PRELIMINARY LIST OF TOP PATENTING ORGANIZATIONS *
                     Calendar Year 2001

This report presents a preliminary list of the organizations receiving 
the most patents for invention (i.e., utility patents) during the 2001 
calendar year.

For the ninth consecutive year, International Business Machines 
Corporation (IBM) ranks first among non-Federal patenting 
organizations. IBM received 3,411 utility patents for the year, up 18 
percent from its total for the year 2000. The top ten patenting 
organizations for 2001 consist of two U.S. corporations, seven Japanese 
corporations, and one corporation from the Republic of Korea.
 
NEC Corporation remains in second position with 1,953 patents and Canon 
Kabushiki Kaisha remains in third position with 1,877 patents. After 
joining the top ten list for the first time last year, Micron 
Technology, Inc. continued to increase its patent activity jumping to 
fourth position with 1,643 patents.
 
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Hitachi, Ltd, and Mitsubishi 
Denki Kabushiki Kaisha have joined the top ten list for 2001 while 
Lucent Technologies Inc., Toshiba Corporation, and Motorola, Inc. have 
fallen out of the list of top ten patenting organizations.
 
The U.S. Government received 954 utility patents for the year which 
would rank it sixteenth among the top patenting organizations for 2001.
 
A preliminary listing of the top twenty non-Federal patenting 
organizations receiving utility patents in 2001 is shown below. 
Patent receipts by the U.S. Government are also displayed.


 (Preliminary *)                                     ( Final ) ( Final   )
2001    2001                                         ( Rank  ) (# Patents)
Rank  # Patents  Organization *                      (in 2000) ( in 2000 )
----  ---------  --------------------------          --------- -----

 1     3,411     International Business Machines Corp.     (1)  (2,886)
 2     1,953     NEC Corporation                           (2)  (2,021)
 3     1,877     Canon Kabushiki Kaisha                    (3)  (1,890)
 4     1,643     Micron Technology, Inc.                   (7)  (1,304)
 5     1,450     Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.             (4)  (1,441)
 6     1,440     Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (11)  (1,137)
 7     1,363     Sony Corporation                          (6)  (1,385)
 8     1,271     Hitachi, Ltd                             (13)  (1,036)
 9     1,184     Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha        (14)  (1,010)
10     1,166     Fujitsu Limited                          (10)  (1,147)

11     1,149     Toshiba Corporation                       (8)  (1,232)
12     1,109     Lucent Technologies Inc.                  (5)  (1,411)
13     1,107     General Electric Company                 (19)    (787)
14     1,086     Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.             (12)  (1,053)
15       978     Hewlett-Packard Company                  (16)    (901)
16       809     Intel Corporation                        (18)    (795)
17       799     Texas Instruments, Incorporated          (21)    (686)
18       793     Siemens Aktiengesellschaft               (15)    (912)
19       778     Motorola Inc.                             (9)  (1,196)
20       719     Eastman Kodak Company                    (17)    (875)

         954     U.S. GOVERNMENT                                  (928)


* The  listed patent counts are preliminary counts which are subject to 
  correction. The final listing of patent counts for the top patenting 
  organizations in 2001 should be available by early April.

Please Note:
Patent information presented reflects patent ownership at patent grant 
and does not include ownership changes that occur after the patent grant.  
Where more than one assignee (owner) exists, patents are attributed to 
the first-named assignee.

No attempt has been made to combine data based on subsidiary 
relationships.  However, where possible, spelling variations and 
variations based on name changes have been merged into a single 
name (e.g., ESSO to EXXON).  While every effort is made to accurately 
identify all organizational entities and to report data by a single 
organization name, achievement of a totally clean record is not expected, 
particularly in view of the many variations that occur in corporate 
identifications.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SOURCE: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Technology Assessment and Forecast database  (1-4-2002)


------------------
Questions regarding this report should be directed to:
(address as of 4/2002)
             U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
             Information Products Division
             Technology Assessment and Forecast Branch
             PK3-Suite 441
             Washington, DC  20231

             tel (703) 306-2600
             FAX (703) 306-2737