Number of US patents granted in 2018 down by 3.3%: research
The number of patent applications approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) fell by 3.3% in 2018, a new analysis shows.
The analysis, which was carried out by Anaqua, a US intellectual asset management and software provider, concluded that there were 11,483 fewer patents granted in 2018 than in the year before.
In 2017, 352,585 applications were approved, while there were 341,102 approvals in 2018.
Matt Troyer, director of patent analytics at Anaqua, attributed the decrease to patent owners having new portfolio management tools and analytics, allowing them to file more useful patent applications.
“IP organisations can be smarter about their patent strategies, better supporting the business while maintaining increased budget control,” Troyer said.
He said that due to constrained budgets, “IP executives need to be more focused on their portfolio strategies”.
He added that “the statistics imply that filers are being a bit more selective in what to protect”.
The decrease in the number of patent filings has been a consistent pattern in the last five years, “portending a trend we expect to continue”, Anaqua said.
Last year saw the USPTO approve its 10 millionth patent.
The analysis found that the top 25 patent owners in 2018 received more than 18% of all patents granted by the USPTO.
Among the top 25, technology companies continued to dominate the list, but the transportation sector jumped to the second biggest patent class.
The analysis said self-driving vehicles were having a big impact on innovations, with Ford entering the top ten list of most patents obtained in 2018.
Several patent filings stood out in 2018, according to Anaqua.
One patent filed by Levi Strauss & Co (US number 10051905B2) for “laser finishing apparel” had 244 claims, the most claims in any patent in 2018.
Another application, by Sun Patent Trust, was for “low-density parity checking technology” (US number 9859923B2) and was 1,096,868 words long.
Additionally, a team of 60 inventors cooperated on a patent for “multi-petascale highly efficient parallel supercomputer” (US number 9971713B2), filed by US semiconductor company Global Foundries.
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