Vacuum Blood Collection Tube Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 53.2% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 968 of the 1,821 records in scope, with a long tail of smaller filers behind them.
- Filing fell 73% from 2021 to 2024. From 88 filings in 2021 to 24 in 2024 — the clearest complete-year trend, since 2025-2026 are still filling in.
- Coating claims are dense, closure claims are not. C23C coating filings cover 15.9% of records versus 14.3% for A61J container/closure claims, a gap that marks where structural alternatives remain open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (88 records) with 2024 (24) — 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 1,821 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 1,821 patent records filed against vacuum and evacuated blood collection tubes, spanning additive coatings, draw-volume accuracy, hemolysis rate control, stopper-piercing mechanisms, shelf-life stability and additive interference. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, with filings peaking in 2019 and the most recent one to two years understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Filing activity concentrates in material-analysis and lab-apparatus classes, with a distinct coating-chemistry cluster around oxygen-barrier and pH-protective layers. Assignee concentration is high: five companies account for more than half of all records, while closure and stopper-geometry claims remain comparatively thin.
How filing activity breaks down
The 1,821 records in scope span eight IPC subclasses and six receiving offices, with filing volume concentrated in the years before 2024.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings ran from 73 in 2017 to a peak of 95 in 2019, then fell to 24 by 2024 (-73% from 2021's 88). 2025 and 2026 are still filling in as publication catches up with filing, so the most recent two years should not be read as a real decline yet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
Material analysis and testing (G01N) leads at 30.0% of the 1,821 records, followed by lab apparatus (B01L) at 26.4% and diagnosis/surgery (A61B) at 23.4%. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,821 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Vacuum Blood Collection Tubes with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about vacuum blood collection tubes and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
US10537494B2 — Trilayer coated blood collection tube with low oxygen transmission rate
An article is described including an article surface and a coating set comprising an optional tie coating or layer, a barrier coating or layer, and a pH protective layer. The coatings are applied by chemical vapor deposition of a polysiloxane or polysilazane precursor in the presence of oxygen. Examples include a thermoplastic syringe, vial, or blood collection tube with a coated interior containing a pharmaceutical preparation or fluid at pH 4 to 8 or 5 to 9. The barrier layer prevents oxygen from penetrating the vessel wall.Assigned to SiO2 Medical Products, LLC; granted 2020-01-21.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5358691A | Automated continuous and random access analytical system | 555 |
| 2 | US20100184069A1 | Preservation of fetal nucleic acids in maternal plasma | 343 |
| 3 | US7985188B2 | Vessel, coating, inspection and processing apparatus | 336 |
| 4 | US20100291588A1 | Systems and methods including self-contained cartridges with detection systems and fluid delivery systems | 317 |
| 5 | US6617170B2 | Method and device for collecting and stabilizing a biological sample | 311 |
| 6 | US5860937A | Evacuated sample collection tube with aqueous additive | 270 |
| 7 | US5019243A | Apparatus for collecting blood | 248 |
| 8 | WO1995008774A2 | Automated continuous and random access analytical system and components thereof | 246 |
| 9 | US5482861A | Automated continuous and random access analytical system | 235 |
| 10 | US6602718B1 | Method and device for collecting and stabilizing a biological sample | 214 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of historical reference, not current commercial weight.
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 filing pattern signals
Three patterns stand out once the 1,821 records are broken down by class, office and year: a concentrated top tier, a coating-heavy technical core, and a filing curve that peaked in 2019.
Five assignees hold over half the field
The top five assignees combined account for 968 of the 1,821 records in scope. That level of concentration means most freedom-to-operate risk in this field traces back to a small set of portfolios rather than being spread evenly across filers.
Material analysis and testing leads the class mix
G01N appears in 30.0% of records, ahead of lab apparatus (B01L, 26.4%) and diagnosis/surgery devices (A61B, 23.4%). Coating and surface deposition (C23C) is smaller at 15.9% but concentrates around the most cited filings.
Volume has fallen from its 2019 peak
Filings peaked at 95 in 2019 and dropped from 88 in 2021 to 24 in 2024. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued fall.
Europe and the US lead receiving offices
The EPO (384) and the United States (369) are the two largest receiving offices, ahead of WIPO PCT filings (171), Canada (167), Australia (125) and Germany (79).
