Patent Power Scorecards: Japan Ascendant

The 2009 scorecards were not all bad news for U.S. companies. IBM still leads in Computer Systems by a wide margin, as does Microsoft in Computer Software. Cisco also continues to lead in Telecom/Communications Equipment and is one of three U.S. companies in the top four places in this scorecard, along with Motorola and Qualcomm.

There were also a number of U.S. companies that saw significant improvements in their ranking between 2007 and 2009. Oracle jumped from seventh to second in Computer Software, while Adobe moved from No. 12 to No. 4 in the same scorecard. Adobe has risen particularly rapidly, having entered the scorecards for the first time in 2007. Johnson & Johnson is another U.S. company that saw an improvement in ranking in 2009, rising from fourth place in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals to take over the top spot from Roche. KLA-Tencor is also on the rise and is now second only to Tokyo Electron in Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing.

As large companies continue to jostle for position at the head of the scorecards, smaller specialist companies with innovative technologies are also well represented. For example, Super Talent Technology, a San Jose, Calif., company specializing in DDR (Double Data Rate) and flash memory, ranks fifth in 2009’s Computer Peripherals and Storage scorecard. This is a remarkable performance, since Super Talent’s patent portfolio is dwarfed in size by the portfolios of other companies in this scorecard, such as Seiko Epson, Ricoh, Fuji Xerox, and EMC. Super Talent’s high ranking results from a very strong combination of patent metrics, encompassing Patent Impact, Originality, and Generality.

Microvision [see In the Eye of the Beholder, May 2004 is another smaller company whose high-impact patent portfolio puts it alongside leading names in the electronics industry. Microvision develops imaging and display solutions for mobile applications. It has particularly high-impact patents related to flat-panel optical displays and nonlinear optical materials (as reflected in its high Pipeline Impact score). The impact of these patents can be seen across a range of technologies, as reflected in Microvision’s high Pipeline Generality number.

O2Micro is another company worth noting, having entered the Semiconductor Manufacturing scorecard for the first time in 2009. O2Micro specializes in power management and security ICs for electronics and communications applications. Its patent portfolio is much smaller than those of most of the companies in this scorecard, such as Samsung, Intel, and Broadcom. Despite its smaller portfolio, the impact and general applicability of O2Micro’s patents, especially those related to power supplies for LCD panels and DC/AC power converters, puts it next to the leading companies in this year’s scorecard.

Of all this year’s scorecards, none has seen bigger changes than the Universities/Education/Training scorecard. In 2007, high-profile research universities—MIT, Caltech, the University of California system, Harvard, and Rice—headed the scorecard. Out of these five universities, only the University of California is still in the top five in 2009. Caltech has dropped to eleventh, MIT to twelfth, Harvard to fifteenth, and Rice is out of the scorecard altogether. In 2009, the top five are Texas, California, Central Florida, Iowa State, and Washington, suggesting that these are emerging sources of interesting innovations. It is also notable that the 2009 scorecard contains two non-U.S. universities—the University of Oxford and South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology—compared to none in 2007.