IBM On Track To Get More Than 7,000 US Patents In 2016 (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday December 23, 2016 @06:40AM from the patent-quest dept.

IBM wants to put the patent war in perspective. Big Blue said that it is poised to get the most U.S. patents of any tech company for the 24th year in a row. From a report on VentureBeat: In 2015, IBM received more than 7,355 patents, down slightly from 7,534 in 2014. A spokesperson for IBM said the company is on track to receive well over 7,000 patents in 2016. In 2016, IBM is also hitting another interesting milestone, with more than 1,000 patents for artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. IBM has been at it for more than a century, and it is seeking patents in key strategic areas -- such as AI and cognitive computing. In fact, one-third of IBM's researchers are dedicated to cognitive computing. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said during the World of Watson conference in October that the company expects to reach more than 1 billion consumers via Watson by the end of 2017. (Watson is the supercomputer that beat the world's best Jeopardy player in 2011.)

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Of course they do by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-23 07:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

IBM puts all their dev/IT contractors in a room, and "suggests" they write down all ideas they have for patents, determined either during their brief time there or at any other time in their lives.
They then feed those to legal for evaluation for viability for patent application. They directly say this during the "meeting".
IBM simply strip-mines the brains of everyone who works them. I'm surprised the patents number isn't higher.
Yes, I was such a contractor, and yes, this is first-hand knowledge.