In my perusal of the Patent Office website, came across this interesting table. Of the top 11 companies to obtain US patents in 1997, 7 are Japanese and I believe 5 or 6 of them (plus MOT) hold QCOM cdma licenses. With this kind of innovative power behind the technology, there should be great strides into the future.
PTO 98-1 / JANUARY 12, 1998
CONTACT Richard Maulsby /Lisa-Joy Zgorski (703) 305-8341
USPTO ANNOUNCES TOP PATENT EARNERS
IBM AGAIN TOPS THE LIST
ARLINGTON, VA -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the top patent recipients for
the 1997 calendar year. The USPTO received over 210,000 patent applications in 1997 and issued over 120,000 patents.
The following organizations received the most patents for inventions, i.e. utility patents.
1997 Rank
1997 Patents
Organization
1996 Rank
1996 Patents
1
1,724
IBM
1
1,867
2
1,381
Canon
2
1,541
3
1,095
NEC Corporation
4
1,043
4
1,058
Motorola Inc
3
1,064
5
935
U.S. GOVERNMENT
7
923
6
903
Fujitsu Limited
9
869
903
Hitachi
5
963
8
892
Mitsubishi
6
934
9
862
Toshiba Corporation
8
914
10
859
Sony
10
855
11
795
Eastman Kodak Company
13
768
For the fifth straight year, IBM received more utility patents than any other non-Federal patenting organization. The top
eleven patenting organizations consist of three U.S. corporations, seven Japanese corporations, and the U.S. government.
Patent information presented reflects patent ownership at patent grant and does not include changes in ownership which occur
after the patent grant. Where more than one assignee (owner)exists, patents are attributed to the first-named assignee.
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