Bodyfriend Maintains No.1 Global Market Share in Massage Chairs and Leads in Patent Registrations

64 Patents and 11 Utility Models, Market Shares of 34.0% and 78.6% Respectively... Global No. 1

Bodyfriend announced on the 22nd that it has ranked first in patent registrations related to massage chairs, following its position as the global market share leader. Photo by Bodyfriend

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] Bodyfriend announced on the 22nd that it ranked first in patent registrations related to massage chairs, following its number one position in global market share.

The law firm Kim & Chang investigated the patent and utility model registration status of the top companies in the "Global and Domestic Massage Chair Market Share for the First Half of 2020" report published by the global market research firm Frost & Sullivan. The survey targeted six companies: Bodyfriend, global company P, global company I, global company F (ranked 1st to 4th globally), and domestic companies B and H (ranked 2nd and 3rd domestically).

As a result of investigating the number of domestic and international patent and utility model registrations related to massage chairs by these six companies from January 2018 to January this year, Bodyfriend ranked first with a total of 75 registrations (64 patents and 11 utility models). Based on the six companies, Bodyfriend's share of registered patents and utility models reached 34.0% and 78.6%, respectively. Japanese company I, known as the pioneer country of massage chairs, ranked second with 50 registrations (49 patents and 1 utility model), company F ranked third with 40 registrations (38 patents and 2 utility models), and company P ranked fourth with 31 registrations (31 patents and 0 utility models). Domestic companies B and H registered 4 and 2 patents, respectively.

Meanwhile, Bodyfriend previously ranked first in patent application numbers with a total of 132 cases from 2010 to 2019 in the therapeutic assistive device field, according to the "2019 Medical Device Patent Trend Analysis" published by the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Bodyfriend stated that it maintained the top position among the surveyed companies in this investigation as well, which applied the same international patent classification standards.

A Bodyfriend representative said, "We operate three major convergence research organizations: the Technology Research Institute, Design Research Institute, and Medical R&D Center, and are filing patent technologies for various massage and medical devices," adding, "We will continue to dedicate ourselves to healthcare research and development aimed at extending healthy life expectancy by 10 years."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.