Top 50 U.S. Patent Assignees of 2012 | Hacker News Reader

Top 50 U.S. Patent Assignees of 2012

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12 pointsyyzyvr10 comments

More suprising to me is Canon @ #3 and MSFT @ #6. Is there really that much going on in the optics space right now?

And MSFT with 2600+ patents, I'd have to imagine a lot of it is software (with some hardware maybe around Kinect and out of MSR)

edit: quick link to source - http://ificlaims.com/index.php?page=misc_top_50_2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research

MSFT is not surprising at all. If anything I would have expected them to be higher.

The number of patents these 10 companies have filed for does not necessarily correlate well with the quality of their patents.

Perhaps, but we'll still have to fight them all in court, right? So, they can trivially slap down a startup with litigation threats if they so choose?

Canon makes medical equipment. E.g. http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/healthcare/products/digital_ra...

    21. Google (1151)
    Biggest Gainer, Up 170%; Was 65 on 2011 list.

The most disturbing outcome of the patent wars may be that a sleeping giant has been awoken. I wonder if Apple and others will regret they ever mentioned patents one day?

Not really, 1) Google wants into mobile more than Apple wants into search or ads, and 2) Apple has more mobile patents.

Google more than Apple is a sign of things to come.

My experience tells me that Apple is filing for 200% of their possible patents (lawyers everywhere at Apple) and Google is filing for 20% (there is a pretty virulent anti-patent vibe at Google).

events from the past couple of years have changed all of that. These numbers support that.

What a bunch of hand-wavy crap.

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