As patent reforms continue to move slowly through the legislative system, the number of patents being awarded has declined for the first time in seven years.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office issued 298,407 utility patents in 2014, according to a new report from IFI Claims. As a point of comparison, last year the research group tracked 300,678 utility patent grants. IBM remains the leader with the most patents filed, although its numbers are also down: 7,355 patents in the 2015 table versus 7,534 a year ago.
Despite the declines, the numbers are down by only less than one percent versus a year ago. In other words, if we are seeing a less heated view of patents and their effect on business (or alternately, how they may negatively impact innovation), it’s still a minor one.
“After seven straight years of prolific patent growth, 2015 saw the first sign of de- acceleration,” said Mike Baycroft, CEO, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, in a statement. “I wouldn’t suggest though that the patent train is losing momentum as many companies continue to crank out more patents than the previous year. That historic seven-year run was remarkable especially when you consider that IBM, Samsung and Canon each generate more than twice as many patents now as they did a decade ago.”
Indeed, when it comes to potential patents, the numbers are actually up. Applications for the 2015 tables are now at 381,424. The 2014 tables noted 379,453 patent applications.
As you would expect, the top rankings in the list are dominated by tech companies. The top 10, in fact, are all tech companies:
RANK
Assignee
CC
Count
1
International Business Machines Corp
US
7355
2
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
KR
5072
3
Canon KK
JP
4134
4
Qualcomm Inc
US
2900
5
Google Inc
US
2835
6
Toshiba Corp
JP
2627
7
Sony Corp
JP
2455
8
LG Electronics Inc
KR
2242
9
Intel Corp
US
2048
10
Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC
US
1956
Apple continued to hold on to number 11 with 1,938 patents filed (although down 3% on a year ago). Others advancing up the table included Qualcomm and Google both going up three places and Intel back into the top 10 after a year away, a jump of seven places.
What IFI’s larger top-50 table, embedded below, doesn’t really draw out are whether there are any trends around what kind of patents are being granted — whether, for example, we are seeing a rise in autonomous vehicle-related patents or declines in patents that are related to mobile phones. In a way, this could be a more accurate marker of where innovation is focused at the moment.
What the IFI does point out are the top 10 classifications for patents (which the USPTO is standardizing on the international cooperative patent classification system):
CPC
2015 Utility Grants
CPC Definition
G06F
43,652
Computers – Electrical Digital Data Processing
H04L
28,117
Telecommunications – Transmission of Digital Information
H01L
25,409
Semiconductors
Y10T
25,108
Metal Working and Hardware – fasteners and connectors
H04N
16,602
Television and Video – Pictorial Communication
H04W
16,529
Wireless Communication Networks
A61K
12,197
Pharmaceuticals
A61B
11,921
Medical Diagnostics
G06Q
8,828
Business Methods Data Processing
G01N
8,501
Testing Instruments – Investigating or analyzing materials by determining their chemical of physical properties.
It notes that grants in the business methods patent class declined to 8,828 from 11,690 in 2014. IFI cites the 2014 Supreme Court decision in the Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank International, which tightened the rules on which business methods are patentable. “The impact of the decision can be seen in the drop in G06Q patents,” it writes. This is a good sign for those who are hoping for more legal precedent and how it impacts patent reform in other areas.
Some other notable details: Amazon made one of the more impressive jumps, from number 50 to number 26 (with 1,136 patents) — another sign of how the company has tried to shift away from its e-commerce roots into a whole different range of businesses from cloud computing to mobile services and new hardware.
Another trend IFI has drawn out involves how some larger companies are spreading their patents across multiple entities. In fact, the “Microsoft Technology Licensing” that appears as number-10 in the list below was ranked 979th a year ago. “Microsoft Corp.” meanwhile, which was ranked fifth last year, this year took only 458 patents.
Similarly, “Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co Ltd” at number 18 was 971st a year ago. The vast majority of Google’s patents are going to “Google Inc.” but there is another entity called “Google Technology Holdings LLC”. It’s not clear exactly why these are now getting split, whether for litigation or other purposes. (We’re going to try to find out and update this with an explanation.)
Top 50 list below.
RANK
Grants
Assignee Name
Country
1
7355
International Business Machines Corp
United States
2
5072
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
Korea
3
4134
Canon KK
Japan
4
2900
Qualcomm Inc
United States
5
2835
Google Inc
United States
6
2627
Toshiba Corp
Japan
7
2455
Sony Corp
Japan
8
2242
LG Electronics Inc
Korea
9
2048
Intel Corp
United States
10
1956
Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC
United States
11
1938
Apple Inc
United States
12
1838
Samsung Display Co Ltd
Korea
13
1774
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
Taiwan
14
1757
General Electric Co
United States
15
1627
Ricoh Co Ltd
Japan
16
1620
Seiko Epson Corp
Japan
17
1581
Toyota Motor Corp
Japan
18
1474
Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co Ltd
Japan
19
1467
Fujitsu Ltd
Japan
20
1407
Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson
Sweden
21
1315
GM Global Technology Operations LLC
United States
22
1304
Hewlett Packard Development Co LP
United States
23
1187
Brother Kogyo KK
Japan
24
1185
Ford Global Technologies LLC
United States
25
1142
Robert Bosch GmbH
Germany
26
1136
Amazon Technologies Inc
United States
27
1129
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co Ltd
Japan
28
1085
Broadcom Corp
United States
29
1083
Hon Hai Precision IndUnited Statestry Co Ltd
Taiwan
30
1071
BlackBerry Ltd
Canada
31
1031
Honda Motor Co Ltd
Japan
32
1011
Siemens AG
Germany
33
997
Sharp KK
Japan
34
976
Boeing Co
United States
35
961
Micron Technology Inc
United States
36
960
Cisco Technology Inc
United States
37
923
Koninklijke Philips NV
Netherlands
38
896
Mitsubishi Electric Corp
Japan
39
891
SK Hynix Inc
Korea
40
885
AT&T Intellectual Property I LP
United States
41
809
Xerox Corp
United States
41
809
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Korea
43
808
Texas Instruments Inc
United States
44
800
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
China
45
792
NEC Corp
Japan
46
778
Denso Corp
Japan
47
747
FUJIFILM Corp
Japan
48
746
Honeywell International Inc
United States
49
745
Covidien LP
United States
50
744
Hyundai Motor Co
Korea
