Technological Trends in Sports-Related Technologies and Assistive Devices for Sports to Support the Olympic and Paralympic Games

September 2, 2021

In late August, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games opened following the 2020 Olympic Games, which had been postponed for a year due to the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection.

The final igniter of the torch at the opening ceremony was a trio of para-athletes: wheelchair tennis player Yui Kamiji, boccia player Shunsuke Uchida, and powerlifter Karin Morisaki. (Photo: imagecomms 2021©)

Inspired by the petals of cherry blossoms and with the hope for peace to unite the world, the torch was carried by a number of runners. At the end of the torch relay, the torch was lit to the Olympics cauldron by the three para-athletes, Yui Kamiji (wheelchair tennis), Shunsuke Uchida (boccia), and Karin Morisaki (powerlifting).

Click here for an interview with the torch designer in WIPO Magazine.

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will feature 22 summer sports, and many of these events will use a variety of assistive technologies to support people with disabilities.

Global Technology Trends in Assistive Technology

WIPO dedicated the second issue of its flagship publication Technology Trends to Assistive Technology (the executive summary of the report is also available in Japanese). Different persons, including persons with disabilities and the aging population, experience functional limitations related to their mobility, hearing, vision, self-care, communication, cognition access and move in the built environment. Assistive products aim to support them in participating despite these limitations in all aspects of life reaching their full potential, contributing to their independence, self-sufficiency, dignity and self-fulfillment. The UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognizes the access to assistive technology as human right, while different UN Agencies, including the World Health Organization are working towards increased access to assistive products. WIPO´s report aims to contribute to these efforts by creating a knowledge base to help different stakeholders identify technical solutions, trends, key and emerging players, competitors and potential cooperation partners, as well as existing and potential markets.

Assistive technology existed already at the time of ancient Egypt and they cover both well-established products such as wheelchairs and glasses to cutting-edge solutions, such as exoskeletons, brain-computer-interface-powered control of devices or health and emotion monitoring wearable devices. The Technology Trends report covers both conventional and emerging assistive technology across seven domains of functional limitations, while it also explores how close emerging assistive products are to the market, assessing their technology readiness level. The report also identified nine so-called enabling technologies which make new assistive products possible and are used across different fields. These include Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer-interface/human-machine-interface, Internet of Things, 3D printing, new materials, advanced robotics and advanced sensors.

Looking at conventional assistive products for the built environment, the Technology Trends report includes a category of assistive products for sports and leisure and a sub-category on assistive products for sports. Within the latter sub-category, most inventions refer to swimming and golf, followed by winter sports. The sub-sub-categories of Paralympics and sports wheelchairs include few documents. The category of Paralympics, has, however, seen along with winter sports the highest number of most recent filings, primarily from Japan, and this could be attributed to the 2020 Paralympic Games held in Tokyo.

**Figure 1: Breakdown of assistive products for culture, recreation and leisure by the type of activity the patent documents refer to**

**Figure 2: Breakdown of assistive products for sports by type of sport or category the patent documents refers to**

It is worth noting that a lot of assistive products used during sports and the Paralympics are covered under prosthetics and orthotics, as well as other wheelchairs which form part of the Mobility domain in the report, with leaders in the field including Otto Bock, Toyota and Panasonic, who are also Paralympics sponsors, featuring in the top 5 patent applicants in Mobility.

**Figure 3: Top applicants in Mobility area of Conventional Assistive Technology**

**Figure 4: Top applicants in Mobility area of Emerging Assistive Technology**

It is worth noting that Japan features in most of the domains of the report in third or fourth position in the ranking of top patent offices of filing, while it leads as the top location where patent protection is sought in the field of assistive technology for sports, across nearly all sport types and categories.

**Figure 5: top patent offices of filing for assistive technologies related to sports, by type of sport**

Looking at the innovators in the field of assistive technology for sports, this is the field with the highest percentage (61%) of independent inventors, while there are no major players, but it is more of a fragmented market. Japanese companies are still very active in the field.

See also the report and the two interactive dashboards (Conventional Assistive Technologies and Emerging Assistive Technologies) for more details.

