1,000 US patent club 2015

Last issue, we revealed the companies that own the 100 largest portfolios of active US patents. Here, we expand the list to name each of the 369 entities holding portfolios of over 1,000 assets, representing over half of all US patents currently in force

Defining categories

A glossary of terms used in this article.

Applications

The number of pending, published US patent applications. These are published applications that do not have a corresponding granted US patent and are no older than five years. The number of applications is derived from both assignment data and analysis of inventors and technology, since many applications are not assigned at the time of filing.

CAGR

This important IP growth metric is the year-over-year compound annual growth rate of the number of patent applications filed during the last three years. This is based on the cumulative count of published applications and is not adjusted for whether a patent has issued corresponding to that application. Also, this is based on the publication date, not the filing date, which creates an average 18-month time lag for this metric. Still, this can yield crucial insight into the nature of a company’s IP development and its competitive relevance.

Company

A normalised list of public and private patent holders, aggregated by hand with all publicly available subsidiary information.

Grants

US patents granted and in force, including utility, design and plant patents. Data is sourced directly from the US Patent and Trademark Office assignments database and is aggregated for name variations and subsidiary data. Patents that are expired, unmaintained or withdrawn are removed from this count.

Tech score

A value calculated from the rate at which the utility patents in a portfolio are being cited and normalised against a cohort group of patents selected by age. The strength of this method is that it does not depend on the absolute number of citations and ignores self-citations. A high score generally points to strong positioning of a patent portfolio in an important technology area. However, a weakness of this score is that if an area is too new, sufficient citation data typically does not exist.

In Issue 71 of IAM we revealed the top 100 largest entities owning the most granted, in-force patents in the United States (see “Patent kings – the dominant players in the US patent landscape”, IAM 71). We also included their patent growth rates, as well as a bibliometric measure of the rate at which other companies are citing each portfolio, called Tech Score. That list was the third iteration of the US Patent 100 and started with a higher number of minimum grants compared to the second edition – from 3,741 in 2013 to 4,024 in 2014. We also discussed many notable moves – up, down and off the list – when compared to 2013.

Disclaimer

This data does not rank patent portfolio values outright, although some of these metrics can be used as secondary indicators of innovation. The opinions presented in this article are not intended to be, nor should they be construed as, legal or investment advice. A company’s inclusion in this article is not to be construed as an investment recommendation for such company’s securities.

In this issue, we unveil the US Patent Elite: the full list of 369 entities which own at least 1,000 in-force patents in the United States. In addition, we highlight the top 20 entities with the highest three-year patent application compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and Tech Score. This list is one of the best examples of the importance of securing a strong IP position for companies of any size.

To review the methodology, this data comes from PatentVest – a fully integrated analytic and reporting platform developed from the ground up with over 75,000 man hours by MDB Capital Group. PatentVest measures, scores and ranks over 4,000 public and private companies, unifying over 4 million granted US patents and over 2 million US patent applications on file. These man hours have been spent cleaning data directly from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and adding outside information on ownership and subsidiaries based on Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) data. The data used for this report was current as of December 15 2014.

This year’s list highlights the continued reliance on the patent system across all areas of technology. Samsung and IBM continue to dominate and grow their respective portfolios at an impressive rate (CAGR > 10%), considering the size of their existing holdings. They are now joined by 36 additional companies, each with over 1,000 in-force US patents. Newcomers to this year’s list include companies such as Accenture, Rovi, Disney, Bank of America and RedHat, all of which have been successful in adding to their patent portfolios. Part of their portfolio growth was due to new software, despite recent legal and procedural obstacles for these. The recent growth of these portfolios helps to debunk the conventional wisdom that software patents are dead. This reinforces the need for companies to stay the course and continue protecting their innovations, even in times of uncertainty. While the debate over the patentability of software-related inventions continues to play out in the courts and legislature, giving up on patent protection for meaningful software innovations may be ill advised.