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to vacuum blood collection tubes, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Terumo Corporation | Kao Corporation | 18 |
| CV Holdings, LLC | ABRAMS ROBERT S | 17 |
| CV Holdings, LLC | FELTS JOHN T | 14 |
| The Regents of the University of California | University of Maryland | 14 |
| Becton, Dickinson and Company | Immunomedics, Inc. | 13 |
| CV Holdings, LLC | FISK THOMAS E | 13 |
| Becton, Dickinson and Company | Qiagen GmbH | 12 |
| CV Holdings, LLC | SAGONA PETER J | 7 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, with the strongest pairing recorded at 18 shared filings — most patents here are filed by a single assignee rather than jointly.
Who is filing, and where the activity is now
The 100 ranked assignees behind these 1,821 records range from a dominant leader to a long tail of single-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum has thinned across the board, consistent with the field-wide slowdown after 2019.
A single assignee holds the largest share
The leading assignee's 450 records make it the largest single contributor to the corpus, well ahead of the fifth-place assignee at 88 and the tenth-place assignee at 36.
Recent-year filing has slowed across leading assignees
Even the most active recent filer in this corpus logged only 2 records in the latest year; several other leading assignees show 0 or 1, with one down 50% year-on-year. This tracks the broader post-2021 filing decline rather than a single company pulling back.
Joint filing is uncommon
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pair recorded at 18 shared filings. Most portfolios in this field are built by a single assignee rather than through joint ventures or shared filings.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Becton, Dickinson and Company | 2 | — |
| SiO2 Medical Products, Inc. | 1 | -50% |
| Bioverativ Therapeutics Inc. | 1 | 0% |
| Abbott Laboratories | 0 | — |
| Streck Inc. | 0 | — |
| CV Holdings, LLC | 0 | — |
| TURZI ANTOINE | 0 | — |
| University of Massachusetts | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The figures above set the boundaries of the field. Turning them into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going claim by claim.
Check a specific claim against the leader's portfolio
With 450 records from the leading assignee alone, any new coating or closure filing should be checked against that portfolio's exact layer sequences and deposition chemistries before drafting.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaTrack the closure and stopper-geometry gap
A61J container claims trail the dominant coating and lab-apparatus classes; monitoring new filings there early can flag competitive moves before they scale.
Set up class monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
Filing in this dataset is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee holds 450 of the 1,821 records in scope, and the five leading assignees combined account for 53.2% of all records. That concentration extends to ten assignees, who together hold 64.6% of the field. Below that top tier, filing spreads across a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants, so freedom-to-operate work should prioritise the leading names first but not stop there.
Filing volume peaked in 2019 at 95 records and has since fallen, with the 2021-to-2024 span showing a 73% drop from 88 to 24 filings. That looks like a slowdown, but publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete and should not be read as evidence of continued decline. 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as a complete data point.
Material analysis and testing (IPC class G01N) appears in 30.0% of the 1,821 records, the largest single class, followed by lab apparatus (B01L) at 26.4% and diagnosis and surgery devices (A61B) at 23.4%. Coating and surface deposition (C23C), the class covering barrier and additive-protective coatings, sits lower at 15.9% but is where some of the most cited and commercially referenced filings sit. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these figures do not sum to 100% and should be read as independent shares of the same 1,821-record base.
US10537494B2, assigned to SiO2 Medical Products, LLC and granted in January 2020, covers a specific trilayer coating architecture for blood collection tubes and similar thermoplastic vessels: an optional tie layer, a barrier layer, and a pH-protective layer, deposited by chemical vapor deposition of a polysiloxane or polysilazane precursor in the presence of oxygen. It is designed to prevent oxygen ingress into tubes holding fluids in the pH 4 to 9 range. The claims are specific to that layer sequence and deposition chemistry, so alternative coating methods or layer counts sit outside its literal scope.
The thinnest documented class relative to the field is enzyme- and DNA-linked measurement (C12Q) at 10.9% of the 1,821 records, well below the dominant material-analysis and lab-apparatus classes. Container-for-medicine claims (A61J), which cover stopper and closure design rather than coating chemistry, also trail at 14.3% despite addressing the same additive-stability problem from a different angle. Structural stopper and closure approaches to additive interference, rather than further coating chemistry, look like the more open area to file in.
Research Vacuum Blood Collection Tubes in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole vacuum blood collection tubes 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.