IFI Claims Report 2020: IBM Tops the US Patent Recipient List & Samsung Owns the Most Active Patents
Patent database provider IFI Claims has recently published its 2020 results for the Top 50 US patent grant recipient list and the Global 250 list of top owners of active patent assets worldwide.
For the Top 50 list, International Business Machines (IBM) in year 2020 held the No. 1 spot again among all firms receiving US patents, a place which it has occupied for the 28th year in a row. Details of the leading ten companies on the list were tabulated as follows.
|
Ranking |
Companies |
Patents received |
|
1 |
International Business Machines Corp. |
9,130 |
|
2 |
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
6,415 |
|
3 |
Canon Inc. |
3,225 |
|
4 |
Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC |
2,905 |
|
5 |
Intel Corp. |
2,867 |
|
6 |
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. |
2,833 |
|
7 |
LG Electronics Inc. |
2,831 |
|
8 |
Apple Inc. |
2,791 |
|
9 |
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. |
2,761 |
|
10 |
Qualcomm Inc. |
2,276 |
In terms of growth in patents received, South Korean car manufacturer Kia Motors (ranked 24th) received 1,322 grants in 2020, seeing a 43% leap from 921 grants in 2019; Sharp (ranked 32nd) also rose sharply, by 27 percent, and Taiwan Semiconductor (ranked 6th) by 21 percent, whereas Huawei (ranked 9th) was granted 14 percent more patents in 2020.
In 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) received a total of 413,176 patent applications, a 5% increase over the 394,349 patent applications filed at the USPTO during 2019. And a total of 352,013 patent grants were issued by the USPTO in 2020, representing only a slight drop of 0.68% from the previous year (354,428). Regarding the unexpected increase in patent application filing activity during the year despite the COVID-19 pandemic, IFI Claims CEO Mike Baycroft said that the true impacts of COVID-19 on patent filing applications might not become clearer until late 2021 or perhaps even beyond, as U.S. applications are published 18 months after they are originally filed.
As for the Top 250 Global 2020, which lists the world's largest active patent holders as of 2020, Samsung, with a collection of 155 subsidiaries, continued to top the ranking with a very wide margin from the rest of the leaders. The top 10 of this list were:
|
Ranking |
Companies |
Active patents owned |
|
1 |
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
80,577 |
|
2 |
International Business Machines Corp. |
38,541 |
|
3 |
Canon Inc. |
36,161 |
|
4 |
Microsoft Corp. |
30,042 |
|
5 |
Robert Bosch GmbH |
28,235 |
|
6 |
Panasonic Corp. |
26,705 |
|
7 |
LG Electronics Inc. |
24,313 |
|
8 |
General Electric Co. |
23,630 |
|
9 |
Intel Corp . |
23,523 |
|
10 |
Siemens AG |
22,373 |
