United States Patent and Trademarks Office released the list of top 10 private recipients of US patents in 2004. IBM, Matsushita, Canon and HP lead the list of most prolific patent receivers.
| Top US patent recipients | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
# in 2004 |
Number of Patents in 2004 |
Organization |
# in 2003 |
Number of Patents in 2003 |
|
1
|
3,248
|
IBM |
(1)
|
(3,415) |
|
2
|
1,934
|
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co |
(4)
|
(1,774 ) |
|
3
|
1,805
|
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha |
(2)
|
(1,992) |
|
4
|
1,775
|
Hewlett-Packard |
(5)
|
(1,759) |
|
5
|
1,760
|
Micron Technology |
(6)
|
(1,707) |
|
6
|
1,604
|
Samsung Electronics |
(9)
|
(1,313) |
|
7
|
1,601
|
Intel Corporation |
(7)
|
(1,592) |
|
8
|
1,514
|
Hitachi |
(3)
|
(1,893) |
|
9
|
1,310
|
Toshiba Corporation |
(13)
|
(1,184) |
|
10
|
1,305
|
Sony Corporation |
(10)
|
(1,311) |
| Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office |
||||