Patent Trends for AI in MedTech
As part of our spotlight on AI in MedTech, we had a look at patent filing data in this space. The patent data paints a picture of a rapidly developing field, with companies from small start-ups to multinational corporations seeking to protect innovations in this sector.
For a discussion on how we have classified a patent or patent application as falling within the AI & MedTech space, please see the section below on how the data was obtained.
General overview
Before we delve into the details of patent filings in this space, it is worth taking a look at the general filing trends over the recent years. Figure 1 shows two plots, the first of which represents the number of European patent applications (grouped by patent family, i.e., multiple publications in the same family are not counted separately) published each year. The other plot represents the number of European applications that have been granted each year (again, grouped by family and plotted by publication date). Figure 2 shows the same plots as Figure 1 but including publications and granted patents in the United States of America, China, the Republic of Korea and Japan.
The plots in Figures 1 and 2 are for publications which have both an A61 and a G06N classification code, which is the combination generally assigned to inventions involving AI in MedTech.
As can be seen from Figures 1 and 2, the AI & MedTech space has seen a significant rise in patent filings in recent years, with the number of filings continuing to increase rapidly. This shows that AI & MedTech is a relatively young field with a strong focus on technological innovation.
The data for Figures 1 and 2 was collected in October 2025. To provide some context, AI & MedTech (A61 and G06N) publications made up about 5.6% of the total AI (G06N) publications since 1970, again highlighting that this is a relatively young sector with plenty of room for innovation and growth.
As expected, the number of grants lags behind the number of publications, particularly in Europe (see Figure 1) where the route to grant can take longer than other jurisdictions. As can be seen, there is an apparent dip in grant numbers around 2023, although this is not specific to the AI & MedTech sector as a similar dip was seen in the numbers of applications granted by the EPO across all technology fields, with recent statistics pointing to a recovery in grants from the EPO.
Who are the main applicants?
Figure 3 shows the distribution of the top 10 applicants in AI & MedTech in Europe based on the number of published European patent applications belonging to each applicant. As one might expect, many large MedTech companies make an appearance in the top 10, such as Philips, Siemens Healthcare, and Samsung Electronics.
Within the top 10 applicants in Europe, Philips have significantly more applications in this sector compared to other applicants in this field. Indeed, Philips have more than 100 patent families within the AI & MedTech space, representing about 11% of the patent families containing a published European patent application. The next largest applicants are Siemens and Samsung, respectively having 14 and 13 patent families containing a published European patent application and together making up about 2.5% of the patent families containing a published European patent application.
The statistics shows that, whilst there is a small number of applicants in this field with a large number of patent families (e.g. Philips), there is also a very long tail of applicants with a small number of patent families. Indeed, the standout statistic is that about 54% of applicants in AI & MedTech have only a single patent family which includes a European filing in this space. About 45% of applicants have between 2 – 9 families with a European filing in this space. These smaller applicants range from start-ups, university groups and SMEs to large multinational corporations.
The very long tail of applicants having only a few applications in this space is an indicator that this is a very young technical field which is rapidly developing with lots of new entrants. This makes the field of AI & MedTech particularly exciting at the moment, because there is scope for companies of any size to have a significant impact.
Figure 4 shows a pie chart illustrating the distribution of applicants in the MedTech/AI sector based on the number of patent applications in EP, US, CN, JP or KR owned by each applicant. Figure 5 shows the distribution of the top 10 applicants in EP, US, CN JP or KR based on the number of published patent applications owned by each applicant. The data making up Figures 4 and 5 has been limited to the top 500 applicants by number of patent families. Understandably, by increasing the number of jurisdictions being considered, the numbers of patent families owned by each applicant tends to increase to account for jurisdictional differences and commercial strategy.
Even with this natural increase in patent families owned by each applicant, about 56% of the applicants own 10 or fewer patent applications (or patent families including at least one patent application) across EP, US, CN JP or KR. The fact that this is the case within the top 500 applicants shows that once again, this is a young technical area with both small applicants and historically large applicants taking their first steps into this area. Within the top 10 applicants across EP, US, CN JP and KR, the University of Zhejiang leads the way with the most patent filings, followed by Philips.
Jurisdictional differences
When it comes to protecting AI-based inventions, or any software based invention, there can be a large variance in the approaches taken by different national patent offices. Unsurprisingly, the same is true for inventions within the AI in MedTech space.
Figure 6 shows a waterfall chart illustrating the distribution of national/regional phase entries stemming from PCT applications (between 2003 – 2025).
It is clear to see that the United States of America is by far the most popular jurisdiction to enter into for applications in the AI in MedTech space, followed at some distance by Europe, with roughly half the number of regional phase entries compared to the US.
Figure 7 sheds some light on the differences in grant rate and filing strategy across the different jurisdictions being considered.
Looking first to the priority data, the priority bars show which jurisdictions served as the place of first filing from which the PCT applications claimed priority. Of the 2,078 priority applications, roughly half (1,072) were US patent applications and almost a quarter (472) were KR patent applications. This is quite a significant difference from the number of PCT applications claiming priority from an EP or CN patent application, which each make up around 8% of the PCT applications.
Whilst Europe is apparently not a particularly popular first filing location for this technical area, plenty of applications enter into the European regional phase (over ten times as many as there are priority filings). Again, the clear leader for national phase entries is the US with 2,030 national phase entries, implying that almost every PCT application in the AI in MedTech space will enter into the US national phase.
There also appears to be a significant difference in the grant rates between the different jurisdictions. The Republic of Korea leads with a grant rate of 59%, with Japan having a grant rate of 45% and a 41% grant rate in the US. Whilst the grant rates in China (30%) and in Europe (19%), appear to be lagging behind, it is worth noting that this could be because of the lower number of priority applications filed in these jurisdictions meaning that the applications have had less time in front of these national/regional patent offices.
“When it comes to protecting AI inventions in the medtech space, it’s not surprising to see that the EPO is a popular jurisdiction. Here in Europe, case law relating to these type of inventions is stable and well tested, meaning that we are able to offer good predictions as to what may or may not be patent eligible”
Emma Graham
Partner, Patent Attorney
How was the data obtained?
The data was obtained by performing a classification search using international patent classification (IPC) codes. The IPC codes of interest in this report are G06N - Computing arrangements based on specific computational models, which is the code assigned to most AI-based inventions and A61 – Medical or veterinary science, which is the code related to medical science. For the purposes of this report, a patent or a patent application was considered to be relevant to AI in MedTech if it received both an A61 and a G06N classification code.
"The field of medical technology is a well established one, but the recent rapid development in the capabilities of AI has opened an exciting new avenue for the development of life-saving technologies."
Kara Quast
Patent Technical Assistant
kara.quast@mewburn.com
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