Patent Prowess

Dominating electronics once again are Hitachi, Matsushita, Xerox Corp., and Sony, just as it was in 2006. Cisco, Nokia, and Motorola remained at the top in Telecom Equipment, and General Motors, Nippnondenso, and Toyota led the way in the Automotive category. These are industries where the barriers to entry are so high that the leading companies change very little year by year.

But in other industries, changes can occur rapidly. Medical Equipment/Instruments and Scientific Instruments have seen major changes between 2006 and 2007, while MIT and Caltech have taken over at the top of the universities/education/training ranking.

For the first time this year, our scorecard includes Computer Software as a separate industry (previously, hardware and software companies were listed in the same industry). Perhaps not surprisingly, Microsoft has a significant lead in Computer Software, with an overall Pipeline Power score five times as high as any other software company’s. Other well-known names that figure prominently in the Computer Software category include SAP, Oracle, and AOL.

AOL appears in the scorecards for the first time this year, and the same is true of Apple in the Computer Systems industry. These companies have both seen increases in their overall Pipeline Power scores, suggesting that their patent portfolios are becoming increasingly influential. AOL has a series of highly cited patents covering technologies such as instant messaging and online purchasing. Meanwhile, Apple has highly cited patents in a range of technologies, from media players with touch pads to user interfaces for time-based data.

Significant changes in international trends are showing up, even though the percentage of U.S. patent applications from foreign organizations and individuals has barely changed: it increased from 44 percent in 1997 to 47 percent in 2007. In particular, European companies are becoming much more prominent in life sciences. While 17 out of the 20 leading Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals companies in 2006 were U.S.-based, this number fell to 11 in 2007, with the other nine leading companies all being European. American companies remain as strong as ever in information technologies, however, particularly in Software, a new category in this year’s scorecard.

Both of these findings—the continuing strength of the United States in information technology and the growing strength of Europe in life sciences—reflect trends reported in the recent study ”Emerging Clusters Project,” produced by 1790 Analytics for the Department of Commerce.