IBM inventors received a record 5,896 US patents in 2010, marking the 18th consecutive year the company has topped the list of the world’s most inventive companies. Samsung was second, with 4,551 US patents, and Microsoft was third with 3,094.
IBM’s Haifa Research Lab in Israel received 45 patents in 2010 making it the leading recipient of US patents in Israel, ahead of SanDisk-Israel (Nasdaq:SNDK) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA). IBM in Israel exceeded the combined total of patents received by Technion and Hebrew Universities.
According to IBM, 108 patents issued to the company in 2010 included at least one inventor from Israel.
IBM Israel IP counsel Suzanne Erez said, "The Israeli R&D labs are a big factor in IBM's technology leadership. Our foresight has had a significant influence on many technologies being worked on by IBM. Just some examples include the new xBox, social networking tools, financial transactions, and the world's fastest microprocessors. The Israeli ability to think out of the box is helping define new markets and changing the directions of many advances."
IBM became the first company to be granted as many as 5,000 U.S. patents in a single year.
IBM received patents for a range of inventions in 2010, such as a method for gathering, analyzing, and processing patient information from multiple data sources to provide more effective diagnoses of medical conditions; and a system for predicting traffic conditions based on information exchanged over short-range wireless communications.
More than 7,000 IBM inventors residing in 46 different US states and 29 countries generated the company's record-breaking 2010 patent tally. Inventors residing outside the U.S. contributed to more than 22% of the company's patents in 2010, representing a 27% increase over international inventor contributions during the last three years.
IBM’s 2010 patent total exceeded the combined issuances of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, EMC, and Google.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 11, 2011
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