IBM Wins the Patent Derby
January 15, 2009
Reuters posted a story on Yahoo News about the 2008 patent derby. You can read the story here if it has not been deleted by the Yahoo team. Yahoo News articles can be tough to find sometimes. IBM, according to the article, was awarded 4,186 patents by the often criticized US Patent & Trademark Office. Runner up Microsoft obtained 2,030 patents, and chip giant Intel snared 1,776. What I found interesting was that according to my tally of Google patents, Googzilla generated a total of about 200 US patent documents, based on my quick look on January 14, 2009. That’s fewer than about four patent applications and granted patents each week compared to IBM’s stunning 80 patents granted a week in 2008. Several questions come to mind:
- Is Google asleep at the switch? IBM obviously is focusing quite a bit of effort on invention. Google seems retrograde in innovation, or is it? Could Google patent only important innovations that require some protection?
- IBM’s patents are literally all over the technical map. Is Google more focused on search and advertising than IBM or Microsoft for that matter?
- Will Google decrease its patent application output because of the rumored reform that will be coming to the USPTO?
My own review of Google patent documents suggests that the GOOG has a strategy that relies on specific technical inventions. The focus is the strength and, of course, the weakness of Google’s approach. But when making a league table, IBM, Microsoft, and the other high output companies are the winners. Google is up for relegation if one relies only on a raw count of volume. I think quantity is not as important as quality when it comes to Google’s approach to patent documents.
Stephen Arnold, January 15, 2009
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