The TR Patent Scorecard 2001

We ranked companies in key industries according to the quality and quantity of their patents. Here are 150 of the world’s top firms.

Aerospace

Company

Lockheed Martin

282/1

United Technologies Boeing Rockwell International

Northrop Grumman

Thomson-CSF EADS Textron Sequa SNECMA General Dynamics GKN Alliant Techsystems

Indexing Innovation

Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics:

Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below).

Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions.

Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on.

Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors.

Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents.

Automotive

Company
DaimlerChrysler	736/1 344/8 722 400 1.02 0.86 0.12	0.26
TRW	575/2 412/5 483 324 1.19 1.27 0.60 0.54 7.4 7.8
Bosch	536/3 395/7 630 429 0.85 0.92 0.11 0.21 7.7 7.2 Denso 529/4 444/2 468 373 1.13 1.19 0.18 0.30 6.7 6.9 Honda 491/5 424/4 501 372 0.98 1.14 0.09 0.17 7.7 6.6 Toyota Motor 472/6 405/6 414 324 1.14 1.25 0.39 0.36 6.2 6.2 General Motors 467/7 482/1 458 447 1.02 1.08 0.74 0.51 7.2 7.5 Ford Motor 307/8 434/3 370 398 0.83 1.09 0.50 0.32 8.4 8.3 Nissan Motor 301/9 179/11 276 166 1.09 1.08 0.05 0.16 6.1 6.2 Yazaki 264/10 240/9 311 224 0.85 1.07 0.02 0.02 6.3 6.7 Eaton 253/11 214/10 232 218 1.09 0.98 0.17 0.33 9.3 8.9
Yamaha	203/12 117/14 190 151 1.07 0.78 0.03 0.02 7.3 8.6
Aisin Seiki	200/13 165/13 167 155 1.20 1.06 0.54 0.51 6.0 6.8
Lear	169/14 105/16 155 85 1.09 1.23 0.52 0.90 9.2 9.9
Delphi Automotive Systems	169/15 108/15 155 101 1.09 1.07 0.19 0.25 5.9 6.6
ITT	167/16 167/12 185 173 0.90 0.97 0.08 0.25 8.9 7.8
Fiat	163/17 62/17 160 99 1.02 0.63 0.17 0.20 10.8 10.8
Breed Technologies	114/18 42/18 65 25 1.75 1.68 0.03 0.04 5.9 6.3 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Biotech/Pharmaceuticals   Company GlaxoSmithKline 269/1 150/9 374 208 0.72 0.72 6.31 6.60 8.4 8.6 Pharmacia 178/2 222/3 349 332 0.51 0.67 16.64 10.10 10.4 9.6 Isis Pharmaceuticals 175/3 61/16 115 40 1.52 1.54 27.02 36.74 5.9 6.7 Merck 170/4 190/4 265 226 0.64 0.84 10.23 9.84 6.5 6.4 Pfizer 168/5 157/7 259 199 0.65 0.79 5.76 5.81 9.4 9.3 Aventis 154/6 345/1 375 733 0.41 0.47 7.34 3.85 10.2 9.8 Schering 147/7 68/15 112 78 1.31 0.87 6.10 5.52 8.2 8.7 Roche 139/8 223/2 263 282 0.53 0.79 17.60 16.12 8.6 8.5 Eli Lilly 125/9 168/6 174 205 0.72 0.82 7.51 9.43 8.5 8.7 AstraZeneca 94/10 105/12 204 170 0.46 0.62 7.11 5.52 9.4 8.5 Novartis 93/11 180/5 186 310 0.50 0.58 11.45 6.01 8.8 9.6 Abbott Laboratories 88/12 155/8 133 166 0.66 0.93 6.83 5.01 9.2 9.4 Novo Nordisk 75/13 84/13 183 132 0.41 0.64 3.92 6.79 7.8 8.2 Affymetrix 70/14 13/23 27 7 2.60 1.94 17.15 12.06 8.1 6.6 Bristol-Myers Squibb 63/15 123/11 117 160 0.54 0.77 10.38 9.25 9.8 8.6 BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals 53/16 5/24 23 5 2.32 0.99 23.70 18.23 3.0 9.3 Alliance Pharmaceutical 52/17 50/20 15 18 3.44 2.83 10.67 11.51 8.2 6.9 General Hospital 48/18 52/19 64 54 0.75 0.96 30.09 35.88 7.3 8.2 Takeda Chemical 43/19 57/17 86 97 0.50 0.59 11.47 3.23 8.2 9.1 Xoma 42/20 27/22 16 14 2.61 1.88 28.75 45.11 5.3 5.5 American Home Products 41/21 136/10 98 115 0.42 1.18 13.58 9.84 8.1 7.0 Schering-Plough 40/22 54/18 63 78 0.64 0.69 15.70 10.28 7.0 10.0 Incyte Genomics 37/23 71/14 149 77 0.25 0.92 9.42 10.29 3.9 4.9 Alza 37/23   42/21 41 40 0.90 1.06 4.44 2.95 10.3 10.8 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Chemicals   Company Procter & Gamble 584/1 773/1 475 411 1.23 1.88 1.53 1.81 10.8 10.3 3M 558/2 703/2 494 541 1.13 1.30 2.14 2.34 10.6 10.6 DuPont 318/3 402/3 539 496 0.59 0.81 8.01 4.52 9.6 9.6 BASF 283/4 317/4 725 598 0.39 0.53 1.58 1.93 10.1 10.3 Bayer 182/5 251/5 467 523 0.39 0.48 4.07 2.04 10.3 9.4 Bridgestone 166/6 98/12 187 132 0.89 0.74 0.53 1.25 10.7 10.6 Dow Chemical 158/7 181/7 184 230 0.86 0.79 6.47 4.39 10.8 9.8 Cabot 140/8 33/18 50 19 2.79 1.74 3.34 5.67 11.9 10.2 Shin-Etsu Chemical 133/9 128/10 199 190 0.67 0.67 0.62 0.36 6.9 7.3 Agfa 131/10 130/8 222 186 0.59 0.70 0.07 0.13 7.2 7.4 E.ON 124/11 120/11 247 218 0.50 0.55 0.88 0.78 8.7 9.0 Ciba Specialty Chemicals 116/12 67/17 176 84 0.66 0.79 1.15 1.00 10.4 10.6 L’Air Liquide 110/13 74/15 126 88 0.87 0.84 0.68 0.85 9.0 9.6 Rohm and Haas 103/14 236/6 136 205 0.76 1.15 1.51 0.67 9.1 7.6 Air Products & Chemicals 100/15 79/14 108 80 0.93 0.98 2.01 1.29 10.1 9.2 Dow Corning 92/16 130/8 143 167 0.64 0.78 0.95 0.85 9.9 9.7 Mitsubishi Chemical 85/17 91/13 127 147 0.67 0.62 0.65 0.96 7.6 7.7 Sumitomo Chemical 78/18 73/16 173 156 0.45 0.47 1.17 1.29 9.2 8.1 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Computers   Company IBM 5561/1 4580/1 2927 2101 1.90 2.18 0.97 1.25 5.6 5.9 NEC 2413/2 1794/2 2117 1390 1.14 1.29 0.72 0.72 4.9 5.0 Hewlett-Packard 1576/3 1124/4 1044 653 1.51 1.72 0.85 1.38 6.1 6.5 Fujitsu 1496/4 1452/3 1236 1052 1.21 1.38 0.55 0.67 6.0 5.7 Compaq Computer 1133/5 991/6 426 354 2.66 2.80 1.19 1.18 4.6 5.8 Hon Hai 1112/6 55/20 397 37 2.80 1.47 0.00 0.00 4.1 5.1 Sun Microsystems 1109/7 747/7 468 266 2.37 2.81 2.07 1.80 4.8 4.3 Microsoft 1028/8 721/8 357 211 2.88 3.42 3.07 2.18 4.3 4.5 Cisco Systems 911/9 123/19 133 25 6.85 4.94 1.15 0.90 5.8 4.9 Xerox 659/10 999/5 573 662 1.15 1.51 1.09 0.97 7.0 6.5 Seiko Epson 569/11 365/11 409 242 1.39 1.51 1.27 0.82 7.0 7.2 3Com 509/12 158/16 178 48 2.86 3.28 0.38 0.76 4.7 5.2 Ricoh 473/13 477/10 438 367 1.08 1.30 0.33 0.35 5.8 5.8 Seagate Technology 472/14 226/13 295 125 1.60 1.81 1.11 0.63 6.8 6.4 OKI Electric 354/15 162/15 290 130 1.22 1.25 0.28 0.60 5.0 5.1 Dell Computer 266/16 246/12 94 88 2.83 2.81 0.06 0.10 4.9 4.8 