Trends in Surgical Patents Held by Surgeons From 1993 to 2018.
Journal
Annals of surgery
ISSN: 1528-1140
Titre abrégé: Ann Surg
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 0372354
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
01 12 2022
01 12 2022
Historique:
pubmed:
30
6
2021
medline:
11
11
2022
entrez:
29
6
2021
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
This study aims to quantify the number of patent-holding surgeons and determine their specialty demographics. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Sections du résumé
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.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34183509
doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000005032
pii: 00000658-202212000-00082
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e1107-e1113Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Funding Sources: This work is funded in part by the Chairman’s Fellowship, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Boston Children’s Hospital. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Références
Tracking Patents and Mapping Medical Device Innovation Available from: https://www.mddionline.com/business/tracking-patents-and-mapping-medical-device-innovation . 2015. Accessed September 12, 2020.
Vecht JA, Athanasiou T, Ashrafian H, et al. Surgeons produce innovative ideas which are frequently lost in the labyrinth of patents. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2009;35:480–488.
Tomer Davidov MDF. How to Commercialize Your Novel Medical or Surgical Device Available from: https://www.aasurg.org/blog/commercialize-novel-medical-surgical-device/ . 2013. Accessed September 12, 2020.
Grabowski HG, DiMasi JA, Long G. The roles of patents and research and development incentives in biopharmaceutical innovation. Health Aff. 2015;34:302–310.
Barton JH, Emanuel EJ. The patents-based pharmaceutical development process: rationale, problems, and potential reforms. JAMA. 2005;294:2075–2082.
Sampat BN. Lessons from Bayh-Dole. Nature. 2010;468:755–756.
Birchley G, Ives J, Huxtable R, et al. Conceptualising Surgical Innovation: An Eliminativist Proposal. Health Care Anal. 2020;28:73–97.
Cohen MS, Kao L, eds. Success in Academic Surgery . Springer; 2019.
Trainee Outcomes Available from: https://biodesign.stanford.edu/our-impact/trainee-outcomes.html . Accessed September 12, 2020.
Hughes-Hallett A, Mayer EK, Marcus HJ, et al. Quantifying innovation in surgery. Ann Surg. 2014;260:205–211.
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) Available from: http://tmsearch.usp-to.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4806:v5i4h5.1.1 . Accessed September 12, 2020.
Patent Full Text Databsae. US Patent and Trademark Office. Available from: http://patft.uspto.gov/ . Accessed September 12, 2020.
CPC Scheme - Sections Available from: https://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/cpc/html/cpc.html . Accessed September 12, 2020.
Kwasnicki RM, Hughes-Hallett A, Marcus HJ, et al. Fifty years of innovation in plastic surgery. Arch Plast Surg. 2016;43:145–152.
Find a Surgeon Available from: https://www.facs.org/search/find-a-surgeon . Accessed September 12, 2020.
R., Core, Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing . Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2012, ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org/ .
An R Client to the PatentsView API Available from: https://docs.ropensci.org/patentsview/index.html . Accessed September 12, 2020.
Babu MA, Heary RF, Nahed BV. Device innovation in neurosurgery: controversy, learning, and future directions. Neurosurgery. 2012;70:789–794. discussion 794–5.
Baron RB, Kessler RA, Bhammar A, et al. Patents and innovation among neurosurgeons from the american association of neurological surgeons. Cureus. 2020;12:e7031.
Greta McLachlan: Women in surgery—it’s improving, but slowly - The BMJ Available from: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/01/21/greta-mclachlan-women-in-surgery-its-improving-but-slowly/ . 2019. Accessed November 20, 2020.
Where are all the women in surgery? Available from: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/where-are-all-women-surgery . Accessed November 20, 2020.
de Costa J, Chen-Xu J, Bentounsi Z, et al. Women in surgery: challenges and opportunities. IJS Global Health. 2018;1:e02.
Mark SC, Kao L, eds. Success in Academic Surgery: Innovation and Entrepreneurship . Springer; 2019.
Mulholland MW, Newman EA. The Diversity Promise: Success in Academic Surgery and Medicine Through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Wolters Kluwer Health; 2020.
Han M, Chen L, Aras K, et al. Catheter-integrated soft multilayer electronic arrays for multiplexed sensing and actuation during cardiac surgery. Nat Biomed Eng. 2020;4:997–1009.
Divatia JV, Ranganathan P. Can we improve operating room efficiency? J Postgrad Med. 2015;61:1–2.
Berguer R. Surgery and ergonomics. Arch Surg. 1999;134:1011–1016.
Kadefors R. Ergonomics: a new frontier in medical engineering. Med Prog Technol. 1982;9:149–152.
Morrison JE Jr, Jacobs VR. Replacement of expensive, disposable instruments with old-fashioned surgical techniques for improved cost-effectiveness in laparoscopic hysterectomy. JSLS. 2004;8:201–206.
Riskin DJ, Longaker MT, Gertner M, et al. Innovation in surgery: a historical perspective. Ann Surg. 2006;244:686–693.
Litynski GS. Endoscopic surgery: the history, the pioneers. World J Surg. 1999;23:745–753.
Vecchio R, MacFayden BV, Palazzo F. History of laparoscopic surgery. Panminerva Med. 2000;42:87–90.
Davis CJ, Filipi CJ. A history of endoscopic surgery. In: Arregui ME, Fitzgibbons RJ, Katkhouda N, et al.Arregui ME, Fitzgibbons RJ, Katkhouda N, et al, eds. Principles of Laparoscopic Surgery: Bas20.and Advanced Techniques. New York, NY: Springer New York; 1995
Cooley DA. King of hearts: the true story of the maverick who pioneered open heart surgery. Tex Heart Inst J. 2000;27:224.
Stoney WS. Evolution of cardiopulmonary bypass. Circulation. 2009;119:2844–2853.
Ellis H. The Fogarty catheter. J Perioper Pract. 2006;16:303.
Reinstein DZ, Archer TJ, Gobbe M. The history of LASIK. J Refract Surg. 2012;28:291–298.
Kirsh D. Exploring FDA approval pathways for medical devices Available from: https://www.massdevice.com/exploring-fda-approval-pathways-for-medical-devices/ . 2019. Accessed March 31, 2021.
Sheetz KH, Claflin J, Dimick JB. Trends in the adoption of robotic surgery for common surgical procedures. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3:e1918911.
Reza M, Maeso S, Blasco JA, et al. Meta-analysis of observational studies on the safety and effectiveness of robotic gynaecological surgery. Br J Surg. 2010;97:1772–1783.
Margenthaler JA. Robotic mastectomy-program malfunction? JAMA Surg. 2020;155:461–462.
Dietz JS, Bozeman B. Academic careers, patents, and productivity: industry experience as scientific and technical human capital. Res Policy. 2005;34:349–367.
Sanberg PR, Gharib M, Harker PT, et al. Changing the academic culture: valuing patents and commercialization toward tenure and career advancement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014;111:6542–6547.
I’m an academic, get me out of patents: strategies for promoting patenting among academics and resea - Kilburn & Strode Available from: https://www.kilburnstrode.com/knowledge/european-ip/promoting-patenting-among-academics-and-researcher . Accessed November 20, 2020.
Krummel TM, Shafi BM, Wall J, et al. Intellectual property and royalty streams in academic departments: myths and realities. Surgery. 2008;143:183–191.
AUTM-2019-Infographic.pdf Available from: https://autm.net/AUTM/media/Surveys-Tools/Documents/AUTM-2019-Infographic.pdf .