Apple takes 11th place in awarded US patents in 2015

AppleInsider

Apple was awarded 1,938 U.S. patents in 2015, placing it No. 11 overall in newly earned inventions, according to the latest intellectual property rankings published on Wednesday.

Source: USPTO

IFI Claims Patent Services issued its annual rankings of the top 50 U.S. patent assignees, revealing that Apple remained in 11th place last year. The total number of patents awarded to Apple was down 3 percent, from 2,003 in 2014.

For 2015, Apple finished just 18 patents shy of Microsoft, which took 10th place with 1,956 awarded U.S. patents.

IFI found that there were 298,407 utility patents awarded in 2015, down less than 1 percent compared to 2014. Last year's decrease marked the first time there was a downturn in U.S. patent activity since 2007.

Retaining the top spot was perennial intellectual property leader IBM, awarded 7,355 patents in 2015. That was well ahead of second-place finisher Samsung, with 5,072 U.S. patents.

Rounding out the rest of the top five were Canon, Qualcomm, Google, Toshiba, Sony, LG Electronics and Intel, all ahead of Microsoft and Apple.

As always, AppleInsider kept close tabs on Apple's patent filings throughout 2014, as the inventions offer hints of what future products the company may be working on. Among the more interesting concepts were methods of improving the iPhone's cameras, creating virtual reality displays, a keyboard that would allow typing on air, and bone conducting wireless headphones.

stevie

Can't innovate? MY ASS!!!


Apple knows how to play the US patent system like a Stradivarius.

6Sgoldfish

stevie said:

Can't innovate? MY ASS!!!


Apple knows how to play the US patent system like a Stradivarius.

Can we please see that innovation in effect? Particularly how it translates on the Pro hardware.

mike1

6Sgoldfish said:

stevie said:

Can't innovate? MY ASS!!!


Apple knows how to play the US patent system like a Stradivarius.

Can we please see that innovation in effect? Particularly how it translates on the Pro hardware.

Very unlikely that a patent issued in 2015 would show up in a product released in 2015.

techlover

AppleInsider said:

Retaining the top spot was perennial intellectual property leader IBM, awarded 7,355 patents in 2015. That was well ahead of second-place finisher Samsung, with 5,072 U.S. patents.

@nhughes If you add  #12 Samsung Display Co Ltd with its 1,838 patents to #2 Samsung Electronics Co Ltd at 5,072 they wind up being not that far behind IBM with 6,910 total. 

Samsung Display Co Ltd alone filed only 100 fewer than all of Apple. 

But, like you said in the article Apple patent filings can tip their hand at future products. Apple is likely filing many patents under the names of various shell companies in order to keep the competition off the scent of copying those future products. 

At the end of the day though its not the number of patents but the execution. Just like its not the size of the R&D budget but what is able to be done with it.

Thanks for the article.

nolamacguy

6Sgoldfish said:

stevie said:

Can't innovate? MY ASS!!!


Apple knows how to play the US patent system like a Stradivarius.

Can we please see that innovation in effect? Particularly how it translates on the Pro hardware.

does producing the best-in-class hardware for notebooks, PCs, tablets, and mobile not already count?

sometimes i think people forgot about what goes into producing these devices. they dont design themselves. they dont improve themselves. making the display thinner in order to pack in a force-sensitive panel layer (3D touch) *is* innovation. likewise for the amazing engineering that went into producing the MP in such a compact form. and yes, i know you want annual speed bumps or announcements, but unless youre telling me youve maxed out the CPUs on your current MP, i find such complaints hollow. likewise for the rMBP -- i have a 2014 and its my fastest machine, its incredible (windows developer running VMs, SQL, etc). since apple is dependent on Intel for new chipsets im not really sure what the beef is. an aesthetic body refresh neednt be innovative in itself; so disappointment that it still looks the same isnt something i understand.

6Sgoldfish

nolamacguy said:

6Sgoldfish said:

Can we please see that innovation in effect? Particularly how it translates on the Pro hardware.

does producing the best-in-class hardware for notebooks, PCs, tablets, and mobile not already count?

sometimes i think people forgot about what goes into producing these devices. they dont design themselves. they dont improve themselves. making the display thinner in order to pack in a force-sensitive panel layer (3D touch) *is* innovation. likewise for the amazing engineering that went into producing the MP in such a compact form. and yes, i know you want annual speed bumps or announcements, but unless youre telling me youve maxed out the CPUs on your current MP, i find such complaints hollow. likewise for the rMBP -- i have a 2014 and its my fastest machine, its incredible (windows developer running VMs, SQL, etc). since apple is dependent on Intel for new chipsets im not really sure what the beef is. an aesthetic body refresh neednt be innovative in itself; so disappointment that it still looks the same isnt something i understand.

Best in class? Please. I would have totally agreed 3 years ago. The chassis's are indistinguishable since 2012 and the internals are an incremental compromise at best. Shaving a millimetre off here or a gram off there shouldn’t be the major design criteria that drive each iteration. There is no decent server software or hardware, FCPX and Logic are stagnating, laggy as hell, and Aperture is dead. The Cinema Display has not been updated in years, and the Mac Pro is all but abandoned. Then there’s the overall closing down of OS X, to the point that you cannot even customise your bloody dock icons anymore without compromising system integrity. I'm talking as a visual/motion/video editor who's doing that for a living and has been happily using Macbook Pros and iMacs since 2008, has always vouched for Apple but is feeling completely disillusioned. I was planning and saving up to invest in a Mac Pro but I really don't see the point in doing so. So, what "hollow" complaints are you talking about exactly?

studiomusic

6Sgoldfish said:

I'm talking as a visual/motion/video editor who's doing that for a living and has been happily using Macbook Pros and iMacs since 2008, has always vouched for Apple but is feeling completely disillusioned. I was planning and saving up to invest in a Mac Pro but I really don't see the point in doing so. So, what "hollow" complaints are you talking about exactly?

What are you editing that a Mac Pro can't handle? Ok, the entry level MP, sure, but a medium level MP (6 core, dual D700s) handles pretty much anything out there.
I edit Red Dragon 6k footage all the time on mine with no hiccups at all.

6Sgoldfish

studiomusic said:

6Sgoldfish said:

I'm talking as a visual/motion/video editor who's doing that for a living and has been happily using Macbook Pros and iMacs since 2008, has always vouched for Apple but is feeling completely disillusioned. I was planning and saving up to invest in a Mac Pro but I really don't see the point in doing so. So, what "hollow" complaints are you talking about exactly?

What are you editing that a Mac Pro can't handle? Ok, the entry level MP, sure, but a medium level MP (6 core, dual D700s) handles pretty much anything out there.
I edit Red Dragon 6k footage all the time on mine with no hiccups at all.

Thanks for the answer, studiomusic. I work a lot with Cinema 4D and After Effects comps (for the latter I also blame Adobe for backtracking on their promise to utilise Metal on OS X). They're quite heavy on my iMac, and I also wanted to up the ante for my client projects. The point is, I require a future-proof workstation, not to dish out good money in 2016 just to get 2013 non-upgradeable hardware. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there. 

6Sgoldfish

And aside from my own needs, is there any way that the portable workstation heavyweight, the 15" retina MBP, has been substantially upgraded since its introduction in 2012? Zip. Same computer inside out.