Single-Port Surgical Robot Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
Single-Port and Flexible Surgical Robot Patents: Who Holds the Claim Space
80.9% concentration. the top 5 of 23 ranked assignees account for 55 of the 68 records in scope, leaving a thin tail of single- and double-filing entrants. Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2020, then declined — 10 in 2021 down to 2 in 2024, an 80% fall over that three-year window. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, 2025 and 2026 counts are not yet complete and should not be read as a continued decline.
- 1ROLLS ROYCE PLC23
- 2KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS NV19
- 3KINGS COLLEGE LONDON6
- 4CANON USA INC4
- 5SHANGHAI JIAOTONG UNIV3
See the full single-port and flexible surgical robots 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 on this landscape
Who are the leading patent holders in single-port and flexible surgical robots?
Filing is concentrated: of 23 ranked assignees, the top five together hold 80.9% of the 68 records in scope, and the single leading assignee alone accounts for 23 records. Past the top ten, which together hold 95.6% of records, filing drops to one or two records per assignee. This means competitive intelligence work should prioritise the leading names rather than treat the field as evenly distributed.
Is patent filing in this field still growing?
Filing peaked at 18 records in 2020 and fell to 2 by 2024, an 80% decline over that three-year window, using the last years that can be treated as complete. However, patent publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still incomplete and should not yet be read as confirmation of a continued slowdown. A clearer read on the true 2025-26 trend will only be possible once those years finish publishing.
What technology areas do these patents actually cover?
The IPC composition shows manipulators and robotics (B25J, 57.4% of records) and surgical diagnosis devices (A61B, 54.4%) as the two dominant classes, meaning most filings combine mechanical continuum-robot design with a specific surgical application. AI-based computing methods (G06N) appear in 22.1% of records, a meaningful but secondary presence. Optics, body-fluid devices, measurement and control-system classes each cover under 9% of records, indicating narrower, more specialised claim activity in those areas.
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 Single-Port and Flexible Surgical Robots 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.