wearable systems & ip · advances in sensing techniques play an integral role in the production...

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Wearable Systems & IP The Fitness & Healthcare Market

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Introduction

Sales of smart glasses, watches and wristbands are predicted to reach 10 million units this year,

generating approximately $3 billion in revenue. This is according to Deloitte’s recently released

Technology-Media-Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions report [1], which identifies critical

trends across the TMT industry. It also revealed that trends such as an ageing population,

widening cellular connectivity and advances in telemedicine may suggest significant

opportunities for wearables in the medium and long-term. Figure 1 below shows that there are

four main building blocks in wearable systems for fitness and healthcare applications: the

sensing hardware for data collection; the data logging hardware and software for data

aggregation and relaying data to a remote centre; the data analysis technologies to derive

insights from the sensor data; and the communication technologies for data transmission:

Figure 1 Wearable systems with applications in fitness & healthcare

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Advances in sensing techniques play an integral role in the production of wearable devices.

Wearable systems require sensors that can be placed on the body without discomfort in order to

continuously monitor a wide range of physiological signs. The size of the sensors has been one

of the main difficulties in adopting sensing technology for wearable applications, but recent

developments in microelectronics technologies have enabled significant improvements in this

respect. Using Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) technology, these sensors can now

be implemented on a single chip at low cost.

In parallel to the development of wearable sensors, advances in material science have brought

significant progress in the area of e-textile research. For example, Wade and Asada have

developed a system which embeds traditional sensors in buttons to record physiological and

motion data [2]. An alternative implementation is to integrate sensing elements directly into the

textile substrates using new materials.

This report looks at the worldwide wearable technologies patent landscape with applications in

the fitness and healthcare sectors. By studying patenting activity and systems used to monitor

biomechanical, physiological and biochemical parameters we can begin to make informed

predictions about the future of wearable devices.

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The Patent Dataset

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To conduct the landscape analysis, a set of keywords was carefully chosen based on the sensor

technologies in use and combined into targeted search strings. The search found 19,636

published granted patents and applications which are still active. These patents equate to 8,308

different inventions (8,308 patent families).

PATENTING ACTIVITY AND TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

According to MIT media lab’s ‘A brief history of wearable computing’ [3], some of the first

wearable computers were developed in the 1960s and 70s. In 1960, Heilig invented a head-

mounted stereophonic television display; in 1966 Sutherland created the first computer-based

head-mounted display; and in 1977, HP released an algebraic calculator watch. These early

wearable systems are essentially portable computers. At around the same time, the concept of

wearable computing started to emerge in the fitness industry. A number of patents relating to

wearable heart rate monitors were filed in the 70s in the US. In Europe, Polar Electro launched

the first commercial wireless heart rate monitor in 1982.

It has been widely observed that the medical and fitness industries are among the most popular

areas where wearable technologies may have a significant impact. A search in the patent

database reveals that there were already a number of wearable electronic devices patented in

the 1970s.

These initial pioneers included a Chicago-based company named Eagle Monitor Systems, and

Beehive International, a Salt Lake City-based manufacturer of computer display and data entry

terminals. In 1978, Bruce International Limited filed patents worldwide relating to a physical

fitness testing device. The two companies filed patents in the field of heart rate monitors in 1973

and 1978 respectively.

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Figure 3 Patent cluster distribution (by technology category)

This landscape study focused on the

patenting activity of the past two decades.

Figure 2 Patenting activity by earliest

priorityshows there was an almost linear

increase in number of fillings in this area.

To gain further insight into developments in

the field, the distribution profile of the patent

clusters in relation to the different sensor

technologies is given in Figure 3:

It can be seen that 43%

of the assets relate to

biomechanical sensing

technologies while

physiological sensing

and biochemical

sensing technologies

comprise 36% and 21%

respectively. The second

tier category in Figure 3 further shows that, heart rate monitors and accelerometers are the two

largest technology clusters which, in combination, account for more than half of the total patent

applications in this area.

Comparing the patenting activity for each technology category (Figure 4 Patenting activity timeline

for each technology categoryoverleaf), it can be seen that accelerometer technology is the fastest

growing area within wearable systems. Although patenting activity in the area of heart rate

monitoring had been increasing consistently between 1995 and 2005, the number of annual

filings has remained constant in the past 10 years. Gyroscopes and skin response sensors are

two of the emerging areas where the earliest filings can be seen in 1995 and 1994, respectively.

