Robotic Surgery Vision Systems Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
Robotic Surgery Vision Systems Patents: Concentration, Momentum and Open Ground
81.5% concentration. The top five assignees combine for 2,914 of the 3,575 records in scope — a field with very little room left for a new entrant to build a broad claim position. Filings peaked in 2018 at 353 records. Volume held above 220 a year through 2021 before declining; 2021 to 2024 (the last complete year) fell 35%, from 223 to 145 records. The 2025 and 2026 figures shown are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
- 1INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC2,497
- 2CILAG GMBH INTERNATIONAL164
- 3OLYMPUS CORPORATION(JP)141
- 4SMITH & NEPHEW INC56
- 5SONY GROUP CORP56
See the full robotic surgery vision systems analysis in Eureka
- The complete ranking, not just the top five
- Every IPC branch with its share of the corpus
- The most-cited records, and where claim space is still thin
Common questions about this landscape
Who holds the most patents in robotic surgery vision systems?
One assignee holds 2,497 of the 3,575 records in scope, far ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 56 records. The top five assignees combined account for 81.5% of all records, and the top ten for 87.4%. This means the field is dominated by a small number of platform holders rather than being evenly spread across many competitors, which matters for anyone assessing freedom-to-operate before filing.
Is patent filing in this field growing or shrinking?
Filings peaked in 2018 at 353 records and have declined since; from 2021 to 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete, filings fell 35%, from 223 to 145 records. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is expected because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those years are not yet fully reported. The honest read is a field cooling from its 2018 peak, not one that has stopped moving.
What technology areas do robotic surgery vision system patents actually claim?
The dominant class is A61B, diagnosis and surgery, appearing in 90.9% of the 3,575 records, which shows that most vision-system claims are written as part of a surgical device rather than as standalone optics. B25J, manipulators and robots, appears in 15.6% of records, and H04N, pictorial communication, in 11.2%. Purely optical claims under G02B appear in only 7.7% of records, so a search focused narrowly on lens or camera hardware will miss the majority of relevant filings.
Disclaimer. This analysis is based on Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent records and is provided for general information and reference only. Patent data carries inherent limitations — recent filings are under-counted because of publication lag, counts may be on a record or family basis, classification and applicant-name data may contain errors or duplicates, and the underlying search query defines the scope shown — so the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing here is an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Verify independently and review with qualified patent and legal professionals before acting on it.
Method: Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Robotic Surgery Vision Systems covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish. Every share divides by all records in scope. Data: Patsnap Eureka. See the full landscape report.