IFI Claims, today announced a ranking of global companies awarded the most U.S. patents in 2010.  IFI
uses proprietary algorithms and 50 years’ experience analyzing U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data to compile the de facto annual
ranking of U.S. utility-patent recipients.  Utility patents are the most
common patent type and a primary means of protecting intellectual
property and technological innovation.

According
to IFI analysis, the USPTO issued an all-time high of 219,614 utility
patents in 2010, up 31 percent from 2009 and the most significant annual
increase on record.  The official Top-50 company ranking appears below.
 IFI’s full report, which offers comprehensive 2010 patent information
on more than 2,000 companies, can be accessed online through IFI’s Patent Intelligence & Technology Report, available on its website starting today in a free-trial version.

“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.,” said Darlene Slaughter, general manager of IFI CLAIMS Patent
Services.  “Another important factor is the stepped up effort of the
USPTO to improve turnaround times and its five-year strategic plan to
increase efficiencies and reduce pendency.  The bottom line:  there is
still a backlog of patents pending but the number of grants continues to
grow even after a period of economic downturn.”

IBM First to Break 5,000-Patent Mark in a Single Year

IBM
continues to hold down the #1 position, which it has done for 18
consecutive years, with a record 5,896 patents, up 20 percent from 4,914
in 2009.  Samsung trails second with 4,551, up 26 percent; while
Microsoft is third with 3,094, up 6.5 percent.  All of the companies but
one in the Top 50 are up over the previous year, most shattering
records and many posting double-digit percentage gains.

Exceptional gainers in 2010’s Top 50 include:

·         Apple, +94%

·         Qualcomm, +84%

·         NEC, +74%

·         SAP, +70

·         GM Global Technology, +68%

·         Hynix Semiconductor, +65%

·         Silverbrook Research, +58%

·         3M Innovative Properties, +53%

·         Toyota, +50%

·         Brother, +45%

·         Hon Hai Precision Industry, +44%

·         LG Electronics, +40%

American Companies on Upswing

In
2010, American-headquartered companies collectively recaptured a lead
on the total number of U.S. patent grants after losing out slightly to
foreign companies for the previous two years.  U.S. assignees captured
50.3 percent of all U.S. utility patents in 2010 with the balance going
to foreign assignees.  In 2009, American firms received less than a
majority at 49 percent.

The
U.S. received more than twice as many corporate patents than Japan
(21.3%), the country with the second most U.S. patents issued in 2010.
 South Korea (5.4%) remained in third place; Germany (5.2%) in fourth;
and Taiwan in fifth (3.8%).

Market
sectors with the heaviest new patent activity include Multiplex
Communications (US class 370) at 3.3 percent of total; Solid-State
Devices and Transistors (US class 257) at 3.1 percent; Semiconductors
(US class 438) at 2.7 percent; and Data Processing and File Management
(US class 707) and Computers and Processing Systems (US class 709) both
at 2 percent.  In addition, Drug Compositions (US class 514) represents
2.1 percent of all patents and Biotechnology (US classes 435 and 530) is
2 percent.

IFI’s 2010 Top-50 Patent Assignees

RANK	COMPANY	2010 Patents
1	International Business Machines Corp	5896
2	Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (Korea)	4551
3	Microsoft Corp	3094
4	Canon K K (Japan)	2552
5	Panasonic Corp (Japan)	2482
6	Toshiba Corp (Japan)	2246
7	Sony Corp (Japan)	2150
8	Intel Corp	1653
9	LG Electronics Inc (Korea)	1490
10	Hewlett-Packard Development Co L P	1480
11	Hitachi Ltd (Japan)	1460
12	Seiko Epson Corp (Japan)	1443
13	Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (Taiwan)	1438
14	Fujitsu Ltd (Japan)	1296
15	General Electric Co	1225
16	Ricoh Co Ltd (Japan)	1200
17	Cisco Technology Inc	1115
18	Honda Motor Co Ltd (Japan)	1050
19	Fujifilm Corp (Japan)	1041
20	Hynix Semiconductor Inc (Japan)	973
21	Broadcom Corp	958
22	GM Global Technology Operations Inc	942
23	Micron Technology Inc	917
24	Siemens AG (Germany)	873
25	Xerox Corp	858
26	Denso Corp (Japan)	853
27	Texas Instruments Inc	829
28	Honeywell International Inc	824
29	Sharp K K (Japan)	818
30	Toyota Jidosha K K (Japan)	802
31	Infineon Technologies AG (Germany)	774
32	Brother Kogyo K K (Germany)	771
33	Nokia AB Oy (Finland)	760
34	Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd (Australia)	752
35	LG Display Co Ltd (Korea)	738
36	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co Ltd (Japan)	734
37	Mitsubishi Denki K K (Japan)	700
38	Koninklijke Philips Electronics N V (Netherlands)	685
39	NEC Corp (Japan)	680
40	Boeing Co	662
41	Qualcomm Inc	657
42	SAP AG (Germany)	649
43	Oracle America Inc/Sun Microsystems Inc*	646
44	Bosch, Robert GmbH (Germany)	593
45	Fuji Xerox Co Ltd (Japan)	574
46	Apple Inc	563
47	Du Pont de Nemours, E I & Co	509
48	Sanyo Electric Co Ltd (Japan)	504
49	3M Innovative Properties Co	496
50	Freescale Semiconductor Inc	494

*Sun Microsystems changed name to Oracle.

Patent Intelligence & Technology Report Now Available Online

Available now by visiting the IFI CLAIMS website at www.ificlaims.com, the Patent Intelligence & Technology Report (PITR) is
an online search tool that provides complete patent information and
rankings for more than 2,000 global companies assigned 10 U.S. patents
or more in 2010. For a limited time, a demo version of PITR is available
as a free, one-month trial subscription.

IFI CLAIMS Patent Services is a division of Fairview Research,
a provider of data enrichment technology and services for technical
information retrieval and analysis.  For more than 50 years, IFI has
been the preeminent producer of enhanced U.S. patent databases.  The
company maintains a comprehensive, global patent collection and utilizes
the powerful indexing and standardization algorithms of CLAIMS®, the
most reliable, text-searchable database of U.S. patents in the world.

For more information, visit www.fairviewresearch.com or www.ificlaims.com.