Connected Health Wearables Patent Landscape

James H. Moeller — Moeller Ventures LLC — https://www.moellerventures.com/
Date: 2020–02–27

The following report is an abbreviated version of the full patent landscape report available at https://www.moellerventures.com/index.php/blog/25-2020-articles/44-connected-health-wearables-patent-landscape.

The full landscape report contains additional exhibits that are noted but not included in the report below. In addition, the figures and tables are interactive with figure zooming, table sorting, and keyword searching capabilities that enable more detailed querying of the tabulated information.

Overview:

The principle focus of this report is to create a broad patent landscape around the connected health wearables technology domain. The broad domain collection for this report was created by simply matching the phrase “wearable health” or “wearable medical” in the abstract, description or claims of the patent documents available in Google’s BigQuery data warehouse in the “patents-public-data:patents” dataset, “publications” table. Either “wearable health” or “wearable medical” must be found in a document section in order to be included in the domain collection. The Google patent dataset used in this analysis is current with patent documents filed through December 5, 2019. The resulting domain collection consists of 2,078 patent applications, of which 831 have been granted as patents.

The report sections below consist of a results summary, a market intelligence brief, profiles of the top corporate assignees, as well as tables presenting the details of the patent document landscape. These patent document landscape tables cover a profiling of the domain collection (Exhibits 1, 2, 3, 4), tabulations of inventors (Exhibit 5) and assignees (Exhibit 6), an analysis of the most referenced citations (Exhibits 7, 8), and a break-down of the technology classification CPC group codes (Exhibits 9,10,11). All the tables in this report (as available on https://www.moellerventures.com/) are interactive and can be sorted and searched via the column headings and available keyword search boxes with each table.

Results Summary:

• The wearables intellectual property profiled in this report represents initiatives of companies that span medical applications, fitness and smartwatch products, data analytics, and even some robotics and augmented reality. See the company profiles below.
• From a timeline perspective (Exhibit 4) a notable majority of the patent applications have been filed since Q1 of 2014, even though the earliest patent application was filed in Q4 of 1979. The peak filing period was approximately Q3 of 2016.
• Zoll Medical, Boston Scientific (via Cardiac Pacemakers), and Valencell make up the top three assignees for the wearables domain collection defined in this report. These top three companies account for 451 out of 2,078 patent applications in the domain collection and 67 of the top 250 inventors (Exhibits 5 and 6). In fact, all of the top 10 inventors come from one of these three companies. Zoll Medical and Boston Scientific focus predominantly on medical applications, and Valencell focuses on providing sensor-level technology into a broader set of applications and markets.
• Other medical companies ranked on the top assignees list include Medtronic (#10 assignee), Becton Dickinson (#11 assignee), and Philips Electronics (#14 assignee).
• The fitness and smartwatch IP segment is represented on the top assignees list by Apple (#5 assignee), Samsung (#8 assignee), Seiko Epson (#13 assignee), Whoop (#20 assignee), Intel (#22 assignee) and Under Armour (#26 assignee). Market share and focus seems to factor in more significantly in the highly competitive consumer fitness and smartwatch market. Intel and Under Armour were both small market share competitors in that segment and recently each have abandoned their wearables initiatives.
• IBM appears, somewhat surprisingly, as the #4 ranked assignee, not due to any presence in the medical device, fitness, or smartwatch product markets, but rather due to its practice of being a prolific patent filing company and its focus on the data processing side of wearables through its Watson Health initiative.
• Deka Research & Development Corp. (aka Deka Products is) the #6 ranked assignee. Deka was founded by Dean Kamen, who is probably best known as the inventor of the Segway. Today Deka pursues various R&D initiatives and some, such as robotic prosthetics and wearable infusion pumps, intersect the medical market and rely on wearable technology.
• Magic Leap Inc. is the #7 ranked assignee and focuses on wearable computers and augmented reality technology and products. The company’s patent filings identified via the domain collection keywords are ones that are typically mentioning medical applications in relation to those technologies.
• Medtronic (via Corventis, Inc.) has the #1 ranked citations portfolio, followed by Zoll Medical (via Lifecor Inc.) and Philips Electronics. The citations rankings (Exhibits 7 & 8) can provide insight into the foundational patents of a domain collection by tabulating the most cited patents and ranking the assignees with the best portfolios of those patents.
• The most popular CPC group codes for categorizing the technology for wearables tends to be focused on two broad areas, the device technology and the data processing (Exhibit 9). Wearables device technology is most frequently categorized into the A61B, A61N, and A61M CPC group codes which generally pertain to the process of sensing biological characteristics. The data processing aspects get categorized into the G06F and G06H.
• In regard to technology breadth as represented by CPC group code exposure (Exhibit 10), of the top 10 assignees, Apple has the #1 ranking with inventions categorized in 16 different group codes, followed by Valencell with 15 group codes and Zoll Medical with 13 group codes.

