JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The advantages of digital health became evident during the coronavirus pandemic. However, the bibliometric analysis of technologies in the view of patents on digital health is rare even though patents provide a wealth of information about technologies, commercial opportunities, and competitors, most of which is not disclosed in other publications. In the context of digital health, it is essential to protect the algorithms, software, and advanced surgical devices with digital techniques by patent systems due to the rapid iteration of this industry. Meanwhile, the patent system provides us with technological knowledge on digital health that is publicly accessible to researchers for upgrading existing technologies and advancing medical equipment with the purpose of improving public health and catering to the demands of the public.

Objective:

We aimed to determine the future research direction of digital health by analyzing the structure of technology in the field of digital health patents.

Methods:

We evaluated the global technologies output in the view of patents on digital health published from 2017 to 2021 using a bibliometric analysis methodology. Bibliometric visualization and comparative analysis of included metrics, such as nationals, institutions, inventors, and technology topics, were performed using CiteSpace and Excel.

Results:

15763 patents on digital health were identified as published between 2017 and 2021. China National Intellectual Property Administration ranked first with 7253 published patents. It was the KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS institution with the most patents published with 329. Assaf Govari was considered the most productive inventor at the top list in each patent. The technology hotspots included “Medical Equipment and Information Systems”, “Image Analysis” and “Electrical Diagnosis” classified by Derwent Manual Code, and a technique of receiving and transmitting data through microchips was the most cited patent with the patentee of Covidien Lp.

Conclusions:

There has been a continuous rise in digital health patents since 2017, led mainly by China, the United States, and Japan. Health interventions and surgical device improvements are the main application scenarios for digital health technology. Algorithms were the core technologies protected by patents. Techniques of data transfer, storage, and exchange related to digital health could be hotspots in basic research in the near future.