13 January 2010, 12:39

Patents: IBM still leads while Microsoft filings show strong growth

USPTO Seal A first evaluation of the patents granted by the US Patent and Trademarks Office (Type 1 "utility" patents) in 2009 shows that, compared to 2008, IBM stepped up its patent activities by a considerable 18% to just under 4,900 patents, clearly preserving its lead. Samsung, the eternal runner-up, faltered slightly and only gained 4% with about 3,800 patents. Microsoft pushed into third place, showing a large increase in its activities with a growth of 43% or 2,903 patents filed in total.

The next few places are occupied by Japanese corporations Canon, Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba. Intel, the market leader in the semiconductor area, sees a 12% reduction in its patent activities and comes in eighth. Once on a par with Intel in terms of patent applications, Intel's competitor AMD trailed far behind with only 204 new patents (including 16 by GlobalFoundries). Among the German firms, Siemens, ranking twenty first with 740 patents, managed to push a few places ahead of its former subsidiary Infineon, whose 639 patents show a fall back in filing rate of 24 per cent.

As usual, this first evaluation via the USPTO server is likely to differ a few positions from the figures provided by the IFI patent service, which also takes into account variables like misspelled or multiple company names.

Rank 2009	Company	2008 (IFIs)	2008 (USPTO)	2009 (USPTO)	Difference in %
1	IBM, USA	4186	4160	4895	18
2	Samsung, KR	3515	3674	3828	4
3	Microsoft, USA	2030	2026	2903	43
4	Canon, JP	2114	2110	2189	4
5	Matsushita, JP	1745	1822	1862	2
6	Sony, JP	1485	1484	1678	13
7	Toshiba, JP	1609	1568	1649	5
8	Intel, USA	1776	1775	1563	-12
9	Seiko/Epson, JP	1229	1225	1326	8
10	Hewlett Packard, USA	1424	1420	1271	-10
11	Fujitsu, JP	1494	1491	1217	-18
12	LG Electronics, KR	805	804	1063	32
13	Hitachi, JP	1313	1311	1056	-19
14	Hon Hai Precision, TW	719	714	990	39
15	Ricoh, JP	857	857	986	15
16	GEC, USA	912	905	971	7
17	Micron Tech., USA	1250	1244	965	-22
18	Cisco, USA	704	704	913	30
19	Fujifilm, JP	869	853	875	3
20	Denso Corp., JP	708	706	745	6