Radiation Sterilization Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- 40.6% of all 914 records sit with just five assignees, and the top ten combined account for 60.4% — this is a field with a dense, concentrated core rather than an even spread of filers.
- Filing has kept growing through the most recent complete years, with 2021's 23 filings rising to 25 in 2024, a +9% gain even as raw counts stay modest year to year.
- A61K and A61L together dominate the classification mix, at 54.6% and 40.8% of records respectively, showing most filings pair sterilization method claims with formulation or preparation claims rather than standing alone.
Filing growth compares 2021 (23 records) with 2024 (25) — 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 914 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of radiation and electron-beam sterilization and the practical problems that come with it: dose mapping, polymer degradation under irradiation, colour change in sterilized materials, dose-setting methods, x-ray conversion efficiency and throughput capacity. The scope spans 914 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from filings at the USPTO, EPO, WIPO, and national offices in Australia, Canada and India.
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was — a reader should treat 2025 and 2026 counts as still filling in, not as a real slowdown.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 914 records from different angles: one tracks when the field filed, the other tracks what it filed for.
A field with a durable, if unspectacular, growth curve
Filings peaked at 54 in 2018 and have moved in a shallower but positive band since — 23 in 2021 climbing to 25 in 2024, a +9% gain over that span. Treat 2025 and 2026 figures as undercounted rather than as evidence of decline, given the publication lag.
Sterilization claims rarely travel alone
A61K (medicinal preparations) appears in 54.6% of records and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) in 40.8%, meaning most filings bundle a sterilization method with a formulation, coating or preparation claim. A61F, A61B and A61M each sit in the 12-13% range, marking implant, surgical-device and fluid-handling applications as secondary but persistent themes, while C07D and C07K show radiation sterilization also reaches into small-molecule and peptide/protein chemistry.
Shares are the percentage of the 914 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Radiation Sterilization of Medical Devices with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about radiation sterilization of medical devices and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Sterilized ceramic body with controlled colour change (US20190001011A1)
Straumann Holding's filing addresses a problem specific to radiation sterilization of ceramic implant components: stabilized zirconia shifts colour under sterilizing radiation. The claimed process irradiates the sterilized body a second time, at a defined wavelength band, to reverse that colour shift and recover a target colour — turning an unwanted side effect of the sterilization dose into a controllable, correctable step.Filed 2019-01-03 by Straumann Holding AG.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070207186A1 | Tear and abrasion resistant expanded material and reinforcement | 1,492 |
| 2 | US20060147492A1 | Medical implants and anti-scarring agents | 480 |
| 3 | US20050143817A1 | Medical implants and anti-scarring agents | 396 |
| 4 | US20050208095A1 | Polymer compositions and methods for their use | 391 |
| 5 | US20050175703A1 | Polymer compositions and methods for their use | 376 |
| 6 | US20050175665A1 | Polymer compositions and methods for their use | 352 |
| 7 | US20050149173A1 | Intravascular devices and fibrosis-inducing agents | 300 |
| 8 | US20070299043A1 | Anti-scarring drug combinations and use thereof | 292 |
| 9 | US20070254005A1 | Implantable Tissue Compositions and Method | 262 |
| 10 | US20050196421A1 | Polymer compositions and methods for their use | 252 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references — read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, 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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Three patterns stand out once the filing and citation data are put side by side.
A dense core, not a diffuse field
The top five assignees account for 40.6% of all 914 records, and the top ten reach 60.4%. That is a meaningfully concentrated field: a new entrant is filing into territory where a handful of players already hold a large share of the claim space, particularly around implant and ophthalmic device applications.
Steady rather than surging
Filings grew from 23 in 2021 to 25 in 2024, a +9% rise over three years. That is modest but real growth on a base that had already cooled from its 2018 peak of 54 — this is a mature-but-active field, not one in either a boom or a wind-down.
Formulation claims outnumber pure sterilization claims
A61K (medicinal preparations) covers more records than A61L (sterilising and disinfecting itself), which tells a filer that isolated dose-setting or throughput claims are a smaller slice of this landscape than claims that combine sterilization with a drug, coating or implant formulation.