ZTE outpaces last year’s growth leader Adobe with the highest CAGR score, representing a 58% annualised growth in published patent applications over the last three years. Adobe continues to file aggressively with a 48% CAGR score and Amazon.com comes in a close third with a 41% annualised patent filing growth.

In addition to illustrating the importance of developing formidable IP positions, the US Patent 1,000 is useful in identifying which companies have made significant movement in the last year. For example, ETRI, Verizon, Marvell, Airbus, SAP, Monsanto, Qualcomm and Apple have each moved up at least 10 spots in the ranks this year.

Table 1. The entities that own 1,000 or more US patents

Rank	Company	Grants	Apps	Three-year app CAGR	Tech Score
1	Samsung Electronics	55,417	21,659	11%	0.83
2	IBM	44,278	16,683	13%	0.9
3	Canon	37,863	9,621	11%	0.76
4	Panasonic	30,149	5,218	5%	0.81
5	Sony	29,281	9,169	10%	0.86
6	Microsoft	28,130	9,035	10%	1.02
7	Intel	24,306	3,129	6%	0.9
8	Toshiba	24,026	9,420	10%	0.83
9	Hewlett-Packard	21,914	3,152	6%	0.89
10	Hitachi	21,484	4,796	8%	0.81
11	Fujitsu	20,980	6,519	9%	0.82
12	General Electric	20,216	8,073	13%	0.82
13	Micron Technology	18,889	1,672	9%	0.75
14	Fujifilm	18,739	4,554	7%	0.74
15	LG Electronics	18,330	6,279	12%	0.83
16	Siemens	16,916	4,998	8%	0.79
17	Texas Instruments	16,905	1,988	8%	0.83
18	Seiko Epson	16,551	3,937	8%	0.78
19	Intellectual Ventures	15,444	2,584	7%	0.96
20	Ricoh	14,449	2,583	10%	0.78
21	Oracle	14,300	1,773	6%	0.96
22	Alcatel-Lucent	13,987	2,466	7%	0.88
23	Google	13,733	3,570	17%	1.02
24	Hon Hai	13,691	8,494	19%	0.84
25	Qualcomm	13,643	7,932	18%	0.98
26	Xerox	12,797	1,909	10%	0.76
27	Sharp	12,665	4,327	11%	0.83
28	Honda	12,375	2,320	9%	0.79
29	AT&T	11,795	2,356	11%	0.95
30	Toyota	11,736	4,562	15%	0.86
31	NEC	11,525	3,805	9%	0.84
32	Cisco	11,394	1,611	10%	1.01
33	Honeywell	11,320	3,166	10%	0.82
34	Apple	10,942	4,846	25%	1.03
35	Renesas Electronics	10,871	1,703	6%	0.78
36	General Motors	10,583	3,602	13%	0.86
37	Johnson & Johnson	10,573	3,388	9%	1.01
38	Denso Corp	10,571	2,381	8%	0.78
39	Broadcom	9,991	2,519	11%	0.89
40	Ericsson	9,987	3,981	16%	0.94
41	Taiwan Semiconductor	9,751	2,586	20%	0.82
42	Mitsubishi Electric	9,739	2,674	10%	0.79
43	Robert Bosch GmbH	9,607	4,301	12%	0.77
44	Koninklijke Philips NV	9,234	4,694	7%	0.97
45	Boston Scientific	8,945	2,003	8%	1
46	STMicroelectronics NV	8,919	1,717	11%	0.76
47	Medtronic	8,654	2,683	8%	1.16
48	Nokia	8,621	4,319	9%	1
49	EI du Pont	8,591	2,566	10%	0.67
50	Procter & Gamble	8,553	2,008	8%	0.76
