IBM Tops 2018 Patent List as AI and Quantum Computing Gain Prominence (fortune.com)

IBM earned a record 9,100 U.S. patents in 2018, marking the 26th year in a row the Armonk, New York-based company has been the top recipient. From a report: Samsung was second with 5,850 patents while tech giants Apple and Microsoft also appeared in the top ten, according to a list compiled by research service IFI Claims. IBM's latest patent haul, which topped the 9,043 it received last year, includes a growing number of inventions related to artificial intelligence and quantum computing, which many people see as critical technologies of the future.

Comments

"earned"

[110010001000]

You mean "paid for". At this point, patents mean nothing except you paid the fee.

Re:"earned"

[jellomizer]

Well you need to pay for it first.

Re:"earned"

[ClickOnThis]

I'm guessing you never wrote a patent before. I have. So have several family members. It's work. Believe me, once it's granted, you feel like you earned it.

Re:How can their be quantum computing patents?

[110010001000]

There isn't AI either, but that doesn't stop them from filing "patents" on it. IBM is a failed business.

How exactly does...

[TheZeitgeist]

...IBM make a living these days? They don't sell computers, matter of fact they don't seem to sell "Business Machines" at all that I know about. So I watch their commercials sometimes, but that doesn't help - I just learn that Watson apparently is the answer for how anodyne politically-correct worlds get smarter supply chains for lattes or something. Does IBM send an invoice after Watson makes me "smarter?" How do they get money? Who pays them? I don't know anymore.

Re:How exactly does...

[laffer1]

They own cloud computing infrastructure that competes with AWS. They own redhat. They do consulting. They just sold lotus.

Re:How exactly does...

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM bills other large incompetent companies and governments.

So they are funded by taxpayers.

Re:How exactly does...

[bws111]

As to 'business machines', they sell zSeries (mainframes), pSeries (UNIX servers), and storage.

Re:How exactly does...

[Njovich]

They may not sell you a laptop, but they provide entire IT infrastructures, major applications and large scale IT consulting to organizations like banks, government agencies, etc.

HMMMM

[WolfgangVL]

A single entity can receive 25 patents a day... for a year.

It seems like there should be at least a 24 hour cooldown before your next submittal.

Or a patent tax?

I don't know, but 9100/year seems excessive.

Re:HMMMM

[WolfgangVL]

Why should they be limited?

This is an excellent question.

I own no patents of my own, but I have been instrumental in the R&D process that led to more than one in the course of my job-duties. I'm also very critical of our (as in US) IP laws in general, and am still pretty unhappy about the state of affairs regarding the ever increasing barrier of entry regarding bringing novel inventions to market, creation and decimation of intellectual property, and the existence of patent and copyright trolls. Maybe I'm just a tech guy with an axe to grind, but from where I sit, our entire IP system is completely captured, and quite clearly runs counter to its original mission.

I can't see how granting any single entity such a vast array of monopoly powers over technology is useful in the promotion of industrial and technological progress in the United States. It seems to me that a great majority of granted patents are buried in the interest of protecting big business, or held onto in the hope of suing some other inventor, or are added to some not-inventors portfolio for rent seeking or business class destruction of the completion. (which I understand is kinda of the point, but not on the scale we have today)

In the case of IBM, I would expect some new products to really blow my socks off, or some novel new tech to change the way we do business computing to surface a little more frequently than it does, considering the large amounts of novel discoveries and inventions they have been discovering every single day for years.

The USPO is run like a business. Operating 100% on the proceeds of filing fees. They collect this fee regardless of the applications outcome. They will never just reject an application. Knowing how much work a single patent application generates, and seeing a single entity walk away with this many successful applications really begs the question.... how many are rejected? How many times have these applications been thrown out on grounds of complete absurdity? How many absurd applications slip by, and how often?

Fun fact, granted patents have to be public, or the system wouldn't work. Have a look.

I see the utility, and hope to one day own a few patents of my own, but come on... Rounded corners?

I propose a percentage based patent tax based on revenue or profit, or a "use it or lose it" kind of system. The former would discourage abusing the system with huge amounts of worthless applications in the hopes that even a single one gets through, and the later pretty much completely destroys patents trolls, and actually promotes advancement.