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U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Office of Electronic Information Products
Patent Technology Monitoring Division (PTMD)

# CALENDAR YEAR 2003
PRELIMINARY LIST OF TOP PATENTING ORGANIZATIONS *

(report dated 9-Jan-2004)

This report presents a preliminary list of the organizations receiving the most patents for invention (i.e., utility patents) during the 2003 calendar year.

For the eleventh consecutive year, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) ranks first among non-Federal patenting organizations. IBM received 3,415 utility patents for the year, its largest number of patents received in any year.

For 2003, the U.S. organizations included on the list of top ten patenting organizations are International Business Machines Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company (fifth), Micron Technology, Inc. (sixth), and Intel Corporation (seventh). This year marks the first year for Intel Corporation on the top ten list. Four U.S. organizations, four Japanese organizations, one Dutch organization, and one South Korean organization are included on the top ten list.

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha remains in second position with 1,992 patents while Hitachi, Ltd. moves up from fifth position to third.

Three organizations join the top ten list in 2003. Those organizations include Intel Corporation, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. The three organizations that no longer reside on the top ten list are NEC Corporation, General Electric Company, and Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha.

Organizations on the top ten list having the largest increases in the number of annual patent receipts include Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (up 61 percent from 2002), Intel Corporation (up 48 percent from 2002), and Hewlett-Packard Company (up 27 percent from 2002).

The U.S. Government received 879 utility patents for the year, which would rank it seventeenth among the top patenting organizations for 2003.

This table displays a preliminary listing of the top twenty non-Federal patenting organizations receiving utility patents in calendar year 2003. Patent receipts by the U.S. Government are also displayed.
Preliminary Rank in 2003 * | Preliminary number of patents in 2003 * | Organization * | (Final Rank in 2002) | (Final number of patents in 2002)
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
1 | 3,415 | International Business Machines Corporation | (1) | (3,288)
2 | 1,992 | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | (2) | (1,893)
3 | 1,893 | Hitachi, Ltd | (5) | (1,601)
4 | 1,786 | Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (a) | (6) | (1,544)
5 | 1,759 | Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (b) | (9) | (1,385)
6 | 1,707 | Micron Technology, Inc. | (3) | (1,833)
7 | 1,592 | Intel Corporation | (15) | (1,077)
8 | 1,353 | Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. | (16) | (842)
9 | 1,313 | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | (11) | (1,328)
10 | 1,311 | Sony Corporation | (7) | (1,434)
11 | 1,302 | Fujitsu Limited | (12) | (1,211)
12 | 1,243 | Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha | (10) | (1,373)
13 | 1,184 | Toshiba Corporation | (14) | (1,130)
14 | 1,181 | NEC Corporation | (4) | (1,821)
15 | 1,139 | General Electric Company | (8) | (1,416)
16 | 905 | Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. | (13) | (1,154)
17 | 804 | Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd | (21) | (687)
18 | 764 | Seiko Epson Corporation | (27) | (618)
19 | 763 | Texas Instruments, Incorporated | (17) | (717)
20 | 753 | Robert Bosch Gmbh | (22) | (679)
| 879 | U.S. GOVERNMENT |  | (907)

## Notes:

> (a) Calendar year counts for 2003 for Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. include 12 patents issued to Matsushita Electronics Corporation, which has been merged into the parent company.

> (b) Calendar year counts for 2003 for Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. include 403 patents issued to Hewlett-Packard Company, 23 patents issued to Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc., and 41 patents issued to Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P. Displayed calendar year counts for 2002 are for Hewlett-Packard Company, L.P. and include patents issued to Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc., and Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P.

> * The listed patent counts are preliminary counts which are subject to correction. The final listing of patent counts for the top patenting organizations in 2003 will be available in the Patenting By Organizations report that should be available in 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.

> Unless noted, 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.

## Contact Information -

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