Market Intelligence:

The high-level concepts of connected health and the utilization of wearables are relatively straight-forward. Overall, it involves the utilization of technology to monitor and or interact with various aspects of an individual’s health and fitness. This could be personalized monitoring of health and fitness activities, providing remote and individualized care, or even the continuous monitoring of more critical medical conditions. This ability to interact with a person’s health in a very detailed manner, remotely, and somewhat autonomously, can be an extremely powerful tool. Beyond the basic monitoring and maintenance capabilities it can also potentially be used in predicting and proactively treating on-coming health issues. Today’s healthcare system is largely reactive, where individuals seek treatment after a health issue has developed. Leveraging wearables into a connected health system can potentially enable healthcare providers to act proactively to prevent serious health issues in ways that are easier on the patient and more cost efficient.

Most industry analysis estimate a growth rate (CAGR) of 16% to 28% for the wearables medical device market for the next five years, and potentially a $60+ billion addressable market by approximately 2025. However, this growth opportunity isn’t necessarily captured equally by all sub-segments and competitors. The clinical medical device wearable sub-segment and Apple’s smart watch may be experiencing aggressive growth, but other competitors in the fitness monitoring sub-segment are not. Both Under Armour and Intel, for example, have recently shut down initiatives pursuing wearables (see company profiles below), and even the sale of Fitbit to Google didn’t occur from a position of market strength. Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, announced November 1, 2019, was below Fitbit’s IPO market capitalization of approximately $3 billion in June of 2015.

• Allied Market Research — Wearables Technology Market Overview> https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/wearable-technology-market
• BCC Research — Global Wearable Medical Devices Market> https://www.bccresearch.com/market-research/healthcare/wearable-medical-devices.html
• Research and Markets — Global Wearable Medical Devices Market Outlook and Projections, 2019–2027> https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4895550/global-wearable-medical-devices-market-outlook
• Market Research Engine — Wearable Devices Market> https://www.marketresearchengine.com/wearable-devices-market
• Fitbit to Be Acquired by Google — November 1, 2019> https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/Fitbit-to-Be-Acquired-by-Google/
• 3 Reasons Fitbit Would Be Better Off Acquired — October 21, 2019> https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/21/3-reasons-fitbit-would-be-better-off-acquired.aspx

Notable Top 25 Corporate Assignees:

ZOLL MEDICAL CORP:

• #1 on assignee list, 33 inventors in top 250, 7 notable citations in top 100 (3rd best citations corporate portfolio position), inventions spanning 13 CPC group codes.
• Zoll Medical, a subsidiary of Asahi Kasei Group, is a diversified medical device company providing products that include wearable devices for patient monitoring. About> https://www.zoll.com/about-zoll/company-overview
• LIFECOR, INC.: No ranking on assignee list, no inventors in the top 250, 10 notable citations in the top 100 (2nd best citations corporate portfolio position), no presence on CPC group codes list.
• ZOLL Medical Completes Acquisition of Business of Lifecor, Inc. — April 10, 2006 > https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20060410006068/en/ZOLL-Medical-Completes-Acquisition-Business-Lifecor

BOSTON SCIENTIFIC:

• CARDIAC PACEMAKERS INC: #2 on assignee list, 27 inventors in top 250, 1 notable citation in top 100, inventions spanning 5 CPC group codes.
• BOSTON SCIENT NEUROMODULATION CORP: #9 on assignee list, 4 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 3 CPC group codes.
• Boston Scientific is a leading diversified medical device company. It acquired Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. via Boston Scientific’s acquisition of Guidant Corporation in 2006. Cardiac Pacemakers was a division of Guidant via a spin-out of both businesses from Eli Lilly in 1994. Homepage> https://www.bostonscientific.com/en-US/Home.html
• Boston Scientific and Guidant Announce Signing of Merger Agreement Valued at $27 Billion — Jan 26, 2006> https://news.bostonscientific.com/index.php?s=24913&item=22235
• Cardiac Pacemakers does business as Guidant Cardiac Rhythm Management and is a division of Boston Scientific. Crunchbase> https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cardiac-pacemakers-inc#section-overview

