Good idea. Here's the patent table. Cube 95, 96, through 5/97. 2/1/7 patents.
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Patent Polling
Although much of the multimedia industry has its intellectual property concerns grounded firmly in copyright-related matters, patent law is also a serious issue, particularly for the industry giants (as shown). Below is a segmented breakdown of patents approved by the U.S. Patent Office for some multimedia firms from 1995 through May 1997. The chart is not intended to represent the entire industry and some firms may have more patents approved under their subsidiaries or different corporate names.
Industry/Company
'95
'96
'97
Computer Systems
Apple Computers 124
185
98
IBM Corp. 1,466
1,915
690
Silicon Graphics 15
36
9
Sun Microsystems 69
113
41
Hewlett-Packard 493
523
207
Communications Equip.
3COM 15
21
4
Bay Networks 1
10
3
Cisco Systems 1
3
2
Lucent Technologies 0
325
297
Motorola 1,117
1,168
422
Semiconductors
Adaptec 2
7
6
C-Cube Microsystems 2
1
7
Cirrus Logic 33
64
34
Intel Corp. 275
424
166
LSI Logic 80
126
52
Software (Apps / Auth. Tools)
Adobe Systems 1
13
3
Macromedia 2
1
3
Microsoft 53
102
65
Netscape Communications 0
0
0
Oracle Systems 3
8
2
Software (Content)
Electronic Arts 2
0
0
3DO 2
6
3
Pixar Anim. Studios 1
0
0
Online/Internet Services
America Online 0
0
0
Excite Inc. 0
1
0
Compuserve 1
3
2
(Rep. Howard Coble's office, Ed McDonald, 202/225-3065; Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Michael Epstein, 415/926-6200; SPA, Mark Traphagen, 202/452-1600 x322) |
