LIST OF TOP PATENTING ORGANIZATIONS * Calendar Year 1998 This report presents a preliminary list* of organizations receiving the most patents for invention (i.e., utility patents) during the 1998 CALENDAR year. For the sixth consecutive year, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) received more utility patents than any other non- Federal patenting organization. For 1998, IBM received 2,657 utility patents, 54 percent more than its total for 1997. The second, third, and fourth ranked organizations also remain unchanged. Canon Kabushiki Kaisha is second, having received 1,928 utility patents in 1998, up 40 percent from 1997 totals. NEC Corporation is third (1,627 patents in 1998, up 49 percent from 1997 totals) and Motorola, Inc. is fourth (1,406 patents, up 33 percent from 1997 totals). Sony Corporation moves from tenth to fifth position (1,316 patents, up 53 percent from 1997 totals).The only new organization appearing on the list of top patenting organizations is a notable one- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. moves into sixth place with 1,304 utility patents received in 1998, more than twice as many patents as it received in 1997. Two organizations have been dropped from the list. They consist of a Japanese corporation (Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha) and the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government drops off the list of the top ten patenting organizations (1,017 patents received in 1998) after having been on the list each year since 1969, when patent ownership data by organization first began to be collected in electronic format. The top ten patenting organizations consist of three U.S. corporations, six Japanese corporations, and one corporation from the Republic of Korea. A complete listing of the top ten patenting organizations receiving utility patents in 1998 is shown below. Patent receipts by the U.S. Government are also displayed. 1998 1998 ( Rank ) (# Patents) Rank # Patents Organization (in 1997) ( in 1997 ) ---- --------- -------------------------- --------- ---------- 1 2,657 International Business Machines Corp (1) (1,724) 2 1,928 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (2) (1,381) 3 1,627 NEC Corporation (3) (1,095) 4 1,406 Motorola Inc. (4) (1,058) 5 1,316 Sony Corporation (10) (859) 6 1,304 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (17) (582) 7 1,189 Fujitsu Limited (6) (903) 8 1,170 Toshiba Corporation (9) (862) 9 1,124 Eastman Kodak Company (11) (795) 10 1,094 Hitachi, Ltd. (6) (903) 1,017 U.S. GOVERNMENT (5) (935) * The listed patent counts are preliminary counts which are subject to correction. The final listing of 1998 patent counts for the top patenting organizations should be available by early April. Please Note: Patent information presented reflects patent ownership at patent grant and does not include changes in ownership which 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 report data by a single organization name, achievement of a totally clean record is not expected, particularly in view of the variations which occur in many corporate identifications. ------------------ Questions regarding this report should be directed to: (address as of 1/99) U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Office for Patent and Trademark Information Technology Assessment and Forecast Program PK3-Suite 441 Washington, DC 20231 tel (703) 306-2600 FAX (703) 306-2737 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SOURCE: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Technology Assessment and Forecast database (1-7-99)