International Business Machines Corp (IBM) dropped from the top spot for US patents last year, the first time in decades that the company has not claimed the most patents in a year, signaling a strategy shift at the long-time intellectual property leader.
IBM’s patent count declined 44 percent to 4,743, falling to No. 2 behind Samsung Electronics Co’s 8,513, Harrity LLP’s Patent 300 list showed.
Technologies such as semiconductors and hardware memory saw the largest drop in IBM patents, although the reduction was across all major types.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The decline reflects a strategy shift that began in 2020 to focus the patent portfolio on IBM’s core businesses and free engineers from the time-consuming patent process, IBM research head Dario Gil said in an interview.
“We decided to no longer pursue numeric patent leadership, but remain an intellectual property powerhouse and continue to have one of the strongest portfolios in the world in our priority technologies,” he said.
The Armonk, New York-based company has long prided itself on patent leadership, saying it had the highest number of filings for the past 29 years.
Intellectual property licensing and development has also been lucrative.
IBM has generated more than US$27 billion in income from patents since 1996, company filings showed.
However, that money has in the past few years slowed down as some companies have resisted licensing fees.
However, IBM is not done monetizing its intellectual property, Gil said.
“On the priority areas — hybrid cloud, AI [artificial intelligence], semiconductors, cybersecurity, quantum — we will continue to patent and defend that aggressively,” Gil added.
The shift mirrors IBM’s broader transformation away from hardware and legacy infrastructure toward cloud services and software.
Under IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, the company has made more than 25 acquisitions since April 2020, including AI software powerhouse Red Hat Inc.
IBM in November 2021 spun off a large portion of its infrastructure services business into a company called Kyndryl Holdings Inc.
The spinoff was not a reason for the patent decline last year, Gil said.
IBM has been a relative haven in the tech market meltdown, rallying 5.4 percent last year, compared with a 33 percent dip in the NASDAQ 100.
In the most recent earnings report, the company beat sales estimates and affirmed its cash flow forecast.
SAMSUNG, CHINESE FIRMS
Samsung has long been the runner-up before last year, being issued more than 8,000 new patents a year since 2017, Harrity’s list showed.
It was often awarded patents on visual display systems and voice communication.
Chinese technology firms such as TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) and Internet firm Baidu Inc (百度) saw some of the steepest increases in patent issuance on the list.
For example, ByteDance has applied for a patent on a method of adding special effects to human bodies on video, commonly used in TikTok filters.
Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) also saw large increases.
“Patent filings in China have been exploding for years,” Harrity analytics chief Rocky Berndsen said. “So as more of these companies do business in the US, we would expect the numbers to increase here as well.”
EXPANSION: The investment came as ASE in July told investors it would accelerate capacity growth to mitigate supply issues, and would boost spending by 16 percent ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it is investing NT$17.6 billion (US$578.6 million) to build a new advanced chip packaging facility in Kaohsiung to cope with fast-growing demand from artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and automotive applications. The new fab, called K18B, is to commence operation in the first quarter of 2028, offering chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) chip packaging and final testing services, ASE said in a statement. The fab is to create 2,000 new jobs upon its completion, ASE said. A wide spectrum of system-level chip packaging technologies would be available at
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
HEAVYWEIGHT: The TAIEX ended up 382.67 points, with about 280 of those points contributed by TSMC shares alone, which rose 2.56 percent to close at NT$1,400 Shares in Taiwan broke records at the end of yesterday’s session after contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a fresh closing-high amid enthusiasm toward artificial intelligence (AI) development, dealers said. The TAIEX ended up 382.67 points, or 1.45 percent, at the day’s high of 26,761.06. Turnover totaled NT$463.09 billion (US$15.22 billion). “The local main board has repeatedly hit new closing highs in the past few sessions as investors continued to embrace high hopes about AI applications, taking cues from a strong showing in shares of US-based AI chip designer Nvidia Corp,” Hua Nan Securities Co (華南永昌證券) analyst Kevin Su
Nvidia Corp’s major server production partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported 10.99 percent year-on-year growth in quarterly sales, signaling healthy demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Revenue totaled NT$2.06 trillion (US$67.72 billion) in the last quarter, in line with analysts’ projections, a company statement said. On a quarterly basis, revenue was up 14.47 percent. Hon Hai’s businesses cover four primary product segments: cloud and networking, smart consumer electronics, computing, and components and other products. Last quarter, “cloud and networking products delivered strong growth, components and other products demonstrated significant growth, while smart consumer electronics and computing products slightly declined,” compared with the
RSS