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

By Peter Zura

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)

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on January 10, 2011 (boomark / email).