Number of the Day
Companies Filed Fewer Patents in 2020
One tech company filed the most. And it wasn’t Google.
1%: That’s the approximate decline in the number of patents granted in the United States last year, according to TechCrunch.
The drop in the number of patents granted — from 354,428 in 2019 to 352,013 — seems likely to be a side effect of the pandemic’s general drag on the economy, but it was milder than expected. Data tracker IFI CLAIMS Patent Services notes that the patent figure, which can be taken as a rough proxy for innovation, has been trending upward for a decade; even the slightly lower number in 2020 is 13% higher than the 2018 figure. And perhaps even more surprising: Patent applications actually rose last year by nearly 5%. (Perhaps in-person collaboration isn’t as crucial to innovation as we assumed.)
TechCrunch notes that top growth categories for new patents included artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, and autonomous technology. Interestingly, the list of companies racking up the most patent grants was topped not by the stock-market-favorite tech stars you might expect — Apple, Amazon, and Google — but by IBM (with 9,130), Samsung (6,415), and Canon (3,225). Then again, what really matters with patents may not be how many you have but how well you exploit them.
The future will be patented.
For more Number of the Day, follow Marker Editors.
