Ultrasound Imaging Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings are concentrated but not locked up: the ranked leaders' top 5 account for 25.8% of all 19,505 records in scope, and the top 10 for 33.7% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- Growth cooled through the complete-year window: filings fell from 1,334 in 2021 to 771 in 2024, a 42% drop, after peaking at 1,424 in 2019.
- Image processing now rivals core diagnostic claims: G06T image data processing appears in 28.1% of records alongside A61B diagnosis & surgery at 63.1%, showing software has become as contested as the hardware.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,334 records) with 2024 (771) — 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 19,505 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What the ultrasound imaging patent record actually covers
This landscape spans 19,505 published records filed against ultrasound imaging combined with adjacent claim language covering patient samples, medical images, device interfaces, clinical measurements, assay reagents and image reconstruction. The scope reaches from core transducer and beamforming hardware through to the software layer that turns raw echo data into a usable clinical image. A61B diagnosis and surgery claims dominate at 63.1% of records, but G06T image data processing sits close behind at 28.1%, and healthcare informatics under G16H already reaches 12.3% — a sign that the claim frontier has moved from the probe to the pipeline.
Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States and Europe, with the WIPO PCT route and Germany also carrying substantial volume — consistent with a field where large medical device manufacturers file broadly to protect regulatory-cleared products across jurisdictions rather than in a single home market.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset covers publications from 2015 through the 2026-08-31 cut-off. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity and should not be read as a slowdown on their own.
Filings rose to a 2019 peak, then declined through the last complete year
Annual filings ran from 1,059 in 2017 up to a peak of 1,424 in 2019, then fell from 1,334 in 2021 to 771 in 2024 — a 42% decline over that three-year span, the last window the data can support without the publication-lag caveat. 2025 and 2026 figures (down to 110 in 2026) are still filling in and are not evidence of a continued fall.
Diagnostic hardware still leads, but software classes are catching up
A61B (diagnosis & surgery) covers 63.1% of records and G06T (image data processing) covers 28.1% — each record can carry multiple IPC classes, so these figures do not sum to 100%. G16H healthcare informatics (12.3%), G01S radar/sonar/positioning (9.2%) and G06K data recognition (7.2%) show meaningful but smaller claim activity in the informatics and signal-processing layers around the core imaging function.
Shares are the percentage of the 19,505 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Ultrasound Imaging Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about ultrasound imaging patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records anchoring this field
Medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging system and method for transferring ultrasound examination data to a portable computing device (US6440072B1)
Filed by Siemens Medical Solutions USA, this record describes transferring ultrasound examination data from an imaging system to a portable computing device such as a personal digital assistant, where it can be viewed directly or forwarded to a review station for clinical review, with the data converted between the ultrasound system's native format and one readable by the portable device.Abstract text drawn directly from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6690963B2 | System for determining the location and orientation of an invasive medical instrument | 4,067 |
| 2 | US20070135803A1 | Methods and apparatus for performing transluminal and other procedures | 3,204 |
| 3 | WO1996005768A1 | Medical diagnosis, treatment and imaging systems | 2,429 |
| 4 | US20050177181A1 | Devices and methods for treating morbid obesity | 1,908 |
| 5 | US20020065455A1 | Medical diagnosis, treatment and imaging systems | 1,832 |
| 6 | US6788967B2 | Medical diagnosis, treatment and imaging systems | 1,713 |
| 7 | US20090149871A9 | Devices and methods for treating morbid obesity | 1,667 |
| 8 | US6626834B2 | Spiral scanner with electronic control | 1,559 |
| 9 | US8070743B2 | Devices and methods for attaching an endolumenal gastrointestinal implant | 1,478 |
| 10 | US6514249B1 | Positioning system and method for orienting an ablation element within a pulmonary vein ostium | 1,278 |
Citation counts reflect a searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later filers, not as a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for a filing decision
These figures point to three practical realities for anyone assessing freedom to operate or where to file next in ultrasound imaging.
The top of the field is dense, but most of it is not
The five leading assignees together account for 25.8% of all records in scope, and the top ten reach 33.7%. That leaves roughly two-thirds of filings spread across a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants, which is where freedom-to-operate analysis needs the most care rather than the least.
Filing volume has cooled from its 2019 peak
After peaking at 1,424 filings in 2019, annual volume fell to 771 by 2024, a 42% decline across the last three complete years of data. Several of the largest historical filers show sharp year-on-year drops in the most recent tracked year, though publication lag means this should be read as the tail of an activity cycle, not a final verdict on the field.
