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The year 2022 has passed, a year of relative normalcy after the pandemic. The pandemic and resulting change in global economic environment have forced many companies to change their IP strategy. Such change is also reflected in statistics of granted patents published in 2022. As US has been at the forefront of technology innovation for considerable amount of time, we take a deep dive in 2022 US granted patent data to understand how the patent landscape in the US is changing.
Top Assignees in the year 2022:
Just like the previous year, two of the top three patent assignees are Korean companies but this time Samsung has leapfrogged IBM to become the top US patent assignee. IBM from the last three decades has been at the top of the list of US patent grants. But in the year 2022, Samsung took the top spot to become the top US patent assignee with ~6750 granted patents.
The main reason for Samsung’s rise to the top was because IBM’s patent grants dropped by almost 50% from 2021. This could be attributed to the fact that IBM, in 2020, had decided to bring more focus to its IP strategy rather than aim for a numerical advantage (Source).
In the list of top 10 granted US Patent assignees, BOE Technology is the new entrant taking the 8th spot jumping 4 places from their 12th position in 2021. In 2022, Microsoft moved out from the list of top 10 US patent grant holders dropping a massive 7 position to the rank of 16. Similar to IBM, this could also be due to Microsoft’s strategy to focus on advanced technology and its core technology competencies.
TSMC and Canon are also notable movers in the top 10 list with TSMC jumping up by 3 positions to 4th rank whereas Canon moving 3 positions in the opposite direction to 7th rank. Below is the graph showing patent grants per assignee in the year 2022. The number at left of each assignee shows the change in rank compared to 2021.
Priority country in the year 2022:
As expected, US was the priority country of the most US granted patents in 2022 followed by Japan & China. In 2021 also, US was the priority country in 2022 followed by Japan & China. The only difference is where the number of patents taking priority from US and Japan has decreased, the number of patents taking priority from China has increased by 16%.
Below is the graph showing comparison of priority country of the granted patents in 2022& 2021:
Top CPC Classification in the year 2022:
The technology fields of computing systems and telecommunications dominate the US patent grants in 2022. This is reflected by the top CPC classifications assigned to the US patent grants. Just like 2021, G06F (electrical digital data processing) and H04L (transmission of digital information), are the most prominent classifications in which granted patent have been classified.
Patent grants in the classification G06N have witnessed significant jump in 2022. G06N covers advanced technology areas such as biocomputing, machine learning, and quantum computing. We expect the patenting activity in this classification to rise rapidly in coming years.
Top Inventors in the year 2022:
Refer below the chart explaining top inventors in year 2022:
Luo Tao: The top inventor Luo Tao received maximum number of grants (515) in 2022. He is associated with Qualcomm. His inventions are related to the field of telecommunications, mainly 4G/5G technology.
Liu Shan: Liu Shan received 315 grants in 2022. He is associated with Tencent America. His inventions are majorly related to video codec domain.
Shelton IV Frederick E: Shelton IV Frederick E received 308 grants in 2022. He is associated with Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. His inventions are majorly related to surgical Instruments.
Zhang Xiaoxia: Zhang Xiaoxia received 305 grants in 2022. He is associated with Qualcomm. His inventions are related to the field of telecommunications, mainly 4G/5G technology.
Few Interesting Facts regarding the US Patent.
Every year we witness some weird and interesting data points in the patent data. Here are some interesting patents from 2022.
US11406092B1 is the oldest patent application which was granted in 2022. The prosecution time for this patent application was, hold your breath, 23 years. The patent application was filed in October 1989 by Christopher John Rudy. The patent is related to fishing hooks.
US11304909B2 is the patent with largest patent family of 256 patent applications. The patent is owned by Purdue Pharmaceuticals and it is related to temper resistant dosage forms.
US11312698B2 belongs to the patent family with largest jurisdictional coverage of 48 jurisdictions. The patent is assigned to Helsinn Healthcare SA and is related to a pharmaceutical composition useful in prevention and/or treatment of medical conditions modulated by the neurokinin (NK1) receptor.
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