How has IBM, the patent king, performed this year?

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IBM announced today that it is on track to continue to be the technology company with the most patents in the United States this year, marking its 24th consecutive year of dominance.

In 2015, IBM received more than 7,335 patents, a slight decrease from 7,534 patents in 2014. An IBM spokesperson said that the number of patents obtained by the company this year is expected to be well over 7,000. In fact, IBM also achieved and created another milestone in 2016: IBM received more than 1,000 patents for artificial intelligence and cognitive computing this year.

For IBM, being the technology company with the most patents in the United States for 24 consecutive years is no ordinary feat, it is something to be proud of; at the same time, IBM is also the only company in the United States to have obtained more than 7,000 patents for three consecutive years.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said at the Watson World Conference in October that by the end of 2017, the company expects more than 1 billion consumers to use Watson technology (Watson is a supercomputer jointly built by IBM and the University of Texas over four years, which beat the world's best Jeopardy player in 2011).

Although other companies are also increasing their AI patent applications, IBM has benefited from the pipeline of AI patent applications filed many years ago. In 2016, IBM applied for a batch of AI and cognitive computing patents, ushering in a wave of patents. For the first time, IBM also obtained more than 1,000 AI and cognitive computing patents in one year.

So what does it mean just from the perspective of more than 1,000 AI patents? In fact, IBM has far surpassed all the patents obtained by Facebook in 2015, and has almost caught up with the total number of patents obtained by Amazon last year.

The AI ​​and cognitive computing patents IBM added during 2016 pushed the company’s total patent count above 7,000 for the third consecutive year, far exceeding the number of patents it received last year. No other company in history has ever received 7,000 U.S. patents in a single year.

In 2014, IBM announced plans to restructure the company, shifting the core of its corporate development from previous strategic plans such as mainframe computers and low-end servers to development strategies and growth plans centered on data, analytics, cloud, mobile, social and network security.

In October 2015, IBM established the industry's first cognitive organization: IBM Cognitive Business Solutions, taking an important step in development. "Cognition is a new computing model that includes (but is not limited to) artificial intelligence technology innovations, machine learning and self-recognition language processing, the best example of which is IBM's Watson."

According to IDC's forecast, global spending on cognitive systems will soar to $31 billion by 2019; in 2018, half of consumers will regularly interact with basic cognitive computing services.

In 2015, IBM's investment in strategic areas such as cloud and artificial intelligence reached 54% of the total investment of US$13 billion, a cumulative increase of 26%; at the end of 2015, these strategic areas contributed 35% to IBM's total revenue of US$29 billion.

IBM's patent portfolio also reflects the transformation and development of cognitive solutions and cloud computing: by the end of 2015, 31% of its patents were in the cognitive solutions and cloud computing categories. In 1993, IBM had more than 2,200 patents, of which 27% were hardware-related. In the 20 years from 1992 to 2012, IBM obtained nearly 67,000 US patents, reaching 88,000 patents by the end of 2015, and it is expected to exceed 95,000 US patents by the end of 2016.

In fact, patents are an important part of IBM's strategy and growth plan, enabling IBM to develop leading and cutting-edge products and services for customers. IBM creates revenue sources through innovative products and technologies and commercially valuable intellectual property.

IBM researchers are located in many states in the United States, including New York, Texas, California, North Carolina, and many countries, including India, Germany, and Israel. In the past 20 years, these inventors have contributed more than 88,000 patents to IBM. IBM attaches great importance to these emerging scientific research opportunities. In total, about one-third of its researchers are dedicated to research in the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. [About reprinting]: Reprinting is limited to full text reprinting and the title and content of the article must be completely retained. No deletion or addition of content is allowed to circumvent the original protection, and the beginning of the article must indicate: Reprinted from the WeChat public account "Semiconductor Industry Observation icbank". Thank you for your cooperation!

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