-hospital and imaging-OEM assignees, with individual inventors also appearing directly in the ranking alongside their institutions.
Incumbent
31 records
leader's family count
The top assignee anchors the field
With 31 records against a fifth-place total of 6, the leading assignee's portfolio spans calibration methods and tissue-classification approaches built on first- and second-order statistics of parametric maps, a lineage traceable through the most-cited records in this set.
Co-filing pairs among its named inventors run as high as 11 shared records.
OEM presence
US20200297322A1
representative filing
Imaging OEMs file on calibration and hardware
Siemens Medical Solutions and General Electric appear in the ranking with filings oriented toward system calibration and multi-band backscatter measurement, the hardware-adjacent end of the claim space rather than the classification-model end.
Momentum for these assignees shows 0 records in the latest tracked year.
Academic ties
11
strongest co-assignee pair count
University-hospital and named-inventor filings overlap heavily
The strongest co-assignee pairings in the dataset link a research institute to two named individual inventors at 11 shared records each, indicating a small, tightly connected group driving a meaningful share of the academic-origin filings.
University of Manitoba and Princeton also appear in the ranked set.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Sunnybrook Research Institute | 0 | — |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| TALEGHAMAR HAMIDREZA | 0 | — |
| SADEGHI-NAINI ALI | 0 | — |
| AmCad BioMed Corporation | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| University of Manitoba | 0 | — |
| The Trustees of Princeton University | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next questions rather than a single answer.
Test claim scope against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 31 of 71 records, any new filing on classification methods should be checked directly against that portfolio's first- and second-order statistical approach before scoping claims.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch for the 2025-2026 backfill
The apparent post-2023 decline is still partly a publication-lag artefact; revisit the trend once 2025 filings finish publishing before treating the field as contracting.
Set a filing alert in EurekaProbe the under-claimed calibration branch
Cross-system calibration and phantom validation show up across multiple most-cited records but remain thinly claimed as standalone inventions, a plausible opening for a focused filing.
Explore white space in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
One assignee leads this dataset with 31 of the 71 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 6 and the tenth-ranked at 4. The ranking covers 16 companies total, the full set the data endpoint returns rather than a top-50 or top-100 cut. Beyond the leader, filings are spread thinly across imaging OEMs, a university, and several named individual inventors who co-file alongside their institutions.
Filings rose steadily to a peak of 14 records in 2023. The most recent complete comparison, 2021 versus 2024, shows a 50% decline in annual counts. That said, patent publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still incomplete and should not yet be read as confirming a continued slowdown.
This Siemens Medical Solutions filing, published 2020-09-24, claims a method of computing backscatter coefficients separately from fundamental-band and harmonic-band echo spectra, referenced against a stored reference-phantom spectrum. It is one of the higher-cited records in this dataset. Anyone designing a dual-band or multi-band backscatter measurement system should review its claim language closely, though single-band or non-harmonic approaches sit outside its specific scope.
A61B, covering diagnosis and surgery apparatus, appears in 81.7% of the 71 records in scope, making it the dominant classification. G01N (material analysis and testing) and G06V (image recognition) follow at 23.9% and 19.7% respectively, with G01S, G06T, G16H and G06N each present in smaller but meaningful shares. Since a single record can carry several IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to a whole field.
The class composition suggests AI-based classification is still a secondary claim element rather than a primary one, since G06N appears in only 11.3% of records against A61B's 81.7%. Cross-system calibration, phantom validation protocols, and speed-of-sound mapping outside hepatic applications also show up in the most-cited records without deep standalone claim coverage. These edges are worth checking against the leading assignee's existing portfolio before drafting new claims.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Quantitative Ultrasound Tissue Characterization covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.