I, Patent
It’s now fair to say that the robots—long coming—are finally upon us.
How do we know? When one of the largest economies in the world hosts an inaugural robot Olympics (of sorts), it’s a telltale indication that a long-nascent technology has finally reached its tipping point. In August, the Humanoid Robot Games, a three-day event in Beijing that featured more than 500 robots from 16 countries competing in soccer, kickboxing, indoor track, and other athletic events, rolled out a showcase of robotic advancement and achievement. Even if we ignore the fact that some soccer robots tripped over each other, according to hard-hitting robotic sports reporting from the New York Times, robots have come a long way since the first autonomous industrial machine was patented in 1954 (Patent: 2,988,237) by George Devol. The Unimate, as this early robot was called, was an arm that was able to perform a number of operations while holding parts that could weigh up to 500 pounds. The first industrial installation of the Unimate appeared at a General Motors factory in New Jersey and was used for stacking hot metal and welding parts. In the 60s, the Unimate was introduced to television audiences when it appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, flaunting its talent by opening and pouring a can of beer, putting a golf ball, and conducting the NBC Orchestra.
Today, robots have come of age. Amazon now has more than a million robots working in fulfillment centers—in cooperation with and supervised by human workers. Last year, Chipotle started testing a kitchen robot called Autocado to perform the tedious task of cutting, coring, and peeling avocados before they are mashed. Restaurants are using robots to deliver burgers and pizza to residences. Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot in development, serves popcorn at the newly opened Tesla Diner in Southern California. In fact, CEO Elon Musk said in early September that 80% of Tesla’s value would come from Optimus. And robots designed for personal aid and companionship are starting to make strides in nursing facilities and home care.
The machinery of robotics is advancing rapidly, something Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pointed to at tech event CES earlier this year. “The ChatGPT moment for general robotics is just around the corner,” he said.
With that in mind, IFI CLAIMS set out to see what the patents are telling us about robotics. Long analysis short? The patents agree with Nvidia’s Huang. That’s why it’s important for investors to study the patent trends; they’re an indicator for breakthrough technologies. Patents also give confirmation to what markets are saying (and sometimes contradiction, which is also important to know). They provide important hidden clues on companies that are onto something special for real and companies that are just telling the market a narrative but don’t have the R&D collateral to back it up. Highlights from our robotics study below:
Rise of the robot patents
As the march toward automation and artificial intelligence forges ahead, the need for robots to perform both physical and intellectual tasks only grows. General robotic patent grants in the U.S. have grown 15.21% on an annual basis over the past 10 years, while applications expanded 14.2%. In the last five years alone, companies filed more than 12,000 robot-related inventions with the USPTO, almost double the previous five years.
Rock ’em sock ’em patents
Over the broad range of U.S. robotic patents, the heavyweight champ is LG Electronics, a South Korean company. LG earned more than 1000 U.S. patents over the past five years. Robotics is cornerstone to the company’s future growth. Earlier this year, it took a majority stake in Bear Robotics, a Silicon Valley-based firm specializing in autonomous service machines. Bear will be combined with LG’s own CLOi Robots, which can do everything from making deliveries to hospital rooms to acting as guides, concierges, or receptionists in a hotel setting. LG is looking to expand its robotics ambitions beyond commercial uses and into dwellings everywhere in order to reach what the company calls “Zero Labor Home.” Robots doing all the housework? The future can’t get here fast enough!
Country bots
Of the top 50 global robotics companies patenting in the U.S., 40% of them are also incorporated in the United States. Following are Japan (24%), Germany (8%), and South Korea (8%). Verb Surgical and Auris Health, both owned by J&J, along with Google are the foremost U.S. robotics companies when measured by number of patents. This robot control patent from Google takes commands from clients’ remote devices. It was granted late last year.
Industrial robot technologies
Robotic capabilities cover wide-ranging industrial ground. Whether moving goods in warehouses or serving as line cooks in restaurants, robots are changing the framework of labor. Building a specialized machine that performs a human task necessitates focused technologies. With patents, the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes are a hierarchical system used to organize invention. Measuring the use of these codes within patents tells the market which technologies companies are pursuing. Or, in investment-speak: What’s hot? Within the realm of robotics, that currently happens to be surgical robots, with more than 11,000 references to the code (A61B 34/30) over the past five years, far surpassing the second most cited code covering vision controlled systems (B25J 9/1697), with some 8,600 citations. Surgical command and control (A61B 34/37) is also a prominent tech area, no doubt appearing in connection with the topmost surgical code.
