Carbon allotropes, including graphene, graphene oxide (GO), and reduced graphene oxide (r-GO), have potential as coating nanomaterials to improve the performance of dental implants.

Furthermore, graphene has demonstrated strong antibacterial activity and enhanced biocompatibility in comparison to other types of carbon nanoscale structures.

Several bibliometric studies have been published on the use of graphene-based materials, but they only focus on scientific articles and not patents.

A few articles report on a patent study of dental implants but without focusing on carbon allotropes.

The objective of this study is to provide the patent landscape analysis of graphene and its derivatives in relation to dental implants.

The search for relevant information was conducted on Espacenet (https://worldwide.espacenet.com, provided by the EPO—European Patent Office), using keywords and classification codes, specifically, the IPC (International Patent Classification) and CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification).

Dental implants are primarily classified in the A61C13/00 and A61C8/00 subgroups, while the classification symbol for graphene and its derivatives, such as graphene oxide, is C01B32/182 and its lower subgroups.

By combining the abovemention symbols with keywords, a total of 68 patents/patent applications were obtained.

After reading the title, abstract, and claims, 16 documents were excluded as they were off-topic and not related to the use of graphene or its derivatives in dental implants.

The Orbit Intelligence platform (https://www.orbit.com) was used to analyze the 52 relevant results obtained. Of these, 55.8% are granted patents, 26.9% are pending patent applications, 5.8% were revoked, and 11.5% lapsed.

The first patent application was filed in 2010.

China has the highest number of applications with 20, followed by the USA with 7 and South Korea with 6.

Graphene oxide is the most commonly claimed carbon allotrope, while titanium and its alloys are among the most frequently used materials.