Apple takes 11th place in awarded US patents in 2015

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.

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.

9 Comments

stevie 956 comments · 14 Years

About 8 years ago

Can't innovate? MY ASS!!!Apple knows how to play the US patent system like a Stradivarius.

6Sgoldfish 108 comments · 9 Years

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 3431 comments · 10 Years

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 879 comments · 11 Years

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 4750 comments · 10 Years

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.