IBM Keeps Atop U.S. Patent List

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM - Analyst Report) announced that it has been granted the highest number of U.S. patents than any other company in 2009.

IBM received 4,914 U.S. patents in 2009, the highest for the 17th consecutive year, outperforming other innovative companies, according to IFI Patent Intelligence. This shows that IBM is the leader in the Software, Services and Storage business. With an investment of over $6.0 billion in R&D, IBM invests in differentiating technologies offering high-growth potential.

With growth in licensing technology and increased investment in R&D, IBM outpaced Samsung Electronics, which took the second place with 3,611 patents and Microsoft Corp (MSFT - Analyst Report), which came in third with 2,906 patents, according to IFI Patent Intelligence. IBM's 2009 patents were four times that of Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ - Analyst Report) and exceeded the combined issuances to Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle Corp. (ORCL - Analyst Report), Apple Inc. (AAPL - Analyst Report), Accenture Plc (ACN - Snapshot Report) and Google Inc. (GOOG - Analyst Report).

IFI Patent Intelligence top ten includes Canon (CAJ - Analyst Report), Panasonic Corp. (PC - Snapshot Report) and Toshiba in the fourth, fifth and sixth places, respectively, followed by Sony Corp (SNE - Snapshot Report), Intel (INTC - Analyst Report), Seiko Epson and Hewlett-Packard, in that order. Google, Apple and Hitachi (HIT), despite their names having been associated with innovation, were not in the top ten list.

Instead of seeking patent protection, IBM published almost 4,000 technical inventions in 2009, thereby making the inventions freely available to others. IBM has released a number of new products and solutions including its new WebSphere Portal software (version 6.1), Information Management, Lotus, Tivoli and Domino software, Rational Software Analyzer, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software, POWER6, BladeCenter-S, BladeCenter QS22, System z10, Power, System x servers, high-performance computing, virtualization, energy efficiency and IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC) Entry Edition.

The company’s data center solution and cloud-computing initiatives are also driving growth, and have helped IBM become number one in U.S. patents. The company's publication effort may also spur follow-on innovation, which enables dynamic business growth.

IBM also announced that for the first time, it will offer its know-how and patent portfolio management software to clients seeking to enhance their intellectual property (IP) management capabilities to grow their innovation-based strategies. IBM's know-how and patent management software can help innovative companies effectively evaluate their patent portfolios, identify new patent opportunities and more closely align their business and IP strategies.

Access to a Lotus Notes-based version of IBM's patent portfolio management software is currently available to clients, and a Web-based version is expected to be available in the second-half of 2010.

We maintain Our Neutral rating on IBM.

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