Technology and IP Trends and Future Prospects for Sports-Related Technology from Technology Trend Report by Japan Patent Office

In February 2020, in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics 2020, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) conducted an analysis of patent literature and research and development papers related to sports-related technologies, and published a report based on advice from a committee of experts.

In this report, taking into account the fact that the sports ICT market is rapidly expanding, the following topics are discussed:

"sensing" technology to acquire data on behaviors and situations related to sports and exercise using sensors;
"analysis" technology to analyze the sensed data and data on the behavioral histories of persons who play or watch sports and exercise; and
"presentation" technology, which edits and generates images and sounds to make sports more enjoyable to watch.

The report provides detailed analysis of patent application trends and research and development trends in each country and region since 2006 (priority date) collected from various literatures.

According to the results of the analysis in this report, the number of patent applications in the field of sports-related technologies worldwide is on the increase, and in particular, patent applications for training management and preventive medicine are on the rise.

According to this report, in recent years, VR/AR technologies such as VR/AR spectating, VR/AR training, and VR/AR sports have seen high growth, and the characteristics of each country and region are analyzed in each of these fields. In addition to analyzing the characteristics of each country and region in these fields, it also conducts detailed analysis of technologies for "watching" sports such as "video editing" and "sound generation”. Furthermore, the analysis related to sports for the physically challenged shows that the number of patent applications for technologies specific to sports for the physically challenged is lower than in the fields of other sports. Europe is more active than other regions in terms of the number of research papers.

This report discusses the future prospects of sports-related technologies, including prospects for further expansion of the sports ICT market and diversion of technologies to fields other than sports and exercise. In particular, the use of technologies for sensing the state of human movement for scientific measurement of the motor functions of people who require nursing care or suffer from diseases accompanied by motor function impairment, early detection of diseases, prevention of dementia, and prevention of injuries can be applied in other fields.

A start-up company developing powered prosthetic legs with ‘muscle’ functions

Dr. Sun Xiaojun, CEO of BionicM Inc. and Doctor of Information Science and Engineering, took the stage at the World Intellectual Property Day commemorative online event held by the WIPO Japan Office to introduce the latest power-enhanced prosthetic leg with muscle functions under development and talk about the use of intellectual property. (Watch the video: 25:39-).

Dr. Sun speaks at the first part of a panel discussion at an online event commemorating World Intellectual Property Day organized by WIPO Japan Office (Photo: WIPO Japan Office))

He shared his story that his right leg was amputated when he was 9 years old, but he was unable to use a prosthesis because of the high cost of prostheses in China, where he lived at that time, thus he spent 15 years with crutches. Following the advice from his parents that he had no choice but to study, he worked hard to study, enabling him to enter a university and come to Japan as an exchange student 10 years ago. In addition, he could afford a prosthetic leg through the welfare system in Japan. At BionicM, they use robotics technology to create a "powered prosthetic leg" with unprecedented "muscle" functions. This is an evolution of existing passive prosthetic legs, which lack power and have problems such as difficulty in climbing stairs and risk of falling down easily. Currently, BionicM is accelerating the development of this product with the aim of commercialization by the end of 2021.

He also talks about the use of BionicM's intellectual property, which is used to develop both hardware and software. From the time of research and development at the University of Tokyo to the present, they have been actively applying for patents for the hardware structure, which can be easily imitated. On the other hand, they do not apply for patents on the software part, keeping it as a trade secret. Even if the hardware can be copied, it will not work without their algorithms.

Lastly, Dr. Sun gave a strong message from his own experience; even if you face difficulties, you must change your mind and face them on your own, and by overcoming them, greater opportunities will surely come your way.

It is anticipated that this powered prosthetic leg will offer safety and wider daily activities for people with disabilities and will also be applied to sports.

Expectations for new innovations to help all people enjoy sports

Development of sports-related technology and technology to support sports for people with disabilities have been steadily advancing. In Japan, we have seen many patent applications in sports-related assistive technologies. In the future, new innovations using the latest technologies such as AI, IoT, advanced sensors, robotics, and VR/AR are expected.