51	3M	8,461	2,110	7%	0.82
52	Brother Industries	8,419	1,751	12%	0.75
53	Boeing	8,221	1,485	9%	0.82
54	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co	7,956	2,099	14%	0.78
55	LSI Corp	7,905	997	11%	0.84
56	BASF	7,855	3,566	9%	0.68
57	SK Hynix Inc	7,630	1,539	11%	0.74
58	Konica Minolta	7,533	1,873	7%	0.76
59	Ford	7,410	2,362	17%	0.86
60	BlackBerry	7,328	3,389	20%	0.95
61	United Technologies	6,902	2,625	14%	0.78
62	Olympus Corp	6,639	1,902	9%	0.85
63	Schlumberger	6,577	2,222	10%	0.86
64	LG Display Co	6,454	1,010	7%	0.75
65	Western Digital	6,394	467	6%	0.81
66	Eastman Kodak	6,167	1,050	8%	0.97
67	Applied Materials	6,035	1,886	8%	0.81
68	Infineon	6,025	1,256	10%	0.79
69	Sumitomo Electric	5,593	1,656	11%	0.74
70	TDK Corp	5,579	780	5%	0.78
71	Covidien	5,409	2,752	17%	1.08
72	Advanced Micro Devices	5,394	780	15%	0.86
73	Freescale Semiconductor	5,210	940	11%	0.88
74	Roche Holdings	5,201	1,746	8%	0.76
75	Marvell	5,187	520	21%	0.92
76	TE Connectivity	5,178	936	10%	0.85
77	Seagate Technology	5,025	712	7%	0.82
78	Daimler AG	5,007	441	3%	0.77
79	Baker Hughes	4,882	1,399	12%	0.85
80	Abbott Laboratories	4,868	1,594	11%	0.96
81	Danaher Corp	4,837	1,088	8%	0.77
82	Industrial Technology Research Institute	4,776	1,617	10%	0.79
83	Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute	4,734	4,469	16%	0.86
84	Lockheed Martin	4,714	555	7%	0.86
85	Dow Chemical	4,707	1,691	14%	0.75
86	SAP	4,696	2,045	13%	0.94
87	Tokyo Electron	4,696	1,553	9%	0.8
88	Airbus Group NV	4,632	2,096	13%	0.81
89	University of California System	4,618	1,935	12%	0.86
90	Globalfoundries	4,598	584	16%	0.87
91	Nissan Motor	4,446	811	8%	0.83
92	Bayer AG	4,315	2,178	8%	0.69
93	Verizon Communications	4,239	1,473	22%	1.04
94	Murata Manufacturing	4,216	990	12%	0.69
95	Rohm	4,199	686	7%	0.74
96	Nikon Corp	4,141	944	7%	0.79
97	Stanley Black & Decker	4,133	437	7%	0.81
98	Continental AG	4,131	1,044	7%	0.74
99	Monsanto	4,029	662	16%	0.65
100	Exxon Mobil	4,024	761	9%	0.73
101	Kyocera	3,984	2,068	16%	0.85
102	Caterpillar	3,970	1,815	16%	0.78
103	Novartis	3,969	1,605	10%	0.77
104	Halliburton	3,959	1,505	16%	0.85
105	Sanofi-Aventis	3,935	1,326	11%	0.64
106	EMC	3,917	161	6%	1.03
107	Emerson Electric	3,912	976	10%	0.85
108	Motorola Solutions	3,894	717	4%	0.96
109	Qimonda AG	3,735	102	1%	0.68
110	Sprint Corporation	3,701	93	9%	0.98
111	Nike	3,697	956	26%	0.95
112	ABB	3,685	1,137	11%	0.79
113	Huawei Technologies	3,679	4,089	30%	0.92
114	Raytheon	3,658	829	15%	0.83
115	Sanyo Electric	3,553	1,359	6%	0.77
116	Round Rock Research	3,551	32	1%	0.9
