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13 January 2010, 12:39

Patents: IBM still leads while Microsoft filings show strong growth

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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

(crve)

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