In the sixth installment of our 13-part patent-trends study (performed in collaboration with GreyB) providing high-level data across industries, we will examine trends in the medical-device industry. The United States has been the largest target medical-device market, at nearly 50% of the global market. These devices are highly variable in purpose, design and complexity. Thus, developing an effective patent strategy can be highly valuable yet complicated. Our study not only identified a set of applications that pertained to this industry, but also—for each application in this set—it was determined whether the application pertained to one or more of the categories shown in the topology below. If so, the application was appropriately tagged, such that it could be included in one or more category-specific data subsets for subsequent analysis.

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