VALENCELL INC:

• #3 on assignee list, 7 inventors in top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 15 CPC group codes.
• Valencell (https://valencell.com) is a private company based in Raleigh, North Carolina that focuses on biometric sensor technology for wearables and hearables. It has a sizable patent portfolio and intellectual property licensing business in the market for biometric sensor and heart rate monitoring. Valencell> About> https://valencell.com/about-us/. Valencell>Patents> https://valencell.com/patents/
• In 2016 Valencell sued Apple for patent infringement of its heart rate monitoring patent and settled out-of-court in January of 2019. Apple settles Apple Watch heart rate sensor lawsuit with biometrics firm Valencell — January 22, 2019> https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/22/apple-settles-apple-watch-heart-rate-sensor-lawsuit-with-biometrics-firm-valencell
• Valencell most recently raised a Series E financing of $10.5 million in June of 2018, and has raised a total of $35 million since 2010. The company was founded in 2006. Crunchbase> https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organizations/funding_total/valencell

IBM:

• #4 on assignee list, 11 inventors in top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 8 CPC group codes.
• IBM has a long history of being a very prolific patent filing business across a wide variety of technology categories. In fact, overall, it has been the leading patent filing corporation for 27 consecutive years. The company’s presence in the wearables market stems from its focus on health care information, its initiatives to apply analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine leaning to health data, and its belief that wearables are and will continue to be a key mechanism for collecting that health data.
• IBM tops U.S. Patent list for 27th consecutive year> https://www.research.ibm.com/patents/
• The Story Behind IBM’s 2019 Patent Leadership> https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/01/ibm-patent-leadership-2019/
• Leveraging wearables and the Internet of Things to disrupt, transform, and unlock value> https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/O50QV9NK
• Intelligent wearable devices have entered our daily lives> https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/smartsystem/wearables.html

APPLE INC:

• #5 on assignee list, 10 inventors in top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 16 CPC group codes.
• Apple has a significant market position in the wearables market via its Apple Watch and AirPods product lines. This product category, which Apple calls “Wearables, Home and Accessories”, is the company’s fastest growing segment according to its December 2019 financial results, and now accounts for $10 billion in quarterly revenue (exceeding the revenue derived from Mac computers).
• Apple’s fastest-growing business segment, which includes AirPods and Watch, is now bigger than Mac> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/apple-wearables-home-and-accessories-segment-now-bigger-than-mac.html

DEKA PRODUCTS LP (aka DEKA Research & Development Corp.):

• #6 on assignee list, 4 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 8 CPC group codes.
• DEKA Research & Development Corp. (http://www.dekaresearch.com/) is a private R&D company founded by Dean Kamen, who is probably best known as the inventor of the Segway personal transportation device. Today Deka and Kamen are no longer directly involved with the Segway but continue to focus on unique inventions. Many of those inventions, such as robotic prosthetics and wearable infusion pumps, intersect the medical market and rely on wearable technology.
• Deka Research Innovations> http://www.dekaresearch.com/innovations/

MAGIC LEAP INC:

• #7 on assignee list, 6 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 9 CPC group codes.
• Magic Leap Inc (https://www.magicleap.com/) is a private company producing a wearable computer and augmented-reality (AR) headset, which is the context of most of its patent applications. It intersections the medical domain via patents filed around medical applications of its AR headset. Since its founding in 2011 the company has raised $2.6 billion. It looks to be currently raising another round of financing (Series E). Its previous fund raising was in April 2019 for $280 million.
• Magic Leap shifts focus to augmented reality for enterprises> https://siliconangle.com/2019/12/10/magic-leap-shifts-focus-enterprise-augmented-reality/
• Magic Leap sees a bright future in AR healthcare> https://www.fastcompany.com/90398573/magic-leap-sees-a-bright-future-in-ar-health-care
• Health Comes Into Focus at Magic Leap> https://www.magicleap.com/news/partner-stories/magic-leap-spatial-health-and-fitness
• Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/magic-leap#section-funding-rounds
• Magic Leap Is Raising Another Big Funding Round> https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/magic-leap-series-e-funding-1203401035/

