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USPTO Released List of Top 10 Patent Receivers

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-owns-it dept.

prostoalex writes "So who received the most patents in 2004? Despite the frequent publicity around Microsoft's or Amazon's frivolous patents, these two companies are not even on the list. IBM, Matsushita and Canon received the most patents in 2004, followed by HP, Micron, Samsung, Intel, Hitachi, Toshiba and Sony. IBM alone was granted 3,248 patents last year."

9 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. No surprise there by geekee · · Score: 4, Funny

    IBM is notorious for making people write papers and patents as part of their job description.

    --
    Vote for Pedro
  2. patents by sometwo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everything that can be invented has been invented.
    -- Charles Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899

    1. Re:patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
      -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925

  3. Before the "where's microsoft"... by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Remember, these companies actually innovated something.

    And if you're wondering what the hell Matsushita is, well, they basically own everything.

  4. Matsushita Good, Sony Bad by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Funny

    Working with these two companies closely (lots of PSP and big screen TVs delivered this year), there is one thing that I've noticed with regards to these two companies.

    Matsushita is the good guys. They license their technology out at very low prices, and if a competitor invents a similar technology, they are very unlikely to bring down the weight of their patent portfolio on them.

    Sony, OTOH, is the typical portfolio protector. They are very difficult to work with because their tight-fistedness with patents and IP means that everything they do needs to be negotiated and agreements have to be made between many different IPR holders just to come up with a new product.

    This is also why Matsushita (Panasonic, if you didn't know) is almost universally loved and Sony continues to put out shoddy merchandise.

  5. IBM's Patent Culture - an anecdote by tfinniga · · Score: 5, Funny

    I knew a guy who did an internship at IBM - I think he helped do internal IT for their boxes. Anyhow, while he was there, he was showing someone a neat trick he did with the init system on the linux boxes, so that it'd start up an interactive shell on a different terminal as soon as possible. The advantage being that if some process held up the boot, you could fix it (ie kill -9). I think dhcp was a big culprit on the distro they were using.

    Anyhow, his boss recommended that he get a patent on the change.

    So, I'm not too surprised to see them on the list.

    --
    Powered by Web3.5 RC 2
  6. Re:four digits? by Dolda2000 · · Score: 5, Funny
    I don't understand how one corporation can have 3,248 original ideas.
    Original ideas? I thought this was patents we were talking about.
  7. Re:IBM is on fire! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Another parasite... argh... Why cant a small tsunami take him out..

  8. Re:four digits? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    IBM has been innovators, and its shown by being #1 in patents for the last 11 years.

    But this completely smashes my notion of Microsoft being the innovation company. The constant barrage of remarks they make must mean its true. Right?

    This is truly a sad day now...