ArticleCureus2020
Patents and Innovation Among Neurosurgeons from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
Article in Cureus, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Animal Research in Otorhinolaryngology: Shifts in Publication and Practice Over Two Time Periods.Turkish archives of otorhinolaryngology · 2026Article
- Technological Innovation in Cervical Spine Injury and Disease Treatment: A Systematic Bibliometric Review of Current Trends and Literature on Patent Technology.Spine surgery and related research · 2026Review
- Patent bibliometrics in spinal deformity: the first bibliometric analysis of spinal deformity's technological literature.Spine deformity · 2024Review
- Innovation and New Technologies in Spine Surgery, Circa 2020: A Fifty-Year Review.Frontiers in surgery · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective Neurosurgeons have taken on the role of innovators, continuing to move the field forward over the centuries. More recently, innovation has taken the form of new technological devices and therapeutics, which require patenting. The aim of this study is to identify major areas of innovation in the field of neurosurgery by evaluating patent records. Methods This study quantifies the number of patents the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) neurosurgeons hold across different subspecialties. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent database was queried using the names of 7,293 AANS members who filed patents between 1976 and 2019. Results A total of 346 (4.7%) AANS neurosurgeons hold a total of 1,025 patents. The number of patents held by each neurosurgeon ranged from one to 109. The areas that patents were filed under include cellular and genetic science (40), drug delivery (45), image guidance (82), neuromodulation (52), pain (7), peripheral nerve stimulation (24), spine (398), surgical devices (148), trauma (16), tumor (78), vascular (67), and other (68). No patents were filed under pediatrics (0). The fields with the greatest number of filed patents are spine, instruments/devices, and image guidance. Conclusion Given the technical nature of the field of neurosurgery, instruments and devices that improve localization, visualization, targeting, and spinal reconstruction are often in demand. Furthermore, since the rates of spinal procedures and implants continue to increase, higher patenting may be motivated by the opportunity to develop new products that can result in royalty payments to neurosurgeons. The advent of new technologies undoubtedly continues to push the field of neurosurgery forward.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.