Single-Port Surgical Robot Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- 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.
- Filing has cooled from its 2020 peak. activity peaked at 18 records in 2020 and fell from 10 in 2021 to 2 in 2024, an 80% drop over that span, though 2025-26 figures are still filling in.
- Shape sensing dominates the cited core. the most-cited record in the set, a continuum manipulator shape-tracking patent, has drawn 87 citations — more than triple the next most-cited document.
Filing growth compares 2021 (10 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 68 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Single-port and flexible surgical robotics sits at the intersection of mechanical design and sensing: instruments that must fold into a single small incision, then unfold to work around each other without collision. The 68 records in scope combine continuum manipulator mechanics with shape-sensing and control claims, filtered around search terms like triangulation workspace, backbone stiffness, insertion tube and cannula design.
Filing is heavily concentrated by assignee, spans receiving offices led by the United States, and clusters technically around manipulator/robot classifications alongside surgical diagnosis claims, with a meaningful secondary presence in AI-based computing classes.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 68 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims sit in.
Filing trend
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.
IPC composition
Manipulators and robots (B25J) and surgical diagnosis (A61B) each cover more than half of all 68 records, confirming this is fundamentally a mechanism-plus-procedure field. AI-based computing (G06N) appears in 22.1% of records, well ahead of optics, fluid-handling and control-system classes, which each sit under 10%.
Shares are the percentage of the 68 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Single-Port and Flexible Surgical Robots with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about single-port and flexible surgical robots and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
EP3714763B1 — Control device for a continuum robot, control method therefor and program
Filed by Canon Kabushiki Kaisha and granted 2024-08-07, this record covers control-side logic for a continuum robot rather than the mechanical backbone itself, placing it alongside the field's shape-sensing and manipulator-control cluster.Grant date and assignee are rendered from the underlying record.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160166341A1 | Shape tracking of a dexterous continuum manipulator | 87 |
| 2 | US20190390985A1 | Real-time surface shape sensing for flexible structures | 44 |
| 3 | US20130310685A1 | Optical shape sensing fiber for tip and shape characterization of medical instruments | 26 |
| 4 | US20200237198A1 | A Robotic Device | 25 |
| 5 | WO2012101584A2 | Optical shape sensing fiber for tip and shape characterization of medical instruments | 23 |
| 6 | WO2018154326A1 | A robotic device | 20 |
| 7 | WO2022188352A1 | 基于增强现实的介入机器人无接触遥操系统及标定方法 | 18 |
| 8 | WO2020173814A1 | Training data collection for machine learning models | 15 |
| 9 | US20220142712A1 | Training data collection for machine learning models | 13 |
| 10 | US9693707B2 | Optical shape sensing fiber for tip and shape characterization of medical instruments | 11 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not of current commercial importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and citation data above.
Claim space is occupied at the top, open below it
With five assignees holding 55 of 68 records, the core continuum-manipulator and shape-sensing claims are well staked out. The remaining 18 assignees in the ranking each hold a small number of records, which is where freedom-to-operate work needs to focus.
Post-peak filing does not mean a closed field
The drop from 18 records in 2020 to 2 in 2024 looks like retreat, but the 2021-2024 window (10 down to 2, -80%) is the last complete comparison available — 2025 and 2026 are still being published and will revise upward.
Shape-tracking IP anchors the citation graph
The most-cited record in the set, on shape tracking of a dexterous continuum manipulator, draws more than triple the citations of the next-ranked document, with two further shape-sensing-fiber records also in the top five. Later filers are building directly on this sensing lineage.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to single-port and flexible surgical robots, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still loose
The ranking spans 23 assignees; a handful of co-filing relationships and a fifth-place threshold of just 3 records show how quickly the field thins out past the leaders.
One assignee sets the pace
The leading assignee holds 23 of the 68 records in scope, roughly a third of the entire dataset on its own — a scale no other ranked assignee approaches.
A tight inventor-assignee cluster around one filer
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the three strongest all share one common name, pointing to a small, stable filing team rather than a broad industry consortium.
Little room left among the largest filers
The top 10 assignees between them hold 65 of 68 records, meaning any new entrant is very unlikely to out-file the incumbents head-on and is better served targeting narrower mechanical or sensing sub-claims.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Rolls-Royce plc | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| King's College London | 0 | — |
| Canon U.S.A., Inc. | 0 | — |
| VON BUSCH HEINRICH | 0 | — |
| T HOOFT GERT WIM | 0 | — |
| POPOVIC ALEKSANDRA | 0 | — |
| MANZKE ROBERT | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the question is strategic or claim-level.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top 10
With 95.6% of records held by 10 assignees, any new filing strategy should start by clearing claims against that group specifically, not the full 23-name ranking.
Run an FTO check in EurekaTrack the shape-sensing citation lineage
The top five most-cited records cluster around shape sensing and continuum manipulator tracking; understanding what they block clarifies where design-around work is actually needed.
Explore citation trees in EurekaWatch 2025-26 publications as they land
Because publication lags filing by around 18 months, the apparent 2021-2024 decline is not the full picture yet — revisit the trend once later years complete.
Set a filing alert in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
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.
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.
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.
EP3714763B1 is a Canon Kabushiki Kaisha filing granted 2024-08-07 covering control-device logic, control method and program for a continuum robot — that is, the control-side software and method layer rather than the physical backbone or cannula mechanics. Anyone building continuum-robot control logic for surgical use should review its specific claim language before designing a similar control approach. It does not, on its face, restrict mechanical backbone-stiffness or shape-sensing hardware claims, which sit in separate records in this dataset.
The strongest signal is the gap between the top 10 assignees, who hold 95.6% of the 68 records, and the specific sub-claims within under-claimed branches such as variable backbone stiffness actuation, multi-arm collision-avoidance logic, and fiber-optic shape sensing integrated into cannula design. These branches show filing activity but no single dominant claim holder yet, unlike the shape-sensing core anchored by the most-cited records. A new entrant is better served targeting one of these narrower branches than competing head-on with the leading assignee's broad manipulator claims.
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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.