Apple was granted 2,536 patents in the United States last year, surpassed by only six other companies, IFI Claims reports.
In its rankings of the top 50 U.S. patent assignees in 2023, IFI Claims Patent Services shows that Apple was granted 251 more patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2023 compared to the previous year, an 11% increase. This moved the company one place up the annual patent rankings.
Apple's number of granted patents was surpassed by Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, TSMC, IBM, Canon, and Samsung Display. Samsung Electronics again dwarfed the other top companies, with 6,165 patents granted. Apple outranked companies including LG, Micron, Intel, Huawei, Toyota, Google, Microsoft, BOE, and Amazon. Out of IFI's "Magnificent Seven" technology companies, encompassing Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, Apple was the clear leader for new patents in 2023.
IFI Claims' 2023 Global 250 rankings reveal the world's largest patent holders by looking at all of the patents currently held by companies. In these rankings, Apple takes 51st place with 21,407 active patents. Panasonic is currently the world leader for active patents, with 94,341 in total, edging out Samsung who has 92,593 patents.
Apple's patent filings often reveal interesting insights into the company's specific areas of research and development, but they are not representative of its immediate plans. Recent interesting Apple filings include designs for all-glass iPhones and Apple Watches, a removable MacBook key that works as a mouse, user authentication technology for AirPods, a hydration sensor for the Apple Watch, use of the Mac Pro's "cheese grater" like design on other Apple devices, periscope camera systems, and deployable MacBook Pro feet to aid cooling.
Top Rated Comments
I suspect a non-trivial fraction of offices at the Great Annulus of Cupertino is given over to legal staff.
Intellectual Property (IP) are a topic of increasing discussion globally. The Copyright laws in the US are probably too prohibitive and restricting creativity, for example.
The companies listed in this article all have developed their patent-making-machine over many years. Canon, for example, has long been filing very large number of patents, seemingly outsized for their actual revenues. But they bank on those patents to see them through when they can no longer compete on price against makers in lower-cost nations.