Samsung to surpass IBM in US invention patents this year

Beijing time, December 15th morning news, Samsung is likely to surpass IBM this year and become the company with the largest number of US invention patents.

IBM has been the company with the most U.S. invention patents for the past 22 years. However, this year, unless IBM can obtain a large number of patents before the end of the year, this position will be surpassed by Samsung. Samsung has been ranked second for nearly 10 years.

The data comes from Sqoop, a website that tracks public records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which typically publishes final filings for the previous year in the spring.

Samsung and IBM are almost neck and neck in terms of U.S. patents so far this year, with Samsung having 7,679 patents and another 4,443 pending, compared to IBM's 7,005 and 4,126, respectively.

Sqoop's data includes patents applied for this year, as well as patent application activities in previous years, and also counts patent applications from parent companies and subsidiaries. Typically, a patent application takes 3 to 4 years to complete the approval process.

The number of patents a company receives is influenced by a range of factors, including internal research and development, mergers and acquisitions, and spin-offs. About 90% of patents issued by the USPTO are invention patents.