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IBM Has Been Awarded An Average Of 24 Patents Per Day So Far In 2016 (qz.com)

Posted by msmash on from the patent-race dept.

Traditional companies continue to score a huge number of patents, reports Quartz. The publication deep dived into the patent filings to find which company has been awarded the most number of patents this year. According to its finding, IBM has been awarded 3,617 patents so far this year, whereas Samsung comes close with 3,032 patents during the same period. Behind these giants sit Google with 1,530 patents, Intel with 1,293, Qualcomm with 1,262, Microsoft with 1,232, and Apple with 1,060 patents. From the report: Although IBM's patent-producing power slowed somewhat in 2015, the number of patents it's received so far this year is up more than 13% compared to a year earlier. The company is in the middle of a painful reinvention, that sees the company shifting further away from hardware sales into cloud computing, analytics, and AI services. It's also plugging away on a myriad of fundamental scientific research projects -- many of which could revolutionize the world if they can come to fruition -- which is where many of its patent applications originate. IBM accounted for about 1% of all US patents awarded in 2015.

7 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's hard to believe a company can produce that many novel things that need protecting

  2. Who'd be an Inventor These Days? by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every variation of every possibility has been legally locked up, The message I'm getting is "Don't try profiting from anything new of we'll sue you out of existence."

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:Who'd be an Inventor These Days? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Every variation of every possibility has been legally locked up, The message I'm getting is "Don't try profiting from anything new of we'll sue you out of existence."

      Well, if you happen to work for IBM, I'm guessing it is worth your time to file a patent. They probably have some kind of compensation system where you get some dollars for a patent filed and granted. And it is probably a requirement for getting promoted to higher levels. And anyway, they probably have some of the meanest bad-assed M* F* patent attorneys from Hell working for them, who know how to push a patent through.

      Now if you are some guy working alone in your garage . . . there is no way that you can compete with these professional gunfighters. You could cure cancer, and the Big Boys would find a way to block the patent.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Who'd be an Inventor These Days? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The flood of patents also helps to cover of one of those "golden BB" types, you know, like one that manage to lock up something like hyperlinks or "playing a game via a remote server" (like a company I was previously working for got hit with) without a patent office clerk throwing it out as deserved for obviousness and prior art. What's tragic is that the companies that are actually innovating (like aforementioned company) are too busy actually *writing code* to bother with bullshit like patents.

      These goddamned things are just like landmines. It's almost a certainty any piece of sufficiently complex code is going to infringe on a number of patents. I suppose the only good news is that with all the ridiculously (patently) obvious stuff that's getting patented right now, about 20 years from now, it's going to be damned hard to find any software concept that hasn't already been patented and expired. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself to keep from getting too depressed about the situation.

      Damn... software patents really need to go. It's ridiculous. I keep wondering when the system is going to start imploding under its own weight.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  3. So which one do you think it is? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Either: 24 new inventions that required enough time and effort to warrant granting the one investing so heavily into their development protection from copycats per day, the singularity is practically on the horizon!

    Or: The patent system is FUBAR and has nothing to do anymore with its alleged function.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. They dropped out of the top 20 in R&D in 2015 by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First time in, well, almost forever that that's happened. Yeah IBM gets a lot of patents, but they also spend a lot in R&D. Have done so since the beginning of the 20th century. In 2015 their R&D spending dropped to $5.2 billion, which dropped them out of top 20 R&D companies in the world.

    Here's how the others mentioned in TFA stack up:

    IBM ........ $82b revenue ... $5.2b R&D ... 6.3% of revenue
    Saumsung .. $196b revenue .. $14.1b R&D ... 7.2% of revenue
    Google ..... $66b revenue ... $9.8b R&D .. 14.8% of revenue
    Intel ...... $56b revenue .. $11.5b R&D .. 20.6% of revenue
    Qualcomm ... $25b revenue ... $3.7b R&D .. 14.6% of revenue
    Microsoft .. $87b revenue .. $11.4b R&D .. 13.1% of revenue
    Apple ..... $183b revenue ... $6.0b R&D ... 3.3% of revenue

    Despite Apple's reputation among lay people as an innovator, they're really not. They don't use much of their income on R&D. This is their first year cracking the top 20 in R&D spending, and as you can see the percentage they spend on R&D trails far behind the others.

  5. Patent != Innovation by Mersault · · Score: 2

    Most IBM patents are junk. There was a programme there that awarded any crap that people could think up - I blocked one about 3D spatial audio because the guy had absolutely no idea how his 'idea' could actually be implemented.

    The only purpose of patents here is to provide weapons that IBM can bash other companies with (or prevent themselves being bashed by other company's patents). It only acts to discourage actual innovation by startups.

    --
    Mersault.