Surgical Robot Medical Imaging Patents: Who Leads, Filings Cooling 2026
- Filings peaked in 2019 at 18 and have since declined toward single digits, suggesting the core image-guidance claim space is filling in rather than expanding.
- A61B dominates every record (86 of 86), but G16H healthcare informatics (21) and B25J manipulators (16) show the technology is spreading into software and robotics claims, not staying confined to the surgical instrument itself.
- The most-cited record in the set draws 1,393 citations, an outsized influence signal that concentrates prior-art risk around a small number of foundational filings.
Filing growth compares 2021 (8 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 86 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this dataset covers
This landscape tracks 86 patent families filed between 2017 and 2026 at the intersection of surgical robotics and intraoperative imaging — image-guided navigation, endoscopic visualization fused with robotic control, and augmented-reality overlays used during a procedure. The search string anchors on A61B34/20, A61B90/00 and A61B1/00, the classification codes surgical robotics examiners use for computer-assisted and image-guided procedures, cross-referenced against imaging and augmented-reality terms in the title and claims.
Filing activity is concentrated in the United States (52 of the tracked receiving offices) with a secondary cluster at the EPO (19) and a smaller PCT tail (10), meaning most applicants are protecting a US-first strategy before deciding whether to extend internationally. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart understate real filing activity for those years.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 86-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A cooling filing curve
Filings rose from 10 in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2019, then eased back toward the single digits by the midpoint year of 2022 (8) and beyond. That shape reads as a technology whose foundational claim territory was staked out early, with later entrants filing narrower, more defensive improvements rather than broad new architectures.
Where the claims sit
Every record touches A61B, the core surgery/diagnosis class, but the meaningful signal is the spread into G16H healthcare informatics (21 records) and B25J manipulators and robots (16), with H04N pictorial communication (14) close behind. That distribution says the differentiating IP in this field is increasingly about data handling, robotic control loops and video pipelines layered on top of a fairly settled imaging-hardware base, not the imaging optics themselves.
Shares are the percentage of the 86 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Surgical Robot Medical Imaging with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about surgical robot medical imaging and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe filings shaping this space
Methods and Systems for Robot-Assisted Surgery (US20200078097A1, Mobius Imaging)
Methods and systems for performing robot-assisted surgery, including methods for defining a boundary surface for a robotic surgery system, methods for operating a robotic arm in an image-guided surgery system, methods and systems for providing haptic feedback to a user during robot-assisted surgery, and a robotic arm for use in robot-assisted surgery.Filed by Mobius Imaging, this family bundles boundary-surface definition, image-guided arm operation and haptic feedback into a single robotic-arm claim set, which is why it recurs across freedom-to-operate reviews in this space.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190201137A1 | Method of robotic HUB communication, detection, and control | 1,393 |
| 2 | US11559307B2 | Method of robotic hub communication, detection, and control | 524 |
| 3 | WO2017189317A1 | Telerobotic surgery system for remote surgeon training using robotic surgery station and remote surgeon stati… | 265 |
| 4 | US10806532B2 | Surgical simulation system using force sensing and optical tracking and robotic surgery system | 197 |
| 5 | US11553969B1 | System for computation of object coordinates accounting for movement of a surgical site for spinal and other … | 173 |
| 6 | US20200078097A1 | Methods and Systems for Robot-Assisted Surgery | 116 |
| 7 | US10413374B2 | Surgical robot systems comprising robotic telemanipulators and integrated laparoscopy | 72 |
| 8 | US20230171304A1 | Method of robotic HUB communication, detection, and control | 61 |
| 9 | US20190328473A1 | Surgical robot systems comprising robotic telemanipulators and integrated laparoscopy | 58 |
| 10 | WO2019246580A1 | Artificial intelligence for robotic surgery | 52 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and skew toward older filings; read them as a signal of influence on later applicants, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Read together, the trend curve and the IPC spread point to a field where the imaging hardware claims are largely staked out and the open ground is in software, control and workflow layers built on top of it.
The early land grab is over
The jump from 10 filings in 2017 to 18 in 2019 followed by a retreat to 8 at the 2022 midpoint suggests the broad architectural claims for image-guided surgical robots were filed early. New entrants now compete on narrower improvements rather than staking foundational ground.
