2019-01-28
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As reported by StatNano, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Samsung were at the forefront of nanotechnology patent holders at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2018, while Nanotek Instruments Inc. topped the list in terms of holding the largest share of nanotechnology patents in the total patents issued by the very company during the past year.
The USPTO is recognized as one of the most reputable patent offices on a global scale. According to the statistical data collected by the Orbit Database during 2018, a total of 19,773 nanotechnology patents were filed at this patent office; 8,493 of which were granted patents, and 11,280 were published patent applications.
Considering the scores achieved for both granted patents and published patent applications, IBM with the greatest number of nanotechnology patents at the USPTO in 2018 ranked first among all patent holders. This American company operates in various fields of software and hardware, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Display Co., Ltd., two spin-offs of the Samsung Group, followed IBM on the list, respectively holding the second and third highest scores. These three companies had also ranked first to third in the exact same order at the USPTO in 2017.
The following table demonstrates the top 20 companies that obtained the highest scores for their both granted patents and published patent applications in the field of nanotechnology at the USPTO during 2018. The share of nanotechnology patents in the total patents filed by each company can also be seen in the table, which indicates that around 94% of the patents issued by Nanotek Instruments, Inc. were in the field of nanotechnology, in as far as it can be considered as a company particularly specializing in nanotechnology. Following Nanotek Instruments, Inc., Tsinghua University with 43.75% and MIT with 20.8% had the second and third largest nanotechnology patent shares of their own total patents.
Table 1. The top 20 nanotechnology patent holders at the USPTO in 2018
Rank |
Assignee |
Number of Nanotechnology Patents |
Number of Total Patents |
Share of Nanotechnology Patents in Total Patents |
1 |
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION |
775 |
19479 |
3.98% |
2 |
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. |
487 |
12213 |
3.99% |
3 |
SAMSUNG DISPLAY CO., LTD. |
261 |
3597 |
7.26% |
4 |
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA |
257 |
1453 |
17.69% |
5 |
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD. |
255 |
4389 |
5.81% |
6 |
BOE TECHNOLOGY GROUP CO., LTD. |
228 |
3813 |
5.98% |
7 |
INTEL CORPORATION |
193 |
6819 |
2.83% |
8 |
3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY |
192 |
1391 |
13.80% |
9 |
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AS REPRESENTED BY THE …. |
189 |
1838 |
10.28% |
10 |
SHENZHEN CHINA STAR OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. |
181 |
1520 |
11.91% |
11 |
HON HAI PRECISION INDUSTRY CO., LTD. |
179 |
714 |
25.07% |
12 |
TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY |
178 |
407 |
43.73% |
13 |
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY |
165 |
792 |
20.83% |
14 |
GLOBALFOUNDRIES INC. |
145 |
1260 |
11.51% |
15 |
LG CHEM, LTD. |
133 |
1622 |
8.20% |
15 |
COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES |
127 |
812 |
15.64% |
17 |
NANOTEK INSTRUMENTS, INC. |
117 |
124 |
94.35% |
18 |
SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY |
105 |
747 |
14.06% |
19 |
HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES, INC. |
99 |
1760 |
5.63% |
20 |
KING FAHD UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM AND MINERALS |
94 |
392 |
23.98% |
The table below lists the companies and research centers with whom the abovementioned top three companies (IBM, Samsung Electronics, and Samsung Display) collaborated in preparing their patents filled at the USPTO during the past year, which implies that IBM had fewer patent collaborators compared to the other two companies.
Table 2. The patent collaborators of the top 3 nanotechnology patent holders at the USPTO in 2018
SAMSUNG DISPLAY Patent Collaborators |
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS Patent Collaborators |
IBM Patent Collaborators |
SAMSUNG SDI CO., LTD. |
SAMSUNG SDI CO., LTD. |
GLOBALFOUNDRIES, INC. |
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. |
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY |
EGYPT NANOTECHNOLOGY CENTER |
KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY |
SAMSUNG DISPLAY CO., LTD. |
STMICROELECTRONICS, INC. |
UNIST |
RESEARCH & BUSINESS FOUNDATION SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY |
SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION |
KOREA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY |
BILKENT UNIVERSITY |
AGENCY FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH |
INDUSTRIAL COOPERATION FOUNDATION CHONBUK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY |
KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY |
ASELSAN ELEKTRONIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S. |
INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA COOPERATION FOUNDATION, HONGIK UNIVERSITY |
SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY R&DB FOUNDATION |
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY |
MYONGJI UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA COOPERATION FOUNDATION |
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY |
ULVAC, INC. |
POSTECH ACADEMY-INDUSTRY FOUNDATION |
AJOU UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION |
ZEON CORPORATION |
SHINWHA INTERTEK CORP |
CHEIL INDUSTRIES INC. |
|
SNU R&DB FOUNDATION |
INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION HANYANG UNIVERSITY |
|
SOGANG UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION |
DIC CORPORATION |
|
SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY RESEARCH & BUSINESS FOUNDATION |
EWHA UNIVERSITY - INDUSTRY COLLABORATION FOUNDATION |
|