Figure 2 Patenting activity by earliest priority

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Row Labels 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Timeline for each tech category

Accelerometer 48 52 48 44 79 106 190 147 177 252 334 454 435 469 505 522 628 753 776

Oximetry 21 58 20 35 44 27 58 36 40 86 93 70 79 77 86 102 131 90 76

Heart Rate Monitor 6 34 56 71 59 94 187 141 148 229 263 339 410 415 363 358 473 417 362

Biosensor 22 7 6 19 85 26 127 135 149 180 175 160 264 311 253 324 207 245 163

Magnetic Sensor 18 24 13 30 53 23 60 45 69 96 109 127 121 110 97 161 104 115 93

Respiration Sensor 10 13 8 26 45 70 44 44 81 121 122 181 243 181 176 283 216 232 146

Skin Response 1 1 8 1 26 1 34 20 9 26 16 27 46 55 21 67 36

Gyroscopes 3 1 5 1 4 7 12 15 15 10 23 39 38 37 68 117 139 165

Figure 4 Patenting activity timeline for each technology category

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TOP JURISDICTIONS

Figure 5 provides insight into the geographical

coverage of those patents relating to wearable

technology in the fitness and health markets. The

chart shows that more than half of the assets

were filed in the US which is no surprise, but

interesting to see a strong number of bets being

placed in China.

Figure 6 shows the filing timeline per jurisdiction. Once again, the US is the fastest growing

region in terms of annual patent filing rates, followed by EP (filing via the EPO covering all

contracting European states) and China.

Figure 5 Jurisdiction Profile

Figure 6 Jurisdiction filing timeline

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TOP PATENT HOLDERS

The Top 10 patent holders (Figure 7) reveals

Philips and Seiko at the top of the list, each

owning more than 600 published patent

applications. A number of companies

including Medtronic, Qualcomm, Abbott Lab,

Nike and Nokia also have a sizable portfolio

with more than 300 assets. This study

focusses on wearable technologies with

applications in healthcare and fitness,

however, the Top 10 assignees span a

number of industries, including electronics,

healthcare, telecommunications, sport and medical devices. This clearly demonstrates the

convergence of technologies in the wearable market, as categorised below in Table 1:

INDUSTRY TOP PATENT HOLDER

HEALTHCARE Philips MEDICAL DEVICES Medtronic, Abbott, Boston Scientific CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Seiko, Sony SPORTS / FITNESS Nike, Polar Electro TELECOMS Nokia, Qualcomm

Table 1 Top patent assignees across different industries

1Table 2 overleaf, provides a deeper insight into the patent portfolios held by the top 20 assignees.

The profile of patent families shows a different outlook in comparison to the profile of asset

numbers. Some companies have a large number of families but the number of families with at

least one grant is less impressive, showing a huge level of pendency. This is no surprise, as

although applicants started filing in these areas many years ago, it is only in recent years the

filing rates stepped up. As this wave of applications make their way through, keeping an eye on

the landscape through prosecution could be key for any actor in this space.

Figure 7 Top 10 patent assignees

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Table 2 Patent portfolio for the top 20 assignees (in terms if no. of assets)

For example, Philips has only 68 patent families with at least one grant, despite having the

largest number of assets. Companies with a similar story include Abbott and Nike. Aliphcom,

Searette LLC* and Deka Products LP, which are among the Top 20, also only have a single digit

number of granted patents. Table 2 Patent portfolio for the top 20 assignees (in terms if no. of

assets)also reveals that Seiko is the top assignee in terms of patent families and granted patents.

The patent filing timeline for the Top 20 assignees is shown in Table 3 Top 20 assignees (no. of

filings by earliest priority year)overleaf. The top 3 patent holders, Philips, Seiko and Medtronic

have filed patents consistently since the early 90s. Other companies including Sony, Polar

Electro, Casio Computer and Honeywell Int also show a similar

* Searete is part of Intellectual Ventures LLC, run by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’’s former chief technology officer.

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ASSIGNEES 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total

