Keeping Score in the IP Game

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The data on U.S. patent awards for 2006 show that the patents in any given field still go to a few top companies, that there is little change from year to year among the dominant firms, and that the gaps between the leaders and the runners-up are growing. In almost all branches of electronics, computing, and telecommunications, awards made to the leading company jumped mightily from 2005 to 2006--by as much as 48 percent in semiconductor manufacturing, 60 percent in telecommunications equipment, and 65 percent in electronics.

IEEE Spectrum's compilation of patent awards and patent impact was prepared by 1790 Analytics, a Haddonfield, N.J., company that specializes in evaluating intellectual property. This is the second year that the firm, which takes its name from the year the first U.S. patent was awarded, has provided its data to us.

Looking at the compilation as a whole, the impression is more one of stability than of change. In almost every major subfield of IT, the same two or three companies appear among the top three or four. In fact, the top scorer changed in only one of the nine subfields.

This year, however, Americans may at last see some real change in a patent system that almost every analyst considers seriously flawed. The proposed Patent Reform Act of 2007, which has pitted lobbyists for the electronics and biomedical industries against each other, would establish a procedure for challenging patents after their issuance, limit the ability of litigants to shop around for courts deemed sympathetic, and redefine what constitutes willful infringement.

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