The robots are taking over the operating room
Robot on call
Code blues are expected in emergency settings. As medicine advances, patent code A61B 34/30 (surgical robots) is becoming more common in alleviating pressure on surgeons to mend the effects of disease with the skill of their own hands. Surgical robots are like good operating assistants. They enhance the surgeon’s precision and dexterity and decrease fatigue. For patients, procedures are likely less invasive, which means shorter recovery and reduced pain. Code A61B 34/30 is the U.S. patent system’s most sought after robotic technology, and the growth lines in both grants and applications bear that out. Over the past decade, grants have grown 19.84% on a compound annual growth rate. Applications, meanwhile, have grown 19.14%.
Lifesaving patent players
Verb Surgical, a company born 10 years ago through a partnership between J&J and the former Google Life Sciences, was the top assignee of surgical robotic patents over the past five years, with 411 documents. This robotic system console, granted in 2022, includes a seat and armrest joined to an electromagnetic transmitter that an operator can use during a surgical procedure.
Covidien, owned by Medtronic, earned 403, while Auris Health (part of the J&J family since its $3.4 billion acquisition in 2019) garnered 366 patents. This Covidien system for “spatially-aware transitions” using multiple camera angles allows surgeons to compare images as a robotic arm moves. And this method from Auris Health is a novel robotic process for placing a “preformed configuration” into a patient’s body. Both were granted in 2022.
The most recognized and pioneering surgical robotics company, Intuitive, has been around for 30 years. It’s the maker of da Vinci, a surgical system that has been used in some 14 million procedures and counting. Last year, the FDA cleared the latest version of da Vinci, which touts improved ergonomics for surgeons, greater accuracy, and a new technology that allows surgeons to “feel subtle forces exerted on tissue during surgery,” according to a company release. Here is an Intuitive patent, granted in 2021, for a surgical, bendable arm mounted on a robotic manipulator.
Recency bias
With patents, the recency effect of grants and applications is significant because it speaks to the companies that are pushing the cutting edges of technology. It can also signal the companies that are losing momentum or petering out. Judging by surgical robotic inventions granted over the past two years, Covidien is at the top with 53 patents, followed closely by Auris Health (52) and Verb Surgical (49). This Covidien patent for binding and non-binding articulation limits was granted in late 2024.
Medical coding
Breaking down surgical robotic patent classification codes by year shows the evolution of the main technologies and the progression of development. Some of the most important CPCs for operating room robotics are leader-follower robots (A61B 34/37), user interfaces for computer-aided surgery (A61B 34/25), and surgical navigation systems (A61B 34/20). Patent applications have been abundant in these technologies over the past five years, but you can see that much of the activity is weighted toward the earlier years, which suggests that momentum could be slowing or that companies may be working on accretive improvements rather than whiz bang breakthroughs.
As for areas that have been growing over the past couple of years, endoscopic needles for such processes as infusion (A61B 17/3478) are coming along. So is analysis of motion technology (G06T 7/20).
Emerging technology classifications—that is, patent codes that suddenly appear in inventions over the past year—are also an important indicator of where tech might be heading. For surgical robotics, bioreactors for in vitro fermentation (C12M 21/06) has popped up, along with automatic analysis (C12M 41/48) and means of injection or suction (C12M 33/04). Notably, many of these inventions come from a company called Conceivable Life Sciences, which uses robotics in the development of human embryos.
Citation generators
Novelty is fundamental in winning a patent. But novelty doesn’t always mean an entirely new discovery. Recent grants are often just a few steps ahead of previous grants. Patent applications must submit what’s called prior art in order to show a patent examiner how much more novel a new innovation is over preceding inventions. Those prior art references are called backward citations. They form the foundation for the current advancement. In patent analysis, the more backward citations a patent has, the less revolutionary the advancement.
The opposite is true with forward citations. A high number of forward citations, especially citations that appear within a year of patent publication, tell the market that the owner of that invention is onto something really good. The astute investor looking for acquisition targets or a big medical player looking to bring an innovative young company into the corporate fold should include this metric on the due diligence checklist.
IFI examined the patents of a number of smaller surgical robotic companies and put together a watch list. Of those we looked at, Virtual Incision, headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., had the highest number of forward citations in its patent portfolio with 292 over the last five years. The portfolio of California-based THINK Surgical, which specializes in orthopedic robots, has 244 forward citations over the same time period. This invention from THINK Surgical (recently assigned to South Korean robotics company Curexo, a company that partners with THINK on tech development and distribution) optimizes robotic adjustments during surgery to account for differences in patient anatomy, workspace requirements, or surgeon preference. The patent has recently been cited by Smith & Nephew, Globus Medical, and Auris Health.
Another company worth mentioning in the list below is a Japanese company called Medicaroid, founded in 2013, as a joint venture with Kawasaki and Sysmex. Medicaroid, deriving its name from the intersection of the words “medical” and “android,” puts forth inventions both as a standalone company but also in cooperation with its partners. Its surgical robotic system is called “hinotori.”
