Posts Tagged: "IBM"

IFI Claims Reports: Patent Activity Increases Despite Pandemic, IBM Again Dominates Granted U.S. Patents, Samsung Leads Global 250

On January 12, patent database provider IFI Claims published its Top 50 U.S. patent grant recipient list for 2020, as well as its Global 250 list of top owners of active patent assets worldwide. The Top 50 list includes many of the usual suspects among top patent filing organizations, including IBM, which takes the top spot among all firms receiving U.S. patents for the 28th year in a row. Perhaps the most surprising finding from the study is that patent application filing activity increased slightly during 2020 despite the massive disruptions to daily life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

IBM, Toyota Join LOT Network, Underscoring Rapid Growth for the Patent Risk Management Consortium

Information technology giant IBM recently announced that it had agreed to join the LOT Network, a nonprofit patent risk management consortium designed to immunize its members from lawsuits filed by patent assertion entities (PAEs). The move brings an additional 80,000 patents and patent application under the aegis of the LOT Network, which currently offers its members immunity to 2.3 million global patent assets should those patents ever be sold to companies that make more than half of their gross revenue from patent assertions. Since the IBM announcement last week, LOT Network has added a few new members, including Japanese carmaker Toyota, which just announced today that it has agreed to join the consortium. Since we last covered LOT Network in August 2018, the organization has more than doubled in size from about 275 companies up to 623 companies. Since it was founded in 2014, LOT Network’s membership has increased by a compound annual growth rate of 115%.

Latest IFI CLAIMS Report Shows U.S. Patent Grants Are Up 15% Over 2018

U.S. patent grants grew by 15% from 2018 to 2019, with IBM heading the pack for the 27th consecutive year, according to IFI CLAIMS Patent Services’ 2019 report. There were 333,530 U.S. patents granted last year, compared with 288,832 in 2018, which represented a 3.5% decline from 20I7. IFI said the growth could possibly be attributed to examiner clarity on patent eligibility following the USPTO’s guidance on Alice, as illustrated in IPWatchdog’s article by Kate Gaudry last year.

IBM Inventor Chieko Asakawa Named Inventor of the Year at IPO Education Foundation 2019 Awards Dinner

Last night at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, the old home of the original Patent and Trademark Office, the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPOEF) held its annual Awards Dinner. The IPOEF Awards Dinner is one of the great industry events; an unapologetic celebration of innovation. Each year, this Awards Dinner recognizes the Inventor of the Year, as well as recognizing an IP Champion, Executive of the Year and youth winners of the IP Video Contest. Manny Schecter, Chief Patent Counsel for IBM and president of the IPOEF, began the awards program segment of the evening by saying what is undeniably true: this evening gives us the opportunity to put aside our differences and disagreements and “remember why it is that we do what we do and celebrate innovation.”

Other Barks & Bites, Friday, October 18: USPTO Updates Subject Matter Eligibility Guidelines, China Receives Half of 2018 Global Patent Filings, US Inventor to Host Rally

This week in Other Barks & Bites: US Inventor will host an inventor rally during AIPLA’s Annual Meeting to protest the PTAB; the Federal Circuit vacates dismissal of infringement case against Sirius XM; the USPTO updates subject matter patent eligibility guidelines, changes TEAS access, and seeks participants for a beta release of the Patent Center; WIPO reports that China received half of all patent application filings in 2018 while the United States saw its first patent filing decline in a decade; Google files a supplemental brief at the Supreme Court in its case against Oracle; Katy Perry files a motion to overturn the “Dark Horse” copyright verdict against her; the FCC approves the merger between mobile wireless firms T-Mobile and Sprint; and U.S. Customs proposes rulemaking to improve its detention of copyright-violating goods imported at the U.S. border.