Valve Stent Frame and Crimping Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 90.9% concentration. The top five assignees hold 379 of 417 records in scope, leaving a genuinely thin field outside the leaders.
- Crimping tooling is a real second axis. B25B and B30B classes cover 16.5% and 13.2% of records respectively, alongside the 94.2% carrying A61F implant claims.
- Growth is modest but real. Filings moved from 16 in 2021 to 17 in 2024, a +6% span, even as the 2020 peak of 44 has not been repeated.
Filing growth compares 2021 (16 records) with 2024 (17) — 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 417 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families at the intersection of valve stent frame design and crimping mechanisms — the tooling and frame geometry that determine how a self-expanding or balloon-expandable valve is compressed onto a delivery system and how it behaves once deployed. The search string pulls records referencing radial force, nitinol self-expansion, crimp-induced leaflet effects, delivery profile, frame fracture, and recapture-and-repositioning, so the scope spans both the implant frame itself and the mechanical crimping apparatus used to load it.
417 records published between 2015 and mid-2026 sit in scope, with the most recent year necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 417 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 27 in 2017 to a peak of 44 in 2020, then eased; 2021 to 2024 shows a +6% move (16 to 17), the most recent span that can be read as complete before publication lag thins out 2025 and 2026.
IPC subclass composition
A61F implant and prosthesis claims dominate at 94.2% of the 417 records, as expected for a valve frame topic. The tooling side is substantial too: B25B hand-tool and wrench claims appear in 16.5% of records and B30B general press claims in 13.2%, confirming that crimping apparatus is claimed as heavily as frame geometry itself. Smaller sheet-metal and forging classes (B21D, B21J, B23P) each sit under 2%, marking narrower manufacturing-process niches.
Shares are the percentage of the 417 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Valve Stent Frame and Crimping with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about valve stent frame and crimping and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
Crimping device for a valve prosthesis (EP3788989A1)
The filing describes a crimping apparatus using jaws with linear movement toward a centre, a stationary base with guidance slits, and a rotating member carrying a spiral track, paired with three removable accessories: a handle-level stop calibrated to a target aperture size, a crimped-valve gauge, and related tooling used to standardise the crimp operation on a prosthetic heart valve.Filed by Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, published 2021-03-10.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20100082094A1 | Heart valve | 794 |
| 2 | US8403983B2 | Heart valve | 728 |
| 3 | US20140330368A1 | Valve Delivery Tool | 411 |
| 4 | WO2010037141A1 | Heart valve | 391 |
| 5 | US8894702B2 | Replacement heart valve and method | 382 |
| 6 | US20070056346A1 | Prosthetic valve crimping device | 308 |
| 7 | US20110251682A1 | Transcatheter Prosthetic Heart Valve Delivery System With Funnel Recapturing Feature and Method | 284 |
| 8 | US8974524B2 | Stented transcatheter prosthetic heart valve delivery system and method | 242 |
| 9 | US20110264203A1 | Transcatheter Prosthetic Heart Valve Delivery Device With Passive Trigger Release | 234 |
| 10 | US20100161045A1 | Expandable prosthetic valve having anchoring appendages | 229 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus; treat them as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the assignee ranking, IPC composition and receiving-office data are read together.
The field is a leader-plus-tail structure
With the top five assignees holding 90.9% of all 417 records and the top ten reaching 97.4%, this is not a fragmented emerging field. New entrants are filing into a space where the dominant claim positions are already staked out by a small number of established device makers.
Crimping apparatus is claimed as its own asset, not an afterthought
B25B and B30B together cover a meaningful share of records independent of the core A61F implant claims. That means crimping tools, jaws, presses and calibration accessories are a separate, defensible claim surface from the valve frame itself — worth searching on its own before assuming the frame claims are the only barrier.
