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%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.
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%
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)
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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
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.
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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