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD:

• #8 on assignee list, 1 inventor in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 3 CPC group codes.
• Samsung’s intersection with the wearables market is largely through its Galaxy Watch and Virtual Reality (VR) products. Its patent filings focus on technology associated these products, as well as biometric sensing technology (integrated into watch products) and medical applications of its VR products.
• VR and wearables in healthcare> https://www.samsung.com/us/business/solutions/industries/healthcare/

MEDTRONIC INC:

• #10 on assignee list, 2 inventors in the top 250, 6 notable citations in top 100 (5th best citations corporate portfolio position), inventions spanning 3 CPC group codes.
• Medtronic is a leading diversified medical device company. Homepage> https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html
• CORVENTIS, INC.: No ranking on assignee list, no inventors in the top 250, 23 notable citations in the top 100 (#1 ranked citations corporate portfolio position), no presence on CPC group codes list.
• Medtronic to acquire Corventis for $150M — May 20, 2014> https://www.mobihealthnews.com/33279/exclusive-medtronic-to-acquire-corventis-for-at-least-150m

BECTON DICKINSON CO:

• #11 on assignee list, 5 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 2 CPC group codes.
• Becton Dickinson (https://www.bd.com/en-us) is leading diversified medical device company. Its intersection with the wearables market comes largely from its wearable drug delivery devices.
• Becton Dickinson Drug Delivery Systems> https://drugdeliverysystems.bd.com/products/self-injection-systems/libertas-wearable-autoinjector

SEIKO EPSON CORP:

• #13 on assignee list, 2 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 4 CPC group codes.
• Seiko Epson is a diversified manufacturer and supplier of electronic products (laser printers, document scanners, televisions, robotics, etc.). Its intersection with the wearables market comes from its Seiko watch line of products. The company’s intellectual property focuses mostly on electronics technology for watches and applications of that technology to medical wearables.
• Seiko Epson Wearable Products> https://global.epson.com/company/glance/wearable/
• Seiko Epson Wearables Innovation> https://global.epson.com/IR/library/integrated2019/strategy/wearables.html

PHILIPS ELECTRONICS:

• #14 on assignee list, 1 inventor in the top 250, 8 notable citations in top 100 (4th best citations corporate portfolio position), inventions spanning 3 CPC group codes.
• Philips Electronics is a leading diversified manufacturer and supplier of electronic products. Its intersection with the wearables market comes through its healthcare products division, and more specifically with its patient monitoring solutions, including products incorporating pulse oximetry technology for blood oxygen level and heart rate monitoring. In 2014 Philips lost a patent infringement lawsuit to Masimo, in regard to pulse oximetry technology, that initially resulted in a $466 million judgement and was subsequently renegotiated into a $300 million plus royalties licensing deal.
• Philips Healthcare Solutions> https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/solutions
• Philips Patient Monitoring Solutions> https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/solutions/patient-monitoring
• Philips slapped with $466M verdict in Masimo patent battle — 2014–10–02: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medical-devices/philips-slapped-466m-verdict-masimo-patent-battle
• Philips, Masimo End Legal Disputes, Sign $300M Partnership — 2016–11–08: https://www.meddeviceonline.com/doc/philips-masimo-end-legal-disputes-sign-m-partnership-0001

HEALTHWATCH LTD (aka Healthwatch Technologies):

• #17 on assignee list, 3 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 3 CPC group codes.
• HealthWatch focuses on wearable medical sensors, devices, and data analytics. It offers smart, sensor-integrated garments (12-lead ECG remote monitoring garment) and a cloud-based vital sign monitoring service. The company was founded in 2010 and to date has raised $20 million in an initial funding round in July 2017.
• HealthWatch Master Caution® Device and Garment> https://healthwatchtech.com/mastercaution/
• HealthWatch Master Caution® Service Platform> https://healthwatchtech.com/service-platform/
• Crunchbase> https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/healthwatch#section-overview

WHOOP INC:

• #20 on assignee list, 4 inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 4 CPC group codes.
• Whoop Inc (https://www.whoop.com/) provides a fitness performance optimization system as well as health and fitness tracking wearables for elite athletes. The company offers a cloud-based training app and the associated health and fitness tracking wearable accessories. The company was founded in 2011 and to date has raised $104.8 million. Its last funding round was for $55 million in November of 2019.
• Whoop Products> https://shop.whoop.com/
• Crunchbase> https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/whoop-inc#section-overview

