IBM is #1 in Patent Ranking for 19 Years Straight
IBM has one the annual patent competition once again.
The company was granted 6180 patents in 2011, up almost 5 percent from 2010, according to IFI Claims Patent Services. Samsung remained in second place, but climbed by 8 percent to 4894 patents. Canon, Panasonic and Toshiba surpassed Microsoft and with 2821, 2559 and 2483 granted patents, respectively. Microsoft is now in sixth place with 2311 patents, which was down from 3094 in 2010. Apple climbed from rank 46 to 39 and added 676 patents in 2011, up from 563 in 2010.
In addition to Cisco, HP, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle were also granted fewer patents in 2011 than in 2010. Asian firms now account for 25 or half of the top 50 U.S. patent-grant recipients. U.S. firms captured just 17 slots.
“Global companies, and especially Asian ones, are collecting U.S. patents at a dizzying pace, and now Asian firms hold eight of the top 10 slots in the 2011 ranking,” said Mike Baycroft, CEO at IFI Claims Patent Services. “This isn’t to say that U.S. companies have lost their verve for patent production, as their patent portfolios are also growing. It seems that Asian companies have apparently made it a higher priority.”
IFI said that 224,505 utility patents were granted by the USPTO in 2011, which translates to a 2 percent increase over 2010 and represents a new record high.IBM has been leading the ranking since 1992.
Whatever, they still hold the title of "Patent troll king" though...
Whatever, they still hold the title of "Patent troll king" though...
I'd say 99% of these patents will never see the light of day...
TF happened to Apple? I was in the misconception that they were the patent kings??
Whatever, they still hold the title of "Patent troll king" though...
4 rocks patent for APPLE.
1. a mice without botton
2. a phone with only one botton
3. a alphabet with a "I" word.
4. steve jobs
How come this passes through the editor?
We don't know that. Keep in mind that the media has EDITORS, and they influence what gets published and what does not. Apple makes a much better news item than good ol' IBM in their dark blue suits.
And no, this is not an Apple fan talking; lord no :-)
Still, wondering how many of these 6000+ patents are for actual innovations worth a patent, and how many are for 'round buttons'.
Hehe. So much for the future of artificial intelligence.
So far we can not even have a spell checker that notices obvious homophone slip ups.
Interesting fact: "iOS" is a Cisco trademark, Apple uses it under license.
(check in the "About" section of your iDevice)
Actually IBM has sued may companies including Amazon.
Lawsuits involving consumer products tend to get a lot more media coverage. IBM is not involved in consumer products any more.
IBM has been one of, if not the biggest lobbiest for countries to create or make easier to obtain software patents across the globe.
Which has in turn made it a lot easier for them and other large firms to obtain patents across the globe and litigate against smaller firms and startups.
1st : IBM is the father of everything in I.T. (db,oses,servers,fs,etc...)
2nd: IBM=It's Better Manually