Indian techie is US's patent raja
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Monday, 19 January 2004, 20:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: Ravi Arimilli is patently the king of inventions and innovations in the world of high-tech research, reports an Indian daily. The Indian-born techie was awarded a whopping 53 patents in 2003 – nearly one every week - to add to the nearly 200 patents he has won for IBM, including a record 78 last year. For the 11th year running, the US Patent Office last week declared IBM to be undisputed leader among companies undertaking patent producing research worldwide, awarding the company popularly known as Big Blue a record 3,415 patents in 2003. Within Big Blue itself, Arimilli, a technocrat-engineer at its Austin facility, remained king. "It's gratifying to be awarded so many patents so consistently, but the real credit should go to IBM, which fosters enterprise and risk taking," Arimilli said in an interview last week, speaking in slangy, rapid fire American English far removed from Telugu, the only language he knew when he came to the US as a six-year old in 1969. If Ravi is the patent king, his brother Baba Arimilli, who works alongside him at IBM, is the crown prince. He won 13 patents in 2003. Between them, the brothers' 66 patents represented more than 10 per cent of the Austin IBM patent output for the entire year. Over the past decade, IBM has won over 25,000 patents, nearly triple the total of any US tech competitor. Engineers and researchers of Indian origin have fueled the company's surge. IBM's patent portfolio is said to generate an average of more than $1 billion in intellectual-property royalties annually. (Source: Economic Times)

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