After 29 years of reign, International Business Machines Corp, better known by its diminutive IBMis no longer the first company to file the most patents Americans over a year. According to rapport of the law firm Harrity LLP, published in early January 2023, the American company filed 44% fewer patents compared to last year. A number that translates as a voluntary change of strategy on the part of the company.
IBM has generated more than $27 billion in revenue from its patents
After filing 8,682 patents in 2021, IBM fell to 4,743 the following year. The American company is second in the ranking of patent filings in the United States, behind Samsung and its 8,513 patents. This decline affects all sectors of activity. It symbolizes a reorientation of the multinational’s research and development activities since 2020, ” engineers are therefore freed from the patent process which greatly slows down development “said in an interview with the media Fortunethe chef de la recherche d’IBM, Darío Gil.
He adds that the company no longer seeks patent leadership, but wants to consolidate one of the world’s strongest portfolios in ” priority technologies “. According to internal tax documents, IBM has generated more than $27 billion in revenue from patents since 1996. However, those profits have declined in recent years. Companies are less willing to pay expensive patent licensing fees. Darío Gil points out, however, that the company has not abandoned the idea of monetizing its intellectual property, ” In priority areas – hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cybersecurity, quantum computing – we will continue to file patents and defend them aggressively ».
Since Arvin Krishna took over as CEO in April 2020, IBM has changed its strategy. Originally oriented towards the sale of hardware and infrastructure, the American company is now focusing on cloud services and software. For nearly three years, IBM has acquired more than 25 companiesincluding Red Hat, the artificial intelligence software giant for $34 billion in 2019.
Asian companies take a big place in US patents
In the law firm’s report, it is not surprising to find Samsung on the throne of the companies having filed the most patents. Since 2017, the Korean company has issued more than 8,000 new patents per year. It is renowned for certifying its technologies on visual display systems. However, it is not the only Korean company that might overtake IBM. LG is currently third in the ranking with 4,580 patents filed with an increase of 5%.
Other Asian, non-Korean companies have also made strong progress in the patent race. Chinese Big Techs like ByteDance and Baidu show the largest increases in the number of registered patents, at 84% and 43% respectively. The parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, for example, has filed a patent application on a method to improve the video filters of its social network using artificial intelligence. According to Harrity’s head of analytics, Rocky Berndsen, the phenomenon has ” Nothing suprising “. He explains that ” patent filings in China have exploded in recent years. By correlation, companies doing business in the United States increase patents here. »
