The tech industry is certainly one that places a high importance on patents. We regularly see stories of companies suing each other over patents, buying patents off each other and being granted new patents. That’s why it’s definitely interesting to examine the new report by IFI Claims that shows which companies were granted the most patents in the U.S. during 2012.
Apple’s rival Samsung put away most of the competition with 5081 patents granted, coming second only to patent champion IBM, which raked in a dominating 6478 patents. Apple isn’t mentioned until the 22nd spot with their 1136 granted patents, and to add insult to injury, the company sits directly behind Google, which is in 21st place with 1151 patents.
The report only counts utility patents, which are more valuable and cover the technology behind how the product works, as opposed to physical design patents.
A high number of patents is usually a sign of a company’s significant research & development efforts. There are still, however, a noticeably high number of questionable patents that go through.
Check out the full top 50 list here.