117	Bridgestone	3,543	1,061	11%	0.72
118	Dell	3,498	992	12%	0.93
119	Eaton Corp	3,451	690	11%	0.8
120	AU Optronics Corp	3,450	917	11%	0.77
121	Technicolor	3,433	1,155	7%	0.83
122	Fiat Chrysler Automobiles	3,382	349	8%	0.76
123	Illinois Tool Works	3,370	902	8%	0.74
124	Altera	3,363	154	9%	0.85
125	Kimberly-Clark	3,348	464	4%	0.84
126	NXP Semiconductors	3,234	832	8%	0.8
127	Xilinx	3,164	51	12%	0.91
128	US Navy	3,141	428	11%	0.8
129	SanDisk	3,123	619	11%	1.02
130	ASML Holding	3,048	639	6%	0.75
131	St Jude Medical	3,033	958	14%	1.04
132	Aisin Seiki Co	3,028	975	11%	0.87
133	Merck & Co	3,008	870	6%	0.69
134	MediaTek	2,972	1,307	12%	0.84
135	Corning	2,928	1,088	11%	0.82
136	Yazaki Corporation	2,919	852	13%	0.69
137	Hyundai	2,849	2,082	24%	0.84
138	Lam Research Corp	2,820	476	10%	0.81
139	Berkshire Hathaway	2,795	641	11%	0.78
140	Shin-Etsu Chemical Co	2,791	730	9%	0.7
141	United Microelectronics	2,775	438	10%	0.72
142	Toshiba TEC	2,772	1,433	7%	0.76
143	Samsung SDI	2,761	1,833	10%	0.75
144	Masco Corp	2,759	165	9%	0.78
145	Northrop Grumman	2,695	139	4%	0.76
146	Yamaha	2,694	327	5%	0.72
147	International Game Technology	2,688	497	10%	1.1
148	Safran	2,675	1,223	15%	0.8
149	Deere & Co	2,673	404	9%	0.8
150	Delphi Automotive	2,671	527	4%	0.77
151	Carl Zeiss Holding	2,630	802	8%	0.76
152	Osram Licht	2,614	967	12%	0.79
153	Funai Electric Co	2,612	404	5%	0.7
154	Symantec	2,590	153	9%	1.14
155	Bristol-Myers Squibb	2,565	330	6%	0.66
156	NVIDIA	2,565	946	23%	0.92
157	Formosa Plastics Corporation	2,554	389	6%	0.73
158	Sumitomo Chemical	2,541	1,432	10%	0.67
159	Memjet Technology	2,537	28	1%	0.63
160	ON Semiconductor	2,524	250	6%	0.77
161	Avaya	2,510	597	11%	1.01
162	Lenovo	2,495	772	11%	0.87
163	NTT DoCoMo	2,468	981	11%	0.94
164	Spansion	2,458	164	5%	0.8
165	Amazon.com	2,436	581	41%	1.13
166	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	2,367	1,401	17%	0.78
167	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	2,366	1,106	14%	1
168	Merck	2,363	864	8%	0.73
169	GlaxoSmithKline	2,349	757	4%	0.68
170	Adobe Systems	2,339	809	48%	1.03
171	The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company	2,264	156	7%	0.64
172	Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission	2,246	1,319	17%	0.81
173	Yamaha Motor	2,230	221	4%	0.72
174	RollsRoyce Holdings Plc	2,200	1,009	14%	0.81
175	Macronix International Co	2,199	281	8%	0.77
176	Syngenta AG	2,187	569	13%	0.64
177	Samsung Electro-Mechanics	2,185	3,087	24%	0.85
178	Avago Technologies	2,138	284	5%	0.8
