Amazon, Apple and Intel see increase in US patents

IFI Claims, which provides patent information services, has announced its 2016 US patent rankings, with Amazon, Apple and Intel seeing an increase in patents granted last year.

On Friday, January 6, IFI Claims announced the results of its “2016 IFI Claims US Top 50”, an annual ranking of the top US patent recipients. IFI Claims uses algorithms to analyse data from the US Patent and Trademark Office to generate its rankings.

According to the report, "fuelled" by IBM and a host of West-Coast tech companies, the US saw patent increases in 2016 from ten of its 17 firms on the list, including Amazon, Apple and Intel.

In 2015, Intel had 2,048 patents granted, but last year the technology company had 2,784, which was a 35.94% change. The company was number six in the rankings.

“Interestingly”, according to IFI Claims, Apple saw an increase in grants but remained at number 11, with 2,102 grants in 2016.

Meanwhile, Amazon was number 14 and had 1,662 patents granted last year, compared to 1,136 the year before.

IBM came in first place for patent rankings, with 8,088 patents. The company has come first for 24 consecutive years.

Samsung and Canon remain unchanged from 2015 in second and third place.

Larry Cady, senior analyst at IFI Claims, said that the biggest mover in 2016 was GlobalFoundries, a semiconductor manufacturing company.

GlobalFoundries took 22nd place in 2016, compared to 60th the year before. The company has an “impressive” 131% gain over 2015.

The report said that GlobalFoundries, which gained patent momentum from recent IBM semiconductor acquisitions, received 1,407 utility patents in 2016, compared to 609 in 2015.

Details of the patent rankings can be viewed in full here.