Patent prowess

By Ann Bednarz, NetworkWorld.com, 01/12/06

IBM topped the list of patent-producing U.S. companies for the 13th year in a row. This time, Big Blue's annual tally was 2,972 patents, according to industry watcher IFI Patent Intelligence.

Canon and HP came in a No. 2 and No. 3 on IFI's list, with 1,837 and 1,801 patents, respectively.

It's the first time since 2001 that IBM has earned fewer than 3,000 patents in a calendar year. The 2005 tally represents a 9% drop over 2004, when IBM earned 3,274 patents, according to IFI.

IBM's decline is in line with a national drop in patents granted. IFI says the total number of U.S. patents issued in 2005 declined 12% compared to 2004.

But not all vendors' patent counts dropped. Microsoft -- which is No. 18 on IFI's list -- grew its annual patent count to 746, up 18% over 2004. No. 39 Broadcom upped its count by 38% to 414.

Darlene Slaughter, general manager of IFI Patent Intelligence, says the number of patent applications filed is rising, and she blames the overall drop in patents granted on a backlog of application processing.

A report issued last Nov. by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cites the increasing complexity of patent applications as one reason for the processing backlog. "In short, the volume and complexity of patent applications continues to outpace current capacity to examine them. The result is a pending -- and growing -- application backlog of historic proportions," states Jon Dudas, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the USPTO, in the report.

To help alleviate the strain on the USPTO and begin to reform the patent system, government and private industry are getting together to in an initiative aimed at speeding up the patent approval process and improving the quality of patents. IBM and Open Source Development Labs are among the parties involved.

Meanwhile, among the top patent-earning companies, IT vendors made a strong showing in IFI's 2005 list. Intel ranked 7th with 1,551 patents; Texas Instruments ranked 19th with 736 patents; NEC ranked 22nd with 673 patents; and Sun ranked 23rd with 654 patents.

Cisco climbed from 44th to 36th place with 439 patents, and Nortel fell eight notches to 46th place with 375 patents.

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