Influence sits with older polymer and implant filings
The most-cited records in this corpus relate to tear- and abrasion-resistant materials and anti-scarring implant agents, not to sterilization method claims directly — a reminder that citation counts here trace material-science lineage as much as sterilization-specific novelty.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to radiation sterilization of medical devices, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where it opens up
The ranking behind this page returns 100 assignees, counted by record. It is not a curated top-10 or top-50 list — it is the full set the data endpoint returns, and the concentration figures below are drawn from that full set.
One filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 119 records against a fifth-place figure of 53 and a tenth-place figure of 23 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a field with one clear leader rather than a tight cluster at the top.
A small circle of repeat collaborators
Only ten co-assignee pairs recur in this corpus, and the strongest pairings — each appearing on 19 shared records — cluster around a small set of named inventors rather than large corporate joint ventures, suggesting most activity here is filed solo.
Momentum has cooled among earlier leaders
Several assignees that were active earlier in the window show zero filings in the latest year, including one with a recorded -100% year-on-year change. Given the publication lag, this understates true current activity, but it still marks a visible pause among names that were filing steadily through the mid-2010s.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 0 | — |
| ANGIOTECH INT AG (CH) | 0 | — |
| Allergan, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research | 0 | -100% |
| Becton, Dickinson and Company | 0 | — |
| Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc. | 0 | — |
| MAITI ARPITA | 0 | — |
| Ethicon, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
This landscape identifies where the claim density sits and where it thins out. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision needs a closer read of the specific claims involved.
Map a candidate claim against the dense core
Before drafting, check a proposed claim against the assignees holding the largest shares of the A61K/A61L overlap — that is where prior art is thickest and where an examiner is most likely to find a close reference.
Explore this landscape in EurekaTest white space claims for real openness
Low record counts in an adjacent branch can mean genuine open space or simply that nobody has needed to file there yet. Run a targeted search on the specific sub-area before committing R&D time to it.
Run a targeted search in EurekaCommon questions about radiation sterilization patents
It is meaningfully concentrated. The top five assignees in this landscape hold 40.6% of all 914 records in scope, and the top ten hold 60.4%. That leaves a long tail of the remaining ranked assignees each holding a small handful of filings, so a new entrant is competing against a small group with a large existing footprint rather than facing a flat, evenly distributed field.
Filing growth has been modest but positive in the most recent years that can be treated as complete: 23 filings in 2021 rose to 25 in 2024, a +9% gain over that span. The field's peak year so far was 2018 at 54 filings. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower in the data, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in activity.
Medicinal preparations (A61K) and sterilising/disinfecting methods (A61L) are the two largest classification groups, covering 54.6% and 40.8% of the 914 records respectively. Implants and prostheses (A61F), diagnosis and surgery (A61B), and devices for body fluids (A61M) each appear in roughly 12-13% of records, showing that sterilization claims are usually filed alongside a specific device or formulation rather than as a standalone method.
US20190001011A1, filed by Straumann Holding, claims a specific two-step process: sterilizing a stabilized-zirconia ceramic body by radiation, which causes a colour shift, then irradiating it again at a defined wavelength band (150-700 nm) to reverse that colour shift. It blocks that specific correction sequence for zirconia components, not radiation sterilization of ceramics generally — a filer working on a different correction mechanism, a different wavelength approach, or a non-ceramic substrate would likely sit outside its claims, though a freedom-to-operate review should confirm the exact claim language.
The under-claimed branches sit adjacent to the dense A61K/A61L core rather than inside it: dose mapping for irregular implant geometries, x-ray conversion efficiency at production throughput, colour-reversal treatments for ceramic components, dose-setting methods tailored to peptide and protein payloads, and electron-beam degradation limits for multilayer polymer constructions. Lower filing counts in these areas can mean genuine open claim space, but they can also mean the need has not yet arisen — a targeted search is the only way to tell which.
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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.