PHILIPS 5 3 2 7 19 73 46 49 56 86 38 99 73 44 55 21 676

SEIKO 8 49 15 34 33 11 33 14 29 44 38 25 27 35 22 39 62 67 50 635

MEDTRONIC 6 7 6 9 7 10 34 12 30 13 53 25 40 36 32 44 17 103 15 499

QUALCOMM 4 4 8 20 27 28 19 32 61 56 75 68 402

ABBOTT 1 1 2 3 6 17 2 2 39 116 52 83 25 35 9 393

NIKE 18 2 9 1 8 2 29 23 22 37 45 55 49 39 339

NOKIA 2 13 3 1 4 7 14 16 6 4 13 36 100 44 30 293

BOSTONSCIENT 25 1 15 16 27 24 7 3 38 22 6 184

SONY 1 1 2 3 11 10 7 26 23 23 21 9 7 19 15 178

POLARELECTRO 2 6 7 2 4 25 2 9 13 3 10 19 10 20 5 7 5 19 168

ALIPHCOM 3 14 6 22 9 3 3 5 76 18 159

APPLE 8 1 6 1 1 1 23 23 20 22 12 23 13 154

CASIOCOMPUTER 2 1 9 7 2 6 2 3 21 13 7 6 7 9 12 9 12 23 151

MICROSOFT 9 3 1 4 6 14 21 16 14 9 15 10 7 14 143

ADIDAS 27 15 6 10 11 13 20 5 7 12 126

SAMSUNG 1 5 11 5 7 4 8 5 6 5 6 61 124

SEARETELLC 4 15 3 38 31 12 2 4 3 112

DEKAPRODUCTSLP 1 45 12 7 14 17 3 6 105

HONEYWELLINT 1 13 1 4 20 12 1 2 8 8 7 4 1 4 4 1 2 93

GOOGLE 1 1 5 2 3 2 12 26 32 84

ASSIGNEES US EP CN IN JP KR RU DE AU BR CA ES FI GB

PHILIPS 139 104 95 55 44 39 14 8 5 1 1

SEIKO 255 98 34 228 2 13 1 1 2

MEDTRONIC 253 81 14 10 4 5 2 15

QUALCOMM 151 30 36 18 20 37 3 4

ABBOTTLAB 210 41 14 6 4 1 12 30

NIKE 120 60 33 13 29 2 29

NOKIA 107 45 31 4 4 8 6 3 1

BOSTONSCIENT 93 25 2 12 14 2

SONY 78 32 15 21 6 2 2

POLARELECTRO 75 56 1 7 1 4 9 3

ALIPHCOM 24 37 2 4 12 2 29

CASIOCOMPUTER 32 14 12 91 3 3

APPLE 86 15 8 4 3 11 6 1

MICROSOFT 92 9 8 2 4 8 1 1 2 1 3

SAMSUNG 68 19 2 4 22 4

ADIDAS 69 38 1 1 11 2 4

SEARETELLC 96 2 3

DEKAPRODUCTSLP 29 20 4 3 5 1 7 14

HONEYWELLINT 62 10 5 1 5 1

GOOGLE 25 10 6 1 2 3

Table 3 Top 20 assignees (no. of filings by earliest priority year)

patent filing pattern. In terms of technology priority, Seiko, Medtronic, Nike, Boston Scientific,

Polar Electro and Honeywell Int hold a noticeably larger number of slightly older filings, for

example, applications having an earliest priority date of 2000 or before.

Table 4 further shows that the Japanese companies, Seiko and Casio Computer, filed a large

percentage of assets in their home country, whilst Philips, Qualcomm, Nike and Nokia filed a

significant number of patents in China and Korea. Microsoft and Searete LLC have only a small

number of EP patents.

Table 4 Top 20 assignees (no. of filings by earliest priority year)

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KEY PLAYERS

The wearables industry is considered to still be in its

infancy. However, the industry’s potential has attracted

attention from both large and small organisations.

Wearable World News has identified a list of major

players within the space [4]. Looking at the companies

in this list that actually have patents, shows that well-

established companies dominate the landscape. In

contrast, the relatively young companies hold very

limited patent positions.

In addition, from Table 3 Top 20 assignees (no. of

filings by earliest priority year)and Table 4 Top 20

assignees (no. of filings by earliest priority year)it can

be seen that some well-established companies, such

as Philips and Nokia, own a large number of patents

but do not operate specifically in the wearable

technology space. However, we expect they will

participate through active patent licensing

programmes.

Table 5 Relevant patent ownership for key market players

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Conclusion

This report shows that patenting activity in the field of wearable systems using biomechanical,

physiological and biochemical sensing technology has been increasing sharply over the past

two decades. In particular, accelerometers and heart rate monitoring are two of the oldest

technological fields in which wearable systems were developed. These two areas in

combination account for more than half of the assets contained in our dataset. Emerging

technologies, including skin response sensors and gyroscopes, have a relatively small number of

patent applications currently, but the filing for gyroscopes has been increasing steadily in recent

years, as companies search for more accurate measurement devices.

The report also shows that the majority of IP in this field is owned by well-established companies;

however, some of these do not operate specifically in the wearable technology space. The

industry is still in its infancy but the number of companies developing wearable devices has

increased rapidly in recent years. The younger companies hold very limited patent positions.

In Feb 2014, Adidas filed a complaint in the US against Under Armour alleging willful patent

infringement of Adidas' fitness-monitoring system; they have been active in acquiring patents.

