The USPTO announced the 2004 top 10 private sector patent recipients. Listed below are the 10 corporations receiving the most patents for inventions in 2004, along with their 2003 ranking. Note that tech companies continue to outpace any of the bio-pharma companies in patent filings given the number of big companies that have shrinking pipelines. I’ll be looking to see who first, if it ever happens, breaks into the top ten.
| Preliminary Rank in 2004 | Preliminary Number of Patents in 2004 | Organization | (Final Rank in 2003) | (Final Number of Patents in 2003) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
3,248
|
International Business Machines Corporation |
(1)
|
(3,415) |
|
2
|
1,934
|
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. |
(4)
|
(1,774 ) |
|
3
|
1,805
|
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha |
(2)
|
(1,992) |
|
4
|
1,775
|
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. |
(5)
|
(1,759) |
|
5
|
1,760
|
Micron Technology, Inc. |
(6)
|
(1,707) |
|
6
|
1,604
|
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
(9)
|
(1,313) |
|
7
|
1,601
|
Intel Corporation |
(7)
|
(1,592) |
|
8
|
1,514
|
Hitachi, Ltd |
(3)
|
(1,893) |
|
9
|
1,310
|
Toshiba Corporation |
(13)
|
(1,184) |
|
10
|
1,305
|
Sony Corporation |
