Docking and setup patents claim the phase before instrument actuation begins: positioning the patient cart, extending setup arms, aligning with the operating table, and planning port placement to avoid arm collision. General surgical robot patents more often claim the instrument control, actuation or master/slave relationship once docking is complete. In practice many records carry both A61B surgical classifications and B25J manipulator classifications, so the distinction is about claim focus rather than a hard category boundary. Searching this space well means checking both angles rather than assuming a title mentioning docking covers only the mechanical side.

One assignee leads the ranked field with 120 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed company at 11 and the tenth-placed company at 4. That gap indicates a genuinely top-heavy field rather than several closely matched competitors. The ranking covers 32 companies returned by the dataset, including hospital-adjacent and academic filers alongside the commercial surgical robotics names, so the long tail is worth reviewing for niche mechanical claims even where the leader dominates by volume.

Filings grew sharply through the field’s recent history, moving from 5 records in 2021 to 41 in 2024, a +720% increase, with a peak of 45 records in 2022. 2025 and 2026 figures in the dataset are lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual drop in filing activity. 2024 is the most recent year that can be read as a complete signal; anything after that should be treated as still filling in.