2014年獲得技術專利最多的8大公司
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????專利是科技行業的命脈。從去年的統計數字來看，科技行業依舊充滿了活力。 ????去年，美國專利商標局批準了超過30萬項實用專利，創下歷史新高。所謂實用專利即與發明創造有關的專利，不包括設計專利。這些專利使公司的發明獲得最長二十年的保護期限，進而讓它們收獲大規模研發投入帶來的豐碩成果。此外，這些專利還有另外一個好處：允許公司積累充足的知識產權儲備，為未來的法律訴訟提供有力支持。 ????美國商業專利數據庫公司市場營銷副總裁兼高級專利分析師拉里?卡迪表示：“恃強凌弱的人肯定不會選擇大個子。他們會去欺負弱小的人。”該公司的業務之一就是維護專利數據庫。 ????在今年的排行榜中，有哪些公司遙遙領先？他們正在竭力保護哪些創意？ ????1月，商業專利數據庫發布了2014年50家專利大戶排名。《財富》雜志攜手該公司對這份排名進行了研究，其中大部分公司來自計算、硬件與軟件制造和移動技術領域。簡而言之：技術專利普遍很專業。有時候，甚至專業到令人麻木。卡迪表示：“許多專利都非常普通。專利文件內容也很無聊。有時候你會發現類似蘋果手表這樣的專利，但這簡直就是鳳毛麟角。”（蘋果公司在商業專利數據庫的2014年排行榜中名列第11位。） ????但我們還是進行了深入研究?！敦敻弧氛{查了去年專利大戶獲得的專利，以確認這些公司的最新研發成果。在2014年“研發投入最多的十大公司排行榜”基礎上，下面這份清單將更加詳細地介紹各大公司創新投入的方向和使用方式。 ????我們的調查結果如下： |
????Patents are the lifeblood of the tech industry—and if last year’s numbers are any indication, that sector is performing with vigor. ????More than 300,000 utility patents—those are the ones for inventions, rather than designs—were issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office last year, a record high. Such patents allow companies to put their inventions on lockdown for up to two decades, reaping rewards for significant R&D investments. And there’s another incentive: allowing businesses to stock up their intellectual property warchests and fortify their legal defenses. ????“If you’re a bully you’re not going to pick on the big kids,” says Larry Cady, vice president of marketing and senior patent analyst at IFI Claims Patent Services, a firm that maintains a database of patents. “You’re going to pick on the pipsqueaks.” ????So which companies are the head honchos? And what ideas are they bent on securing? ????Fortune partnered with IFI Claims, which last monthranked the top 50 patent assignees of 2014, in order to examine the major players’ patents—most of which involve computing, hardware and software manufacturing, and mobile technology. A word to the wise: technology patents can be, well, technical. Sometimes, mind-numbingly so. “A lot of patents tend to be very regular,” Cady says. “They’re not fun to read. Once in a while you see something like an Apple Watch, but that’s like finding a needle in a hay stack.” (Apple ranked 11 on IFI Claims’ 2014 list.) ????Well, we dug in anyway. Fortune peeked inside the patent caches of last year’s top earners to spot companies’ latest additions. What follows is a list expanding on our 2014 list of the top 10 R&D-spending companies, revealing with finer granularity where and how companies spend their innovation bucks. ????Here’s what we found. |
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????1. IBM ????專利數量：7,534項 ????代表性專利：“最小存儲區域網絡遷移下的操作系統遷移” ????國家：美國 ????在專利領域，IBM讓其他公司望塵莫及。雖然這家計算與咨詢公司的財務狀況陷入低迷，但它已連續22年領跑專利排行榜。事實上，IBM是第一家在一年內獲得超過7000項專利的公司，遙遙領先于第二名。IBM的創新涵蓋各個領域；其中最主要的是計算機、半導體、電信、商務應用（如虛擬現實設備中的廣告），甚至抗菌劑。我們列舉的這項專利是“一種將操作系統從源計算機遷移到目標計算機的方法”，雖然看起來有些乏味，但它卻代表了IBM公司最主要的專利分類：電子數字數據處理，也就是計算機。 |
????1. IBM ????Patents earned: 7534 ????Representative patent: "Operating System Migration with Minimal Storage Area Network Migration" ????Country: United States ????IBM is untouchable, effectively. Even as the computing and consulting company posts dismal financials, it leads the patent pack for its 22nd straight year. In fact, the company IBM is the first ever to exceed 7,000 patents in a single year—trouncing runner-ups on the list. IBM's innovations land all over the map; its most common areas include computers, semiconductors, telecommunications, business applications (like advertising in virtual reality)—even antimicrobial agents. While the patent we've highlighted—described as "a method for migrating an operating system from a source computer to a destination computer"—may seem more humdrum, it's a representative example of the company's most common patent classification: electrical digital data processing, a.k.a. computers. |