This is thought to be the first patent litigation case in the field of wearable technology. With

wearable devices entering the mainstream, patent owners competing in this field will be

expected to use their intellectual property to create a barrier to market entry, or, alternatively, to

assert against market leaders. The patent holders who do not operate in this area may consider

extracting value from some of their non-core assets. It is worth noting that Searette LLC appears

in our dataset as one of the top patent holders, which indicates this field has attracted attention

from non-practicing entities. Potentially, we may see wearable technology become the

smartphone patent war of the future, especially if the much rumored iWatch hits the market in

the near term.

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References

[1] Deloitte, Jan 2014. [Online]. Available:

http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Technology-Media-

Telecommunications/gx-tmt-predictions-2014-interactive.pdf. [Accessed 24 06 2014].

[2] E. Wade and H. Asada, “Cable-free body area network using conductive fabric sheets for advanced human-

robot interaction,” Conf Proc IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 4, pp. 3530-3533, 2005.

[3] MIT, “A brief history of wearable computing,” [Online]. Available:

http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/lizzy/timeline.html.

[4] C. Dudenhoeffer, “Wearable World News,” 6 5 2014. [Online]. Available:

http://wearableworldnews.com/2014/05/06/wearable-world-taxonomy/.

[5] A. Bonfiglio and D. De Rossi, Wearable Monitoring Systems, New York: Springer, 2011.

[6] H. Sveistrup, “Motor rehabilitation using virtual reality,” Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation,

vol. 1, 2004.

[7] E. Al-Fakih, N. Osman and F. Adikan, “The Use of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors in Biomechanics and

Rehabilitation Applications: The State-of-the-Art and Ongoing Research Topics,” Sensors, vol. 12, no. 10,

2012.

[8] N. Zheng and S. Barrentine, “Biomechanics and motion analysis applied to sports,” Physical Medicine and

Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, May 2000.

[9] T. Choudhury, G. Borriello, S. Consolvo, B. Hemingway, B. Harrison, J. Hightower, P. Klasnja, K. Koscher, A.

LaMarca, J. Landay, L. LeGrand, J. Lester, A. ahimi, A. Rea and D. Wyatt, “The mobile sensing platform: An

embedded activity recognition system,” IEEE Pervasive Computing, 2008.

[10] N. Taccini , G. Loriga, M. Pacelli and R. Paradiso, “Wearable monitoring system for chronic cardio-

respiratory diseases,” Conference Proceeding Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2008.

[11] M. V. Villarejo, B. G. Zapirain and A. M. Zorrilla, “A Stress Sensor Based on Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)

Controlled by ZigBee,” Sensors, 2012.

[12] M. Steve, “Wearable Computing,” in The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed, M. S. a. R. F.

Dam, Ed., The Interaction Design Foundation, 2013.

[13] R. A. Peura, “CHEMICAL BIOSENSORS,” in Medical Instrumentation Application and Design, 4th ed., 2009.

[14] L. Armstrong-Smith, “You Wear It So Well,” Analytical Scientist, March 2014.

[15] K. O' Donovan, R. Kamnik, D. O'Keeffe and G. M. Lyons, “An inertial and magnetic sensor based technique

for joint angle measurement,” Journal of Biomechanics, no. 40, pp. 2604-2611, 2007.

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About the Author

Rui Liao is a Technology Analyst at ClearViewIP. Her responsibilities include patent research and assessment, data mining and gathering evidence of use across a range of high-tech sectors.

Prior to joining ClearViewIP, Rui spent 3 Years in a Postdoc role at Brunel University as a Research Fellow and Local Technical Manager.

Rui has a PhD in Distributed Power Control Algorithms for Ad-Hoc Wireless Networks from Queen Mary University of London, an MSc in Radio Frequency Communication Systems from the University of Southampton and a BEng in Automation from Beijing Institute of Technology where she was awarded ‘Distinguished Graduate of Beijing Institute of Technology 2003´ and ‘Distinguished Graduate of Beijing 2003´.

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Disclaimer: This document is for marketing purposes only. The information contained in this document should not be considered as legal or tax advice. ClearViewIP is an IP Management Consultancy and not a law firm or tax advisory consultancy.

DISCLAIMER This document is for marketing purposes only. The information contained in this document should not be considered any form of legal advice or opinion. ClearViewIP is an IP Management Consultancy and not a law firm.

For a free, confidential discussion on how ClearViewIP can help your company, or for a more detailed look into the current Wearable Technology market, please contact: Rui Liao – Technology Analyst

: +44 (0) 1962 280 100

: [email protected]