Tech giant IBM has announced that it received a record 6,478 patents in 2012 — the 20th consecutive year that the company topped the annual list of US patent recipients.
The patented inventions cut across key domains including analytics, big data, cybersecurity, cloud, mobile, social networking and software defined environments, as well as industry solutions for retail, banking, healthcare, and transportation.
The inventions also will advance a major shift in computing, known as the era of cognitive systems, according to IBM.
“While 20 straight years of patent leadership is an important technological and scientific milestone, what it really demonstrates is the outcome of IBM’s long-standing commitment to research, development and to innovation that matters, for our clients, for our company and for the world,” said Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, president and country general manager of IBM Philippines.
“IBM has continually introduced major advances that have time and again re-shaped the IT industry and other industries, as we’ve applied these technologies to solve important problems for our clients and society at large.”
IBM’s record-setting 2012 patent tally was made possible by more than 8,000 IBM inventors residing in 46 different US states and 35 countries.
IBM inventors residing outside the US contributed to nearly 30 percent of the company’s 2012 US patent output.
From 1993-2012, IBM inventors received nearly 67,000 US patents. The company’s 2012 patent count exceeded the combined totals of Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EMC, HP, Intel, Oracle/Sun, and Symantec.
The top ten list of 2012 U.S. patent recipients includes:
1. IBM — 6,478
2. Samsung — 5,081
3. Canon — 3,174
4. Sony — 3,032
5. Panasonic — 2,769
6. Microsoft — 2,613
7. Toshiba — 2,447
8. Hon Hai — 2,013
9. General Electric — 1,652
10. LG Electronics — 1,624