Influence sits with a handful of filings
The most-cited record in the set draws 1,393 citations, more than five times the next-ranked filing at 524. That concentration means freedom-to-operate work in this space should weight a small number of foundational families heavily rather than spreading review evenly across the corpus.
Claims are migrating into software
With G16H healthcare informatics appearing in 21 records and B25J manipulators in 16, against 86 for the core A61B class, a meaningful share of new claim value is being built in data handling and robotic control logic layered on top of largely settled imaging hardware.
A US-first filing pattern
More than half of the tracked filings route through the United States, with the EPO a distant second at 19 and PCT applications at 10. Applicants weighing where to file first, and where enforcement risk actually lives, should treat the US as the primary battleground in this dataset.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to surgical robot medical imaging, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is quiet now
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is flat to negative: several established filers show 0 activity in the latest year and year-over-year declines of -100%, consistent with the broader cooling trend in the filing curve.
Established filers have gone quiet
Assignees including Distalmotion and Globus Medical show 0 filings in the latest tracked year with -100% year-over-year movement, alongside Mobius Imaging, Intuitive Surgical and Philips also showing 0 in the latest year. This does not necessarily mean withdrawal from the field; the 18-month publication lag means the most recent year is always undercounted.
One record anchors the citation graph
The highest-cited record in this set sits far above the rest of the corpus, meaning any new entrant's freedom-to-operate analysis should start there rather than with a broad sweep of the full 86-family set.
The US is the contested venue
Over 60% of tracked filings pass through the US receiving office, making it the jurisdiction where claim conflicts and prior-art disputes are most likely to surface first for this technology.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Distalmotion | 0 | -100% |
| Globus Medical, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| KindHeart | 0 | — |
| Mobius Imaging, LLC | 0 | — |
| Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| GYS Tech, LLC | 0 | — |
| Ascom | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation data point to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is clearance, licensing, or new filing strategy.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top-cited families
With citation counts this concentrated, a targeted review of the highest-cited records will surface most of the blocking risk faster than a full-corpus read.
Explore claims in EurekaMap the informatics and robotics overlap
G16H and B25J filings sitting alongside core A61B claims suggest software and control-loop patents are where new claim value is being created; a deeper IPC cross-tab would clarify which combinations are still open.
Run a deeper query in EurekaWatch for the 18-month reporting lag before reading 2025-2026 as a real decline
The apparent drop-off in the most recent years is partly a publication-lag artifact; revisit the trend once later filings post.
Track filings in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
Citation concentration in this dataset is heavy: the top-cited record, a robotic hub communication and detection method, draws 1,393 citations, more than five times the next-ranked filing at 524. A handful of records tied to Intuitive Surgical, Mobius Imaging and Globus Medical account for most of the influential prior art in this space. Any competitive review should weight those families first rather than treating the corpus as evenly distributed.
No, the trend is flat to declining. Filings rose from 10 in 2017 to a peak of 18 in 2019, then eased to 8 by 2022, and the most recent tracked year sits near single digits. Some of that apparent decline is a publication-lag artifact since publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, but the multi-year downward trend from the 2019 peak looks structural rather than a reporting gap.
Beyond the core A61B surgery and diagnosis classification present in all 86 records, healthcare informatics (G16H, 21 records) and robotic manipulators (B25J, 16 records) are the largest adjacent classes, with pictorial communication and video (H04N, 14 records) close behind. This spread indicates that new claim value is increasingly built in data handling, control software and video pipelines rather than in imaging optics alone.
The under-claimed branches in this dataset include augmented-reality overlay registration accuracy, haptic feedback calibration loops, multi-modal endoscopic video fusion, and cloud-based robotic hub telemetry. These sub-areas show filing activity but no single dominant claim holder, unlike the core image-guided robotic arm claims which are more heavily staked. A first filing there would want to claim a specific calibration or fusion method rather than the broad architectural concept.
The United States receives the majority of tracked filings at 52 of the total, making it the primary venue for both filing strategy and expected claim disputes. The EPO follows at 19 filings and the PCT route at 10, with Australia, India and China each in single digits. A US-first filing strategy, with selective EPO extension, matches the pattern already established by the leading assignees in this dataset.
Research Surgical Robot Medical Imaging in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole surgical robot medical imaging corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.