179	Hoya Corporation	2,137	351	5%	0.77
180	Analog Devices	2,120	290	12%	0.87
181	Whirlpool	2,117	764	14%	0.82
182	Schneider Electric	2,116	455	11%	0.88
183	Magna International	2,044	540	10%	0.86
184	CNH Industrial	2,018	382	12%	0.73
185	Evonik Industries	2,005	879	8%	0.68
186	Casio Computer	2,000	633	15%	0.85
187	InterDigital	1,994	734	10%	0.88
188	Chi Mei Corporation	1,974	572	6%	0.77
189	Compagnie de Saint-Gobain	1,971	869	12%	0.8
190	Yahoo!	1,971	1,412	10%	1.1
191	Cypress Semiconductor	1,963	155	17%	0.85
192	Seika Holdings	1,935	342	8%	0.72
193	Schaeffler Technologies	1,930	656	10%	0.74
194	Alstrom	1,925	793	13%	0.72
195	Nitto Denko Corp	1,905	1,580	15%	0.78
196	National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology	1,893	484	5%	0.74
197	BMW	1,890	272	10%	0.76
198	Oki Electric Industry Co	1,889	452	5%	0.81
199	Life Technologies Corp	1,862	878	9%	0.81
200	Saudi Basic Industries Corporation	1,856	496	9%	0.61
201	Tessera Technologies	1,853	312	13%	0.95
202	Becton Dickinson & Co	1,843	490	11%	0.95
203	Synopsys	1,843	195	9%	0.98
204	Sumitomo Rubber Industries	1,842	605	13%	0.75
205	Juniper Networks	1,825	255	15%	1.02
206	Furukawa Electric Co	1,819	458	8%	0.74
207	Royal Dutch Shell	1,817	725	10%	0.87
208	Facebook	1,807	937	25%	1.04
209	Stryker Corp	1,802	521	10%	1.14
210	California Institute Of Technology	1,793	528	12%	0.92
211	NGK Insulators	1,781	379	7%	0.7
212	Rockwell Automation	1,771	387	13%	0.87
213	Ps4 Luxco	1,749	327	15%	0.8
214	Kao Corp	1,744	404	8%	0.65
215	Stanford University	1,739	699	13%	0.93
216	Nippon Steel & Sumitomo	1,734	771	14%	0.69
217	Boehringer Ingelheim International	1,725	777	10%	0.7
218	NetApp	1,720	223	14%	1.07
219	Nuance Communications	1,717	355	10%	1.06
220	Zeppelin Reimelt	1,710	480	7%	0.79
221	Asahi Kaisei Corporation	1,709	551	11%	0.78
222	Chevron	1,696	667	14%	0.76
223	L’oreal	1,680	721	5%	0.68
224	Weatherford International	1,675	354	9%	0.91
225	JTEKT Corporation	1,653	427	10%	0.74
226	Pioneer	1,652	403	2%	0.75
227	Valeo	1,650	520	9%	0.71
228	US Department of Health and Human Services	1,649	451	11%	0.72
229	Pfizer	1,646	294	2%	0.73
230	JP Morgan Chase	1,637	327	10%	1.2
231	RPX Corporation	1,632	19	1%	1.03
232	Fairchild Semiconductor International	1,618	349	14%	0.89
233	FIH Mobile	1,613	963	13%	0.88
234	The French National Centre for Scientific Research	1,610	1,108	15%	0.77
235	Suntory Beverage & Food	1,605	334	9%	0.8
236	Ecolab	1,602	475	13%	0.74
237	KLA-Tencor	1,602	277	13%	0.84
238	LG Chemical	1,602	1,230	21%	0.78
239	Delta Electronics	1,595	648	12%	0.8