Software claims now sit alongside hardware claims
G06T image data processing appears in 28.1% of records and G16H healthcare informatics in 12.3%, both filed on top of the still-dominant A61B diagnosis and surgery class at 63.1%. Reconstruction, enhancement and workflow-informatics claims are being layered onto established hardware platforms rather than replacing them.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to ultrasound imaging patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | Philips Intellectual Property & Standards GmbH | 88 |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | 31 |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | Siemens AG | 23 |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | Philips Image Guided Therapy Corporation | 22 |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. | 17 |
| Samsung Medison Co., Ltd. | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 15 |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | PHILIPS DEUT | 13 |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | SIEMENS CORP | 13 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest links sit between a parent company and its own IP-holding or standards subsidiary rather than between independent companies — cross-company joint filing is not a meaningful pattern here.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked assignee list covers 100 companies drawn from the full 19,505-record set. Leadership is concentrated among a handful of large diagnostic imaging manufacturers, with recent-year filing counts for several of them dropping sharply — a pattern consistent with mature product lines and the publication-lag effect rather than exit from the field.
One filer sits well ahead of the rest of the field
The leading assignee's record count is roughly four times that of the fifth-placed company (357 records), and more than 1.5 times the combined top-five figure minus its own share. That gap suggests a durable filing programme built over many years rather than a recent surge.
The drop-off past the leader is gradual, not a cliff
Record counts fall steadily from fifth place (357) to tenth place (274), rather than dropping sharply after the top few names. That gradual slope means several similarly sized manufacturers are contesting the same claim space just below the leadership tier.
Several long-standing filers show sharp recent-year declines
A number of the historically largest assignees recorded steep year-on-year drops in the most recent tracked year, some falling to zero. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, this most likely reflects incomplete recent data rather than a genuine exit from the technology.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| GE Precision Healthcare LLC | 6 | -82% |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 3 | -94% |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | 2 | -71% |
| Samsung Medison Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Elekta AB | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish the shape of the field. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific claim language and specific competitors.
Check freedom to operate against the leadership tier
The top 10 assignees hold 33.7% of all 19,505 records, so any new filing in core diagnostic or image-processing claims should be checked against their active families first.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in Eureka →Track momentum before committing to a sub-branch
Recent-year filing drops among several historical leaders may reflect publication lag rather than a real pullback — monitor the next reporting cycle before reading too much into 2025–2026 figures.
Set up filing alerts in Eureka →Explore the under-claimed branches directly
Portable-device data handoff and sonar-imaging fusion show thinner filing density than the core classes — worth a dedicated prior-art pull before drafting.
Search white space in Eureka →Common questions about the ultrasound imaging patent landscape
The ranked assignee list is led by a single company with 2,643 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 357 and the tenth-placed filer at 274. The top five combined account for 25.8% of all 19,505 records in scope, and the top ten reach 33.7%. Below that tier, filing counts spread across a long tail of smaller companies and research institutions, so leadership concentration is real but far from total.
Annual filings peaked at 1,424 in 2019, then fell from 1,334 in 2021 to 771 in 2024, a 42% decline across the last three complete years of data. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are lower still, but publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years are undercounted and should not be read as continued decline. The honest read is a cooling trend through 2024, with the tail end still uncertain.
A61B, covering diagnosis and surgery, appears in 63.1% of the 19,505 records in scope, making it the dominant classification by a wide margin. G06T image data processing follows at 28.1%, and G16H healthcare informatics reaches 12.3%, showing substantial claim activity in the software and data layers built on top of core diagnostic hardware. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these percentages overlap rather than summing to 100%.
Compared with the heavily claimed A61B and G06T classes, areas such as portable-device data handoff protocols, assay-reagent to image correlation, and sonar-derived positioning fused with imaging show comparatively thinner filing density. These are not unclaimed, but they sit outside the densest prior art and are worth a dedicated search before drafting. Confirming this requires a class-specific prior-art pull rather than relying on aggregate composition figures alone.
Rarely. The dataset contains only 10 co-assignee pairs, and the strongest of these link a parent company to its own intellectual-property holding or standards subsidiary rather than to an independent third party. This indicates that joint filing across separate companies is not a meaningful pattern in this field; most patent activity here is filed by a single corporate entity or its wholly related subsidiaries.
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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.