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In the world of U.S patents, one company stands alone. For the last 22 years, IBM has been granted more U.S patents than anyone else and 2014 was no exception.
In 2014, IBM was issued 7,534 U.S. patents, dramatically outpacing every other technology vendor. In second place for 2014 U.S patents was Samsung, with 4,952 patents, followed in the number three spot by Canon with 4,055 patents. According to IBM, its 2014 patent haul is greater than the combined total of Accenture, Amazon, Google, HP, Intel and Oracle.
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IBM’s 2014 patent numbers were an increase from 2013, when Big Blue was issued 6,800 patents. In total, from 1993 to 2014, IBM has racked up 81,500 U.S patents.Though IBM has been at the top of the U.S patent issuing rankings for 22 years, IBM’s patent history goes back more than 100 years. In 2011, IBM celebrated the 100th anniversary of its first patent, U.S. patent #998,631, which was for a ‘perforating machine,’ essentially a punch card system used for tabulation.
In 2014, IBM’s innovations have moved beyond the punch cards of 100 years ago to tackle the challenges of the modern computing era. One of the biggest challenges is security in the cloud, which is something that U.S. patent #8,812,406 aims to help solve. The patent is titled, “Receiving security risk feedback from linked contacts due to a user’s system actions and behaviors.” According to IBM, the patent can be leveraged in an authentication model for cloud security by helping users with control of their data stored in a public cloud.
Another 2014 patent that was granted to IBM is U.S patent number 8,661,132 which is an innovation for “Enabling service virtualization in a cloud.” The patent abstract explains that the innovation involves a service-level specification for information technology services that is obtained from a user.
“The service-level specification is mapped into an information technology specific deployment plan,” the U.S patent number 8,661,132 abstract states. “Information technology specific resources are deployed in accordance with the information technology specific deployment plan to provide the information technology services. “
Mobility is another key area of innovation that IBM tackled in 2014. Among the mobile patents that IBM was granted in 2014 is 8,903,360, for mobile device validation.
“A determination is made as to whether the mobile device is a valid mobile device using the voice data,” U.S patent #8,903,360 abstract states. An access code to the mobile device is sent in response to a determination that the mobile device is the valid mobile device.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Datamation and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist
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