Trends in Surgical Patents Held by Surgeons From 1993 to 2018

Brianna L. Slatnick · Paul Truché · Kyle C. Wu · Robert W. Crum · Alexander Y. Yang · Jonathan M. Durgin +2 more

15 citations0/0 files storedAnnals of Surgery

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Intellectual Property and Patents Health and Medical Research Impacts Diversity and Career in Medicine

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to quantify the number of patent-holding surgeons and determine their specialty demographics. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: The number of intellectual property filings related to surgery has exponentially increased over the past 40 years, yet surgeon inventor status among these inventions remains poorly defined. METHODS: A query of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Full-Text and Image Database was performed over the years 1993 to 2018. Patents related to surgery were defined as surgical devices, implantables, dressings, introducers, and sterilization equipment based on Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) code. Inventor names were cross-indexed with names of active Fellows in the American College of Surgeons (FACS) as of 2019. Surgeon inventors were identified and differences between specialty and sex were evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 275,260 patents related to surgery were issued over the study period. The number of surgical patents has increased by 462% from 4593 per year to 21,241 per year. A total of 9008 patents were held by a total of 2164 surgeons (4% of FACS). This represents 3.3% of all surgical patents with a mean of 5 patents (range 1-346) per patent-holding surgeon. Specialties with the largest number of patent holders include neurosurgery (9%) and orthopedic surgery (8%). Ninety-seven percent of patent-holding surgeons were male. CONCLUSIONS: 3.3% of patents related to surgery involve a surgeon inventor, and although the number of surgical patents has shown an exponential increase, surgeon involvement in these inventions has grown minimally. Surgical innovation training may offer an opportunity to reduce these discrepancies and increase surgeon involvement as patent holders.

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2005Academic careers, patents, and productivity: industry experience as scientific and technical human capital 2006Innovation in Surgery 2009Evolution of Cardiopulmonary Bypass 2000History of laparoscopic surgery.2014Changing the academic culture: Valuing patents and commercialization toward tenure and career advancement 1999Endoscopic Surgery: The History, the Pioneers 2018Women in surgery: challenges and opportunities 2014Quantifying Innovation in Surgery

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