INTEL CORP:

• #22 on assignee list, no inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 1 CPC group code.
• Prior to the summer of 2017 Intel had a “New Devices Group” that focused on wearables such as smart watches, health and fitness monitors, and smart augmented reality glasses. Intel’s intellectual property position reflected in this report looks to be as a result of technology developed by that group. The New Devices Group was shut down in the summer of 2017.
• Innovative connected devices monitor wellness> https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/healthcare/applications/wearables.html
• Intel axed its entire smartwatch and fitness-tracker group to focus on augmented reality, sources say — July 19, 2017> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/19/intel-eliminates-its-wearables-division-.html
• Intel Shuts Down New Devices Group: No More Intel-Made Wearables — April 20, 2018> https://www.anandtech.com/show/12671/intel-shuts-down-new-devices-group

UNDER ARMOUR INC:

• #26 on assignee list, no inventors in the top 250, no notable citations, inventions spanning 4 CPC group codes.
• Under Armour has been involved in the health and fitness wearables market for several years with its own custom-developed wristband devices. The intellectual property position reflected in this report looks to partially as a result of those device initiative and partially as a result of software and analytics initiatives for cloud-based fitness / health apps associated with its MyFitnessPal and Endomondo apps. More recently the company looks to have ended its devices initiatives and has instead chose to partner with Samsung.
• Under Armour acquires MyFitnessPal for $475M and Endomondo for $85M — Feb 4, 2015> https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/04/armour-acquired-myfitnesspal-endomondo/
• Under Armour: ‘Why we walked away from HealthBox wearables’- Nov 14, 2017> https://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/under-armour-interview-healthbox-wearables-4593
• Under Armour Quietly Shelves its Consumer mHealth Wearables Platform — Jan 23, 2020> https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/under-armour-quietly-shelves-its-consumer-mhealth-wearables-platform

Exhibit 4: Domain Collection: Frequency of Patent Application Filings Timeline

• This shows a bar chart timeline of the frequency of patent application filings and provides a concise view of the historic trend of application filings embodied in the domain collection.
• More specifically, the bar chart shows the number of patent applications filed on a quarterly basis beginning with the earliest filed application in the domain collection and ending with the most recent application filing in the domain collection as queried from the Google BigQuery patents.publications dataset table.

Exhibit 5: Domain Collection: Top Inventors and the Principal Assignees

• This table identifies the top inventors listed on the patent applications contained in the domain collection and essentially identifies the top intellectual property experts of the domain area profiled. This table also lists the entities (corporations, educational institutions, etc.) to which those inventors have assigned the predominant number of patent applications, and thus identifies relationships between inventors and those assignees.
• The “Total Num of Patent Apps” column indicates the total number of patent applications on which the individual is listed as an inventor. The default sorting of the table is on this column in descending order.
• The “Num of Patent Apps per Assignee” column indicates the number of patent applications, on which the individual is listed as an inventor, that have been assigned to the indicated assignee.

Exhibit 6: Domain Collection: Top Assignees

• This table identifies the top assignees of patent applications contained in the domain collection and largely shows the competitive landscape from an intellectual property perspective.
• The “Total Num of Patent Apps per Assignee” column indicates the total number of applications that have been assigned to the indicated assignee.

Exhibit 7: Domain Collection: Top Patent Document Citations

• This table identifies the most cited patent document references across the domain collection and is designed to identify the most significant patent documents to the domain area profiled.
• A cited patent document is typically a patent application or granted patent that is considered as significant (prior art, or in some way relevant) to the patent application that cites it. This table below thus represents the list of most cited patent document references on patent applications in the domain collection. These cited patent documents may or may not be in the domain collection, but nonetheless represent notable references relevant to the domain collection.
• The “Number of Patent Apps” column indicates the number of times the citation was referenced across all applications in the domain collection.

Exhibit 10: Domain Collection: Top CPC Group Codes by Assignee

• This is a table of the most significant CPC Group Code — assignee combinations of patent applications in the domain collection and thus provides an indication of the significant focus technologies for the various assignees.
• The “Number of Patent Apps” column indicates the number of patent applications, designated to the indicated assignee, to which the CPC Group Code was assigned. The default sorting of the table on this column in descending order thus ranks the most significant focus technologies for the indicated assignee.