Surgical Suture Materials Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Surgical Suture Materials: A Patent Landscape for 2026
55.3% of all 2,654 records sit with just five assignees — filing here means designing around an already-crowded position, not an open field. Annual filings rose from 45 in 2017 to a peak of 85 in 2021, then declined to 20 by 2024 — a 76% drop over that three-year span. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are shown as reported, but publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent two years understate actual filing activity and should not be read as a continued decline.
- 1ETHICON INC28.9%
- 2COVIDIEN LP14.1%
- 3UNITED STATES SURGICAL CORP5.0%
- 4AMERICAN CYANAMID CO4.2%
- 5BEZWADA BIOMEDICAL LLC3.2%
See the full surgical suture materials 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 surgical suture material patents
Who are the leading patent holders in surgical suture materials?
Patent filing in this space is concentrated: the leading assignee holds 766 of the 2,654 records in scope, and the top five assignees combined account for 55.3% of all records. That concentration drops off quickly after the top ten, which together hold 64.8% of the corpus. Established surgical device and suture manufacturers dominate the upper ranks, while a long tail of smaller filers holds the remainder.
Is patent filing activity in surgical sutures growing or shrinking?
Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 85 records and fell to 20 by 2024, a 76% decline over that three-year span. That is a genuine pullback from the peak rather than an artifact, since 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as complete. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so they should not be read as evidence of a further decline.
What technology areas dominate surgical suture patent claims?
The two largest IPC subclasses are A61B (diagnosis and surgery), covering 52.2% of the 2,654 records, and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting), covering 51.4%. Polymer-chemistry classes such as C08G and C08L, and fibre or yarn-finishing classes such as D01F and D02J, appear on a much smaller share of records, each under 14%. Because records can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than sum to 100%.
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 Surgical Suture Materials 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.