2012 Patent Rankings: IBM On Top, Google Spikes 41
bednarz writes "It's official: IBM has dominated the U.S. patent race for two decades. IBM earned 6,478 utility patents last year, topping the list of patent winners for the 20th year in a row, according to data published today from IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. Samsung was the second most prolific patent winner, with 5,081 patents received in 2012, followed by Canon (3,174), Sony (3,032), Panasonic (2,769), Microsoft (2,613), Toshiba (2,447), Hon Hai Precision Industry (2,013), GE (1,652), and LG Electronics (1,624). Earning its first appearance among the top 50, Google increased its 2012 patent count by 170% to 1,151 patents and landed at 21 in IFI's rankings, up from 65 in 2011. Google narrowly beat Apple, which earned 1,136 patents (an increase of 68%) and landed at 22 in the rankings."
Re:From my ethics class last semester (Score:4, Insightful)
Trying to take on IBM in a patent war would be like trying to sink the Missouri with small arms fire
Re:From my ethics class last semester (Score:5, Insightful)
But you fail to describe the larger totality of stupidity. It is stupid to try to take on IBM in any kind of war.
Example: SCO in 2003 started a war with IBM over copyrights. (not patents)
Now that, just right there, is stupid enough. But not for SCO. To add to the stupidity, SCO had no basis in fact for their lawsuit and was hoping to discover some during the litigation. But wait, there's more! Since even double plus stupid wasn't stupid enough for SCO, it turned out that SCO didn't even own the copyrights they were suing IBM for supposedly infringing. But wait, it gets stupider! SCO claimed loudly and publicly, and more importantly in court that the GPL was not valid and even unconstitutional, while SCO continued to distribute the Linux kernel and other GPL licensed software. So IBM said "okay", and counter sued SCO for copyright infringement because IBM is a kernel contributor and SCO was now distributing IBM's copyrighted Linux kernel code without a license (eg, the GPL). Much hilarity ensued for years as SCO tied a bigger and bigger Gordian Knot [wikipedia.org]. Now SCO sits in bankruptcy, with no action happening in any courts. The who fiaSCO will be ten years old this March.
But back to the topic, after SCO's initial copyright lawsuit (not a patent suit), IBM counter sued over several things, and just for good measure added four patent suit claims that would be sure to cover every single product that SCO made. This is a great example of how good patents can be used defensively against people who are uninformed about just how stupid they actually are.
In the end, IBM spent many millions more in legal costs than it would ever have cost to just buy SCO and make them shut up. But that's what SCO wanted and IBM wasn't going to give it to them. I'm sure to set an example to other would be pests who just want money to go away. Having patents can work great in that regard.
On a different note, it's too busy Google was too busy innovating instead of amassing a large collection of patents. At least, now they understand that they should be getting patents on everything instead of having a streamlined process of innovating.