Nanotubes are prevalent in sensors; the ready availability of CNTs, their tunability, and their electrical conductivity or semiconducting behavior make them useful in sensors. Significantly more patent documents used nanotube materials than journal documents, while for most other nanomaterials, similar fractions of journal and patent publications were published. The availability of nanotubes, particularly CNTs, likely makes them more accessible and thus potentially commercializable. In addition, because they have been known and produced for over 30 years, more methods likely exist for the manipulation and modification of nanotubes and there is likely to be more understanding of the limitations of modification and handling methods for nanotubes than for other morphologies.