Chinese tech companies are aggressively stamping their class as a dominant force in global technology. Proof of this is when Huawei Technologies Co. barged into the list of 10 leading recipients of US patents in 2019, a document by the US Patent and Trademark Office revealed, Tuesday.
The 2,418 patents granted by the telecom giant, along with 2,177 new ones approved for display-screen manufacturer BOE Technology Group, helped steer China as the fourth-largest recipient of American patents.
China now trails South Korea and Japan in the patent-recipients ranking, but for the first time it overtook Germany, based on the evaluation of IFI Claims Patent Services by Fairview Research.
For the 27th year, International Business Machines Corp. maintained the title as the world's leading patent holder, notching a 9,262 patents record, and well ahead of second-placer, Samsung Electronics Co. and Canon Inc, on third spot.
All in all, after a drop in 2018, the patent office granted 333,530 new patents, an all-time high and a 15 percent leap. Larry Cady, a senior market strategist at IFI, said the rise probably reflects attempts to remove a bottleneck over who can apply for a patent and how.
Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing were among the main areas for IBM, IFI said. The patents granted for IBM represent the work of over 8,500 inventors across 45 states and 54 nations, the agency added.
While the business and tech solutions empire may be consistently the leading recipient of patents, its holdings are not the biggest, IFI reported.
The bragging rights for the biggest holdings belong to Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, with Canon Inc. Of Japan in second spot. The difference, Cady explained, is that IBM does not keep all of its patents in one setting.
The company treats new patents as a sign of innovation and "we regularly review and prune our patent assets," Jason McGee, IBM Cloud chief technology officer, said.
Together, Asian and American technology companies dominate the list of top recipients. Microsoft, Intel, LG Electronics and Apple trail IBM, Samsung and Canon on the list of top recipients. Ford Motor, which had entered last year's top 10, was just ahead of Amazon and later on, Huawei.
The report simply suggests that while the figures are small, the fastest-growing patent classifications were in the gene splicing technology known as CRISPR, hybrid plants, and 3-D printing and cancer therapy.
A huge number of the patents granted to Huawei are in line with things like high-frequency transmission that are very important for the next generation of wireless innovation now widely referred to as 5G.
