Evolution of surgical robotics innovation in China: a patent landscape analysis, 2003-2025

Surgical robots are high-end medical equipment that deeply integrates surgery with mechanical engineering, control science, materials science, and information science. This study characterises the technological structure and innovation landscape of China's surgical robotics field through patent bibliometric analysis, identifying its developmental stages and weak links so as to inform research-and-development planning and industry-academia-hospital collaboration. Chinese invention patents granted in the field of surgical robotics were retrieved from the China National Key Industry Patent Information Service Platform. 8,781 patents with application years 2003-2025 were included. Descriptive and evolutionary analyses were performed across five dimensions: annual trends, International Patent Classification (IPC), innovation entities and collaboration, application fields, and key technology directions. Annual applications rose sharply from 562 in 2017 to a peak of 1,585 in 2021. The primary IPC subclass A61B34 (surgical robot systems) dominated with 4,809 patents (54.77%), followed by A61B17 (surgical instruments), A61B1 (endoscopes) and B25J9 (manipulators), whereas supporting subclasses such as image processing (G06T7, 1.29%) and force/torque measurement (G01L, 0.33%) each accounted for less than 2%. Enterprises accounted for 69.53% of first applicants and hospitals/medical institutions for only 6.49%; cross-institutional joint applications comprised merely 5.51%. Orthopaedics (712 patents), laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery (711), and percutaneous puncture/biopsy/ablation (670) were the leading application fields, with 65.66% of patents being generic-platform oriented. Among the patents with a recorded legal status, 91.5% remained in force, providing an aggregate quality indicator. Vision/imaging and display was the densest technology direction (1,984 patents, 22.59%), whereas force feedback/haptic perception (7.27%), artificial intelligence (2.59%) and single-port techniques (0.76%) remained under-represented. China's surgical robotics innovation has shifted from technology tracking to autonomous expansion, with an enterprise-led, whole-system-driven landscape largely established. Persistent weaknesses in core components and force sensing, low hospital patenting, and lagging frontier layouts call for strengthening fundamental links, medical-engineering collaboration mechanisms and differentiated technology directions.