Monday, January 10, 2011

2010 Sees Record Jump for Patents Issued in the USPTO (and IBM Received Almost 6,000 of Them)

While the number of patents issued in 2009 was off from previous years, a recently-published report from IFI Claims Patent Services suggests that 2010 made up for the difference, and then some.  In fact, the USPTO issued an all-time high of 219,614 utility patents in 2010, up 31 percent from 2009, which would be the most significant annual increase on record.

As usual, IBM continues to lead the pack with a whopping 5,896 patents, up 20% from 4,914 in 2009.  Samsung came in second with 4,551 patent (+26%) Microsoft is third with 3,094 (+6.5%).  All of the companies but one in the Top 50 are up over the previous year, most shattering records and many posting double-digit percentage gains.

Big gainers in 2010 include:

Apple, +94%
Qualcomm, +84%
NEC, +74%
SAP, +70
GM Global Technology, +68%
Hynix Semiconductor, +65%
Silverbrook Research, +58%
3M Innovative Properties, +53%
Toyota, +50%
Brother, +45%
Hon Hai Precision Industry, +44%
LG Electronics, +40%
 US companies also reclaimed the lead on the total number of U.S. patent granted after losing out to foreign companies the previous 2 years.  In 2010, U.S. companies obtained 50.3% of granted patents, compared with 49% in 2009.

High-tech patents also dominated areas with the heaviest new patenting activity:
Multiplex Communications (US class 370) -- 3.3% of total
Solid-State Devices and Transistors (US class 257) -- 3.1%
Semiconductors (US class 438) -- 2.7%
Drug Compositions (US class 514) -- 2.1% 
Data Processing and File Management (US class 707) -- 2%
Computers and Processing Systems (US class 709) -- 2%
Biotechnology (US classes 435 and 530) -- 2%

The top-50 patent assignees for 2010:

RANK COMPANY 2010 Patents
1 International Business Machines Corp 5896
2 Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (Korea) 4551
3 Microsoft Corp 3094
4 Canon K K (Japan) 2552
5 Panasonic Corp (Japan) 2482
6 Toshiba Corp (Japan) 2246
7 Sony Corp (Japan) 2150
8 Intel Corp 1653
9 LG Electronics Inc (Korea) 1490
10 Hewlett-Packard Development Co L P 1480
11 Hitachi Ltd (Japan) 1460
12 Seiko Epson Corp (Japan) 1443
13 Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (Taiwan) 1438
14 Fujitsu Ltd (Japan) 1296
15 General Electric Co 1225
16 Ricoh Co Ltd (Japan) 1200
17 Cisco Technology Inc 1115
18 Honda Motor Co Ltd (Japan) 1050
19 Fujifilm Corp (Japan) 1041
20 Hynix Semiconductor Inc (Japan) 973
21 Broadcom Corp 958
22 GM Global Technology Operations Inc 942
23 Micron Technology Inc 917
24 Siemens AG (Germany) 873
25 Xerox Corp 858
26 Denso Corp (Japan) 853
27 Texas Instruments Inc 829
28 Honeywell International Inc 824
29 Sharp K K (Japan) 818
30 Toyota Jidosha K K (Japan) 802
31 Infineon Technologies AG (Germany) 774
32 Brother Kogyo K K (Germany) 771
33 Nokia AB Oy (Finland) 760
34 Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd (Australia) 752
35 LG Display Co Ltd (Korea) 738
36 Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co Ltd (Japan) 734
37 Mitsubishi Denki K K (Japan) 700
38 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N V (Netherlands) 685
39 NEC Corp (Japan) 680
40 Boeing Co 662
41 Qualcomm Inc 657
42 SAP AG (Germany) 649
43
Oracle America Inc/Sun Microsystems Inc*
646
44 Bosch, Robert GmbH (Germany) 593
45 Fuji Xerox Co Ltd (Japan) 574
46 Apple Inc 563
47 Du Pont de Nemours, E I & Co 509
48 Sanyo Electric Co Ltd (Japan) 504
49 3M Innovative Properties Co 496
50 Freescale Semiconductor Inc 494

For more information, see "IFI CLAIMS Announces Top Global Companies Ranked By 2010 U.S. Patents" (link).

IFI also offers a "Patent Intelligence and Technology Report" containing further details.  The data may be accessed under a free trial period - for more information, click here (link)

3 Comentários:

Anonymous said...

Great update..It is a pleasure to know that people are coming up with new inventions. Definitely IP sector had a great time in 2010. Have a glance at the top 5 patent activities took place in India in 2010 @ http://www.sinapseblog.com/2011/01/top-5-patent-activities-in-india-2010.html

LN said...

Thanks for the compilation of information. Does the increase in US patents have anything to do with the green technology acceleration program? Or is that not relevant? Also, IBM received 6000 patents? That is amazing. They are a powerhorse research company and it's exciting to see what new and interesting things will come out of them.

Anonymous said...

1 - not relevant. Percentage is less than .1

2 - Also not relevant - sheer quantity is meaningless. Strength is determined on a patent by patent basis and that is not correlated with number of patents. What is correlated is willingness to spend money.

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