Surgical Suture Materials Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 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.
- Filings fell 76% from 2021 to 2024 (85 → 20), after peaking in 2021 — the sharpest pullback in the trend window, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in.
- A61B and A61L each cover roughly half the corpus (52.2% and 51.4% of 2,654 records), while fibre- and yarn-finishing classes stay under 6% — a narrower, less contested layer.
Filing growth compares 2021 (85 records) with 2024 (20) — 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 2,654 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Surgical suture materials sit at the intersection of polymer chemistry, mechanical performance and clinical handling: knot security, tensile retention and tissue drag are the properties most often claimed, alongside coatings that add antibacterial function or control degradation profile. This search set spans 2,654 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from filings that combine suture-specific terms with these performance and coating attributes.
The dataset mixes absorbable and non-absorbable chemistries, barbed self-retaining designs, needle-attachment methods and surface treatments under one search string, so the composition figures below reflect overlapping claim scopes rather than a single clean taxonomy. Family counts, not raw document counts, drive the assignee ranking, which is the fairer basis for judging real filing weight.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,654-record corpus: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
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.
IPC subclass composition
A61B (diagnosis and surgery) and A61L (sterilising and disinfecting) each appear on roughly half of all records, reflecting how suture claims routinely combine a device aspect with a treatment or coating aspect. Polymer-chemistry classes (C08G, C08L) and fibre/yarn classes (D01F, D02J) sit well below that, marking narrower, more specialised claim territory. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,654 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Surgical Suture Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about surgical suture materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
US4043344A — Non-absorbable surgical sutures coated with polyoxyethylene-polyoxypropylene copolymer lubricant
The handling characteristics, including particularly the knot run down and tissue drag characteristics, of non-absorbable surgical sutures are improved by a coating of a lubricating film of a bioabsorbable copolymer having polyoxyethylene blocks and polyoxypropylene blocks, and which bioabsorbable copolymer has a molecular weight such that it is pasty to solid at 25°C. This lubricant coating is absorbed in tissue in less than about 48 hours, which results in improved long term knot security.Filed by American Cyanamid Company, granted 1977 — a foundational lubricant-coating approach that pre-dates most of the corpus and still frames how coating claims for knot security and tissue drag are written today.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US7850982B2 | Biomaterial drug delivery and surface modification compositions | 1,351 |
| 2 | US20130238021A1 | High-Density Self-Retaining Sutures, Manufacturing Equipment and Methods | 1,231 |
| 3 | US8366787B2 | Hybrid biologic-synthetic bioabsorbable scaffolds | 1,227 |
| 4 | US5450860A | Device for tissue repair and method for employing same | 1,222 |
| 5 | US20160082161A1 | Drug-eluting medical devices | 1,004 |
| 6 | US20110091515A1 | Drug-eluting medical devices | 984 |
| 7 | US20170055986A1 | Medicant Eluting Adjuncts and Methods of Using Medicant Eluting Adjuncts | 818 |
| 8 | US10569071B2 | Medicant eluting adjuncts and methods of using medicant eluting adjuncts | 791 |
| 9 | US20030023316A1 | Hybrid biologic-synthetic bioabsorable scaffolds | 693 |
| 10 | US4792336A | Flat braided ligament or tendon implant device having texturized yarns | 628 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about this field
Three patterns stand out once family concentration, timing and geography are laid side by side.
The field is concentrated at the top
The leading assignee alone accounts for 766 records, and the top five combined hold 55.3% of all 2,654 records in scope. That leaves a long tail of smaller filers competing for the remaining claim space, which is thinner than the headline record count suggests.
Filing activity has pulled back sharply from its 2021 peak
Annual filings rose from 45 in 2017 to a peak of 85 in 2021, then fell to 20 by 2024. That three-year, 76% decline is the clearest signal in the trend data; 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as confirming a further slide.
US filing volume leads, but Europe is close behind
The United States receives the largest share of filings (733), with the EPO (545), Australia (246), Canada (208) and the PCT route (200) following. AT records add a further 116, indicating meaningful European national-phase activity alongside the EPO route itself.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to surgical suture materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where it thins out
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted in records — not a curated top-50 or top-100 list, but the full set the data endpoint returns. Concentration is heaviest at the very top and thins quickly after the top ten.
One assignee holds nearly three times the fifth-place count
The top-ranked assignee sits at 766 records, against 84 for fifth place and 27 for tenth. That gap is the clearest evidence that a handful of established suture manufacturers set the pace for claim filing in this space.
A small set of named inventors recur across filings
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, with the strongest pairing appearing on 27 shared records and two other pairs each appearing on 20. This points to a small group of inventor teams working consistently within one or two organisations rather than broad cross-company collaboration.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet even among established filers
Several of the historically active assignees show zero filings in the latest tracked year, and one shows a -100% year-over-year change. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this likely reflects incomplete recent data rather than an actual halt in R&D.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Tepha Inc | 1 | — |
| Ethicon Inc | 0 | — |
| Covidien LP | 0 | -100% |
| American Cyanamid Company | 0 | — |
| United States Surgical Corp | 0 | — |
| Angiotech Pharmaceuticals | 0 | — |
| BEZWADA BIOMEDICAL LLC | 0 | — |
| Arthrex Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or identifying a filing gap.
Map the top assignees' active claim scope
With 55.3% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate check should start by pulling their full claim sets rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Explore assignee portfolios in Eureka →Test a claim against the under-claimed sub-areas
Fibre and yarn-finishing classes sit well under 6% of records each, which is worth verifying against a specific draft claim before assuming the space is open.
Run a claim comparison in Eureka →Watch for the 2025-2026 data catching up
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent slowdown after 2021 needs revisiting once later years are fully populated.
Set a monitoring alert in Eureka →Common questions about surgical suture material patents
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.
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.
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%.
US4043344A claims a lubricant coating of a bioabsorbable polyoxyethylene-polyoxypropylene copolymer applied to non-absorbable sutures, aimed at improving knot run-down, tissue drag and long-term knot security. Filed by American Cyanamid Company and granted in 1977, it pre-dates almost the entire 2015-2026 corpus this landscape covers. It remains relevant as a reference point for how coating-based knot-security claims are structured, even though its own term has long expired.
The narrower IPC classes in this dataset — fibre-feature class D01F at 5.8% of records and yarn-finishing class D02J at 5.4% — carry far fewer filings than the dominant A61B and A61L classes, suggesting less occupied claim territory. Antibacterial coating chemistries and barbed-suture needle-attachment methods also show room relative to the core surgical and sterilising classes. Any specific claim still needs to be checked against the leading assignees' actual portfolios before assuming the space is genuinely open.
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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.