Top Nanotechnology Patent Assignees in USPTO and EPO in 2015

The INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION (IBM) Company has had the largest number of nanotechnology patents in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2015, and it ranks first in the number of nanotechnology published patent applications and patents.

According to the StatNano, The two companies LG CHEM, LTD. and COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES have possessed the higher number of nanotechnology patents in the European Patent Office (EPO).


The statistical investigation on Orbit Database showed that a number of 10,956 patent applications have been published in USPTO and EPO in 2015, among which 266 patent applications belong to the IBM. This company ranks first in the number of nanotechnology published patent applications in USPTO in 2015. The major activity of the company is software and hardware and the headquarters is located in Armonk, the United States.


The two Korean companies of SAMSUNG DISPLAY., LTD. and SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. possess the second and third ranks in this ranking, respectively. SAMSUNG Enterprise is active in the field of aerospace, textile, insurance services, stock exchange and retail. SAMSUNG Enterprise began its journey in electronics at the end of 1960s and it opened a new window in ship manufacturing industry in the middle of 1970s. The main focus of the company at present is on electronics, cell phones and semiconductors. The headquarters of the company is located in Seoul, South Korea.


Table 1 lists the top 20 assignees in nanotechnology published patent applications in USPTO in 2015.




The IBM ranks first in the number of nanotechnology granted patents, similar to published patent applications, in USPTO in 2015. This company is the assignee of 250 out of 8,412 nanotechnology granted patents in USPTO in 2015, and it ranks first. The Korean company SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS ranks second while the Japanese company KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA ranks third. Table 2 shows the top 20 assignees in nanotechnology granted patents in USPTO in 2015.




A study on EPO shows that the Korean company LG CHEM, LTD. ranks first in the number of nanotechnology published patent applications in EPO in 2015 by having 66 patents out of 1,555. The company is active in the field of production of chemicals and it is located in South Korea. The second and third ranks belong to the French companies COMMISSARIAT A L’ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES and CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE.




The two French companies COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES and CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE have possessed the largest number of nanotechnology granted patents in EPO among the overall 1,379 patents. Therefore, they rank first and second respectively in this ranking.


COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES Company is active in the fields of energy, military, security and IT, and it is located in Paris, France. CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE is a scientific research center in France that is considered as the largest French national research center supervised by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The center was established on 19 October 1939. The American company 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES Company possesses the third rank by having 33 granted patents. Formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, the multinational company is located in Maplewood, Minnesota, suburb of St. Paul. The majority of the company products include adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental and orthodontic products, electronic materials, medical products, electronic circuits and optical films.


Table 4 lists the top 20 assignees in nanotechnology granted patents in EPO in 2015.




Studies show that a number of organizations such as COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES and SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD are present among the top assignees in both the USPTO and EPO. It can be concluded that these companies target both American and European markets at the same time.