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IBM bags most patents in 2010, leads for 18th year
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 20:01 IST
Wilmington (Delaware): IBM continues its run in bagging the most number of patents after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the company 5,896 patents. IBM has led the pack in winning patents for the past 18 years and this year it became the first company to surpass the 5,000 patent mark.
The company has registered a 20 percent growth in claiming patents from 2009 when it bagged 4,914 patents. The year also marked a growth in issue of patents. Darlene Slaughter, General Manager of IFI CLAIMS Patent Services said, "The tremendous increase in patent issues in 2010 suggests that so far the economy doesn't appear to have slowed patent flow significantly in the U.S."
A company that has exceptionally performed in the patent area this year is Apple. It has almost doubled its patent count from 289 in 2009 to 563 in 2010. This has also led the company to the list of Top 50 Global Companies to win most number of patents, placing Apple in the 46th rank.
Samsung, and Microsoft followed IBM in second and third positions respectively with 4551 and 3094 patents granted to them. Other Asian companies in the Top 10 include Canon, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony and LG. Intel with 1653 and Hewlett Packard with 1480 patents rounded off the Top 10 companies' list.