240	Dai Nippon Printing	1,569	323	6%	0.74
241	Koch Industries	1,567	349	8%	0.72
242	Thermo Fisher Scientific	1,561	369	9%	0.75
243	UW-Madison/WARF	1,561	399	10%	0.79
244	Japan Display	1,558	783	18%	0.88
245	Newell Rubbermaid	1,557	187	4%	0.88
246	NCR Corp	1,544	295	12%	0.85
247	The University of Texas System	1,540	781	11%	0.89
248	Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings	1,533	554	9%	0.72
249	National Tsing Hua University	1,518	899	21%	0.83
250	Sandvik AB	1,515	369	9%	0.76
251	JVC Kenwood Holdings	1,512	259	8%	0.74
252	Komatsu LTD	1,510	343	14%	0.79
253	TRW Automotive Holdings	1,505	248	5%	0.79
254	Reckitt Benckiser Group	1,500	250	8%	0.75
255	Cadence Design Systems	1,498	59	5%	0.98
256	Porsche Automobil Holding	1,494	295	11%	0.78
257	Thales SA	1,494	616	11%	0.83
258	Unilever	1,486	374	5%	0.68
259	Takeda Pharmaceuticals	1,476	446	5%	0.69
260	Agilent Technologies	1,468	260	2%	0.8
261	JDS Uniphase	1,468	93	3%	0.86
262	Ciena Corp	1,467	103	6%	0.9
263	Harris Corp	1,458	276	9%	0.91
264	Adidas	1,454	268	12%	1
265	Omron	1,446	647	11%	0.82
266	Advantest Corp	1,442	252	5%	0.75
267	Solvay SA	1,440	738	10%	0.66
268	Astrazeneca	1,439	582	5%	0.72
269	Cree	1,436	518	18%	1.1
270	Baxter International	1,432	440	9%	0.93
271	Lexmark International	1,430	212	6%	0.74
272	Hitachi Metals	1,427	513	10%	0.76
273	The Fraunhofer Society	1,425	758	13%	0.86
274	Michelin	1,416	619	15%	0.7
275	Daikin Industries	1,413	580	8%	0.72
276	Shimano	1,413	255	10%	0.7
277	Asahi Glass Co	1,412	696	11%	0.74
278	Finisar Corporation	1,406	102	4%	0.74
279	Rambus	1,403	324	12%	0.96
280	Techtronic Industries	1,398	227	9%	0.85
281	Kohler	1,379	141	21%	0.78
282	Rockwell Collins	1,374	41	7%	0.92
283	Rockstar	1,372	253	15%	1.04
284	Volvo	1,370	458	9%	0.8
285	Zimmer Holdings	1,368	355	9%	1.17
286	Callaway Golf	1,364	87	5%	0.94
287	BAE Systems	1,347	521	14%	0.83
288	Cummins	1,345	336	14%	0.86
289	Colgate-Palmolive	1,339	351	13%	0.79
290	Henkel	1,334	556	10%	0.75
291	STATS ChipPAC	1,332	335	14%	0.94
292	AbbVie	1,331	420	16%	0.73
293	Jarden Corp	1,318	138	5%	0.76
294	Foxlink Image Technology Co	1,317	274	18%	0.9
295	Dover Corp	1,312	312	11%	0.79
296	Korea Advanced Institute Of Science And Technology	1,312	881	14%	0.82
297	Kobe Steel	1,311	558	13%	0.72
298	Takata Corp	1,308	166	5%	0.86
299	BSH Hausgeräte	1,303	598	8%	0.79
300	Mitsui Chemicals	1,302	315	7%	0.7
301	Fuji Electric	1,299	484	15%	0.8
302	Johnson Controls	1,299	642	11%	0.88
303	Nintendo	1,299	553	19%	0.96
304	SC Johnson & Son	1,297	68	5%	0.86
