For the 12th straight year, IBM has topped the list of companies receiving U.S. patents, according to an annual report published
Tuesday by a unit of the Dutch information services company WoltersKluwer.
Big Blue was awarded 3,277 patents, followed by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial with 1,965 and Canon KK, a unit of
Canon Inc., with 1,813. In fourth place was Hewlett-Packard Development with 1,780 and Micron Technology with 1,761, according
to the report.
The patent data is based on research compiled by IFI Claims Patent Services, based in Wilmington, Delaware. IFI Claims is
a unit of Wolters Kluwer Health, a division of the Amsterdam-based WoltersKluwer Group.
For the first time since 1995, however, the total number of issued U.S. patents declined, down 2.7 percent to 164,402 from
the year before, according to the report.
U.S. companies led all industries with 23 of the top slots, followed by Japan-based companies pinning down 16 slots.
In the biotechnology sector, The University of California, ranked number 42 in the top-50 list, led the biotechnology sector
with 447 patents. Other biotech contenders included Applera, Germany's Degussa, and the U.S. Government Health and Human Services.
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