IBM tops the patent list in 2016 with 8,088 patents; Apple not in top 10.

IBM, the American multinational company, was granted a record number of 8088 utility patents in the year 2016 by USPTO, a report from IFI Claims revealed.  The total patent grants of IBM rose by 10% from 7353 patents in the year 2016. This is the 24^th straight year IBM topped the charts with the most number of patents granted. Samsung, came second with a total of 5,518 granted patents, followed by Canon, Qualcomm and Google. The top 5 positions remained unchanged from 2015.

Intel came sixth with 2,784 patents granted, an increase of 36% from the year 2015. Microsoft stood at eighth position with 2,398 patents, an increase of 22% from 1,956 patents granted in the year 2015. Apple, the largest company in terms of market capitalisation,  came at the eleventh position with 2,102 patents, an increase of 8.5% from 1,938 patents granted last year.

In terms of percentage, GlobalFoundries, a semiconductor foundry rose the most with an increase of 131.0% from 605 patents in 2015 to 1,407 patents in 2016. Nokia, which appeared at 49^th position gained by 74% with 695 patents up from 88 patents in the year 2015. Huawei Technologies was granted 1,202 patents, an increase of 50% from 800 patents granted last year.  Amazon, which came 22^nd gained by 46% from 1,136 patents to 1,662 patents. Among the top losers by percentage are Sony, Toshiba, Ricoh, Brother Industries, Honda & Sharp which fell by over 10%.

41% of companies that were granted patents belonged to the USA followed by Japan with 28% of patent grantees. South Korea, Taiwan, Germany came in next three positions. Regarding CPC codes, G06F (Electrical Digital Data Processing) topped the list with 47,102 patents followed by H04L (Transmission Of Digital Information, E.G. Telegraphic Communication) with 30,608 patents. Among the top 5 CPC codes are H01L, Y10T, H04W.

Indian MNC Wipro came at 742 position with 49 granted patents up from 25 patents in the year 2015.

Among design patents, Samsung Electronics came first with 1,428 patents followed LG Electronics with 455 patents, Microsoft Corp with 318 patents and Apple Inc with 189 patents respectively.