305	Conversant Intellectual Property Management	1,295	117	8%	0.85
306	Nestlé	1,294	886	16%	0.76
307	HTC	1,286	682	20%	0.92
308	Tetra Laval Group	1,276	345	10%	0.69
309	Energizer Holdings	1,265	111	4%	0.77
310	Trimble Navigation	1,263	189	10%	0.91
311	Wistron Corp	1,254	939	27%	0.9
312	Nidec Corp	1,245	291	9%	0.8
313	Koninklijke DSM	1,236	856	11%	0.75
314	US Army	1,236	231	12%	0.83
315	Pitney Bowes	1,226	92	2%	0.76
316	Toyoda Gosei Co	1,226	230	7%	0.9
317	eBay	1,217	1,197	27%	1.08
318	CR Bard	1,206	402	11%	1.1
319	Johns Hopkins University	1,200	695	15%	0.8
320	Autoliv	1,198	160	8%	0.88
321	ZTE Corp	1,193	1,361	58%	0.97
322	Atmel Corporation	1,186	318	10%	0.82
323	Unisys	1,185	261	19%	0.91
324	Dongbu Engineering & Construction Co	1,184	263	2%	0.64
325	PepsiCo	1,179	270	10%	0.72
326	Total SA	1,169	692	14%	0.72
327	Ingersoll-Rand	1,162	274	12%	0.77
328	Allergan	1,158	711	18%	0.76
329	PPG Industries	1,156	325	8%	0.77
330	Inventec Corp	1,155	557	6%	0.76
331	Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp	1,151	217	7%	0.87
332	Dow Corning	1,144	341	10%	0.7
333	Intersil Corp	1,144	148	7%	0.86
334	Parker Hannifin Corp	1,141	223	7%	0.8
335	CSR Plc	1,131	193	10%	0.92
336	The University of Michigan	1,130	441	11%	0.88
337	NSK LTD	1,122	150	6%	0.68
338	NTN Corp	1,120	318	8%	0.74
339	Cook Group Incorporated	1,118	755	14%	1.05
340	Cirrus Logic	1,110	134	11%	0.94
341	Biomet	1,100	461	17%	1.13
342	Alps Electric Co	1,091	244	4%	0.74
343	Swatch Group	1,089	237	13%	0.72
344	Accenture	1,077	376	12%	1.18
345	Air Liquide	1,074	612	11%	0.72
346	Milton Roy	1,073	714	32%	0.84
347	Scientific Games Corp	1,072	443	12%	1.05
348	Rovi	1,071	689	13%	1.11
349	Walt Disney	1,068	500	21%	0.96
350	Bank of America Corp	1,064	1,059	33%	0.98
351	Reynolds Group Holdings	1,064	155	6%	0.81
352	Amgen	1,061	334	8%	0.74
353	L-3 Communications Holdings	1,059	127	5%	0.85
354	National-Oilwell	1,051	280	11%	0.84
355	Battelle Memorial Institute	1,046	345	8%	0.88
356	Microchip Technology	1,044	183	9%	0.88
357	CenturyLink	1,039	271	10%	1.01
358	PerkinElmer	1,036	129	6%	0.95
359	Air Products & Chemicals	1,027	226	8%	0.79
360	Red Hat	1,023	600	16%	0.98
361	US National Aeronautics and Space Administration	1,021	138	9%	0.86
362	NGK Spark Plugs	1,015	261	12%	0.77
363	Showa Denko	1,014	484	7%	0.71
364	Institut Francais Du Pretrole	1,013	22	1%	0.66
365	Zoetis	1,012	236	2%	0.67
366	CommScope Holding Co	1,008	220	11%	0.94
367	Uni Charm	1,004	437	13%	0.74
368	Microsemi Corporation	1,002	74	5%	0.87
369	ASM International	1,000	177	7%	0.83

