Dive Brief:
- IBM was once again the top recipient of U.S. patents in 2016, a title Big Blue has retained for 24 consecutive years, according to IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. The firm ranks global patent assignees by number of utility patents received each calendar year.
- IBM received 8,088 patents in 2016, nearly 10% more than in 2015, setting a new record for a single company. The other top five recipients, which were unchanged from 2015, included with Samsung, Canon, Qualcomm and Google.
- Overall, 2016 saw 304,126 patent grants, the most on record in a single year.
Dive Insight:
IBM has been devoted to R&D efforts from its inception, so it’s little surprise the company still leads in this area. It’s 8,000+ patents for the year works out to more than 22 a day.
More than one-third of the patents granted overall last year related to AI, cognitive computing and cloud computing, indicating growing interest in those areas.
The growth of patents filed indicates that the tech industry continues to push the innovation envelope.Patents increased among 10 of the 17 firms on the list, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Boeing, Cisco, Ford, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Texas Instruments.
Several Asian companies are making a run at U.S. companies when it comes to patents filed in the U.S. Nokia increased the number of patents it received by 74% in 2016, Hyundai was up 39% and China’s Huawei Technologies was up 50%.