Growth is modest, not a slowdown
The 2020 peak of 44 filings has not been matched since, but the 2021-to-2024 span shows a small positive move rather than a decline. Because 2025 and 2026 are still filling in under publication lag, the honest read is steady, low-double-digit annual filing rather than either a boom or a retreat.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to valve stent frame and crimping, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim positions
The assignee ranking covers 43 companies across the 417 records in scope. It is the full ranking the dataset returns, not a top-50 or top-100 cut, and it is dominated by one filer with a long tail below.
One filer holds the majority of the field
The leading assignee's 234 records against a field of 417 total means a single company's filing history defines much of the available prior art here. Anyone entering needs to search this assignee's portfolio specifically before assuming open ground.
Leader activity has cooled in the most recent year
The dominant filer shows a sharp drop in latest-year filings, down 85% year over year, while several smaller assignees each register a single filing in the same period. That pattern is consistent with a maturing claim position rather than active new staking, though publication lag means the very latest year is incomplete.
Academic-industry pairs cluster around a few names
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest links running between a university research foundation, a technology research corporation, and a named valve company, each pairing at the same strength. That points to sponsored or licensed research feeding a small number of downstream filers rather than broad academic dispersion.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Edwards Lifesciences Corp | 2 | -85% |
| Colorado State University Research Foundation | 1 | — |
| Georgia Tech Research Corporation | 1 | — |
| YOUNGHEARTVALVE | 1 | — |
| Medtronic Inc | 0 | — |
| Edwards Lifesciences CardiAQ LLC | 0 | -100% |
| CardiAQ Valve Technologies Inc | 0 | — |
| Medtronic Vascular 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 open claim space.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 234 of 417 records, any new frame or crimping design should be checked against that portfolio specifically, not just the field average.
Explore the assignee's portfolio in EurekaSearch the tooling classes separately from frame claims
B25B and B30B claims can block a crimping process even where the frame geometry itself is clear, so they warrant their own search pass.
Search IPC classes in EurekaWatch the under-claimed manufacturing branches
Sheet-metal and forging-based frame fabrication remain thin in this dataset relative to the core implant claims, which is where new filing room is most likely to exist.
Monitor white space in EurekaCommon questions on valve stent frame and crimping patents
The assignee ranking covers 43 companies across 417 records, but it is heavily concentrated: the top five assignees together hold 90.9% of all records in scope, and the leading single assignee holds 234 records on its own. This means the field is best understood as one dominant portfolio surrounded by a long tail of smaller filers, several of whom appear only once or twice. Anyone assessing competitive position should look closely at the leader's specific claims rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Filing activity peaked at 44 in 2020 and has not returned to that level since, but the field has not collapsed either. The 2021-to-2024 span, the most recent period that can be read as complete, shows filings moving from 16 to 17, a +6% change. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so recent-looking dips should not be read as a slowdown yet.
Frame claims, captured mostly under A61F, cover the implant and prosthesis geometry itself, such as nitinol self-expansion behaviour, radial force and frame fracture resistance, and appear in 94.2% of the 417 records. Crimping-tool claims sit under separate IPC classes, B25B for hand tools and wrenches at 16.5% of records and B30B for general presses at 13.2%, and cover the mechanical apparatus used to compress the valve onto its delivery system. These are largely independent claim surfaces, so a design can clear one and still infringe the other.
The composition data shows several IPC branches with comparatively thin coverage relative to the core A61F and B25B/B30B claims: sheet-metal frame forming (B21D) at 1.4% of records, forging-based fabrication (B21J) at 0.7%, and general metalworking tooling (B23P) also at 0.7%. These lower percentages do not mean the technology is unimportant, but they do suggest less-crowded claim space for manufacturing-process-specific filings compared with the heavily claimed frame and crimping-apparatus categories.
Among receiving offices in this dataset, the United States leads with 116 filings, followed by the European Patent Office with 96 and the WIPO PCT route with 44. Germany, Austria and Australia each show smaller but notable counts. This distribution suggests that a freedom-to-operate review should prioritise US and European filings first, then extend to PCT-designated applications before narrower national filings.
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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.