Source: MDB Capital Group LLC

For this list we review applications and, more importantly, the three-year patent application CAGR. Applications include pending, published US patent applications. These are published applications with no corresponding granted US patent which are no older than five years. The number of applications is derived from both assignment data and analysis of inventors and technology, since many applications are not assigned at the time of filing.

The three-year patent application CAGR is an important IP growth metric, as it is the year-on-year compound annual growth rate of the number of patent applications filed during the last three years. This is based on the cumulative count of published applications and is not adjusted for whether a patent has been issued corresponding to that application. Also, this is based on the publication date, not the filing date, which creates an average 18-month time lag for this metric. However, this can still yield crucial insight into the nature of a company’s IP development and its competitive relevance.

Our Tech Score ranking is calculated from the rate at which the utility patents in a portfolio are being cited and normalised against a cohort group of patents selected by age. The strengths of this method are that it does not depend on an absolute number of citations and ignores self-citations; a high score generally points to strong positioning of a patent portfolio in an important technology area. A weakness of this method is that sufficient citation data typically does not exist if an area is too new.

Table 2. Top 20 by CAGR

Company	Grants	Apps	Three-year app CAGR	Tech Score
ZTE Corp	1,193	1,361	58%	0.97
Adobe Systems	2,339	809	48%	1.03
Amazon.com	2,436	581	41%	1.13
Bank of America	1,064	1,059	33%	0.98
Milton Roy	1,073	714	32%	0.84
Huawei Technologies Co	3,679	4,089	30%	0.92
Wistron Corp	1,254	939	27%	0.9
eBay	1,217	1,197	27%	1.08
Nike	3,697	956	26%	0.95
Apple	10,942	4,846	25%	1.03
Facebook	1,807	937	25%	1.04
Hyundai Motor Co	2,849	2,082	24%	0.84
Samsung Electro-Mechanics	2,185	3,087	24%	0.85
NVIDIA	2,565	946	23%	0.92
Verizon Communications	4,239	1,473	22%	1.04
Marvell Technology Group	5,187	520	21%	0.92
LG Chemical	1,602	1,230	21%	0.78
National Tsing Hua University	1,518	899	21%	0.83
Kohler	1,379	141	21%	0.78
Walt Disney	1,068	500	21%	0.96

Source: MDB Capital Group LLC

Table 3. Top 20 by Tech Score

Company	Grants	Apps	Three-year app CAGR	Tech Score
JP Morgan Chase	1,637	327	10%	1.2
Accenture	1,077	376	12%	1.18
Zimmer Holdings	1,368	355	9%	1.17
Medtronic	8,654	2,683	8%	1.16
Symantec	2,590	153	9%	1.14
Stryker	1,802	521	10%	1.14
Amazon.com	2,436	581	41%	1.13
Biomet	1,100	461	17%	1.13
Rovi	1,071	689	13%	1.11
International Game Technology	2,688	497	10%	1.1
Yahoo!	1,971	1,412	10%	1.1
Cree	1,436	518	18%	1.1
CR Bard	1,206	402	11%	1.1
Covidien	5,409	2,752	17%	1.08
eBay	1,217	1,197	27%	1.08
NetApp	1,720	223	14%	1.07
Nuance Communications	1,717	355	10%	1.06
Cook Group Incorporated	1,118	755	14%	1.05
Scientific Games	1,072	443	12%	1.05
Verizon Communications	4,239	1,473	22%	1.04

Source: MDB Capital Group LLC Powered by PatentVest®

Action plan

The US Patent Elite provides actionable intelligence for the purposes of:

patent portfolio benchmarking;
comparisons across companies and industries;
assessments of innovative activity over time; and
indications of patent portfolio positioning and impact.

The list is valuable because of the important new information it provides to investors, companies and policy makers. Much like an investment index, this information provides a unique view into the companies listed and the industries they represent.

For investors

Depending on the stage of a corporation’s development, intellectual property may be a primary value driver. This list provides insight as to whether a company’s portfolio has been growing and the impact that those assets appear to be having within their technology verticals.

For companies

The US Patent Elite enables portfolio benchmarking and deeper analysis of IP strategy within and across industry verticals.

For policymakers

Out of over 140,000 entities holding at least one granted, in-force US patent, 371 companies own portfolios of over 1,000 assets, representing over 55% of the US total. The top 100 patent holders own over one-third of all US patent assets. Throughout the list, various strategic models exist, each of which is important to enabling commerce and technology development.

Michael B Chernoff is chief IP officer at MDB Capital Group, Washington DC, United States