NCR 233/17 225/14 142 137 1.64 1.65 0.49 0.67 7.5 6.6 EMC 210/18 157/17 87 45 2.41 3.51 1.33 1.77 5.4 5.5 Apple Computer 208/19 494/9 91 184 2.29 2.69 0.87 1.41 6.1 5.2 Unova 194/20 144/18 123 66 1.58 2.19 0.57 0.15 8.8 7.9 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Electrical/Electronics   Company Canon 1977/1 1961/1 1938 1581 1.02 1.24 0.52 0.53 7.9 7.4 Toshiba 1769/2 1413/4 1340 1104 1.32 1.28 0.68 0.65 5.8 6.0 Sony 1694/3 1424/3 1436 1087 1.18 1.31 0.36 0.35 5.5 5.7 Samsung 1602/4 1251/6 1571 1043 1.02 1.20 0.19 0.18 5.4 5.6 Hitachi 1480/5 1569/2 1244 1198 1.19 1.31 0.67 0.82 6.8 6.6 Matsushita Electric 1427/6 1265/5 1372 1081 1.04 1.17 0.50 0.66 6.1 6.0 Siemens 1392/7 764/10 1497 878 0.93 0.87 1.11 1.01 6.9 7.2 Mitsubishi Electric 1145/8 1190/7 1060 1044 1.08 1.14 0.53 0.77 6.0 6.0 Koninklijke Philips Electronics 1078/9 893/9 1017 819 1.06 1.09 0.53 0.66 5.8 6.3 Eastman Kodak 777/10 894/8 883 885 0.88 1.01 0.29 0.38 8.0 8.2 Sharp 742/11 566/13 640 483 1.16 1.17 0.83 0.84 5.4 5.5 General Electric 606/12 681/11 819 765 0.74 0.89 0.63 0.63 9.9 9.5 Tyco International 510/13 658/12 395 466 1.29 1.41 0.57 0.65 9.2 9.7 Tokyo Electron 476/14 210/16 188 105 2.53 1.99 0.21 0.11 6.3 5.5 Minolta 317/15 241/15 334 223 0.95 1.08 0.06 0.04 7.0 6.7 Murata 285/16 177/18 303 181 0.94 0.98 0.24 0.24 7.5 7.6 Sanyo Electric 254/17 190/17 257 186 0.99 1.02 0.29 0.57 5.7 6.1 Brother 245/18 177/18 225 182 1.09 0.97 0.03 0.04 6.3 6.2 Trimble Navigation 217/19 146/20 85 49 2.55 3.00 0.19 0.26 6.7 5.4 Raytheon 216/20 299/14 227 302 0.95 0.99 0.56 0.86 8.3 8.2 Emerson Electric 196/21 139/21 213 178 0.92 0.78 2.22 1.04 10.9 10.2 Alps Electric 193/22 90/22 205 94 0.94 0.96 0.03 0.07 5.7 6.2 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Semiconductors   Company Micron Technology 3731/1 1276/2 1469 498 2.54 2.56 2.20 1.25 5.6 5.4 Advanced Micro Devices 2363/2 940/4 1055 395 2.24 2.38 0.75 1.13 4.9 5.1 Intel 1797/3 1432/1 813 523 2.21 2.74 0.82 0.90 5.3 5.0 Taiwan Semiconductor 1383/4 349/9 514 159 2.69 2.19 0.28 0.28 3.8 4.2 Texas Instruments 1130/5 1007/3 729 626 1.55 1.61 1.87 1.28 6.7 6.5 United Microelectronics 952/6 344/10 538 192 1.77 1.79 0.08 0.28 3.5 4.2 LSI Logic 770/7 466/6 325 197 2.37 2.37 1.06 1.78 5.0 6.0 Hyundai Electronics 745/8 536/5 591 353 1.26 1.52 0.41 0.28 5.1 5.2 STMicroelectronics 593/9 454/7 539 349 1.10 1.30 0.86 0.98 6.7 6.5 Semiconductor Energy Laboratory 499/10 221/12 164 111 3.04 1.99 3.58 1.73 5.8 6.2 Vanguard International Semiconductor 390/11 171/14 131 62 2.98 2.76 0.16 0.26 3.8 3.8 Xilinx 316/12 185/13 114 62 2.77 3.00 0.90 1.19 5.4 5.2 National Semiconductor 286/13 351/8 187 204 1.53 1.72 1.07 1.56 5.8 5.8 Altera 268/14 138/15 97 40 2.76 3.44 5.06 2.14 7.2 6.5 Chartered Semiconductor 261/15 53/18 79 25 3.30 2.07 0.14 0.22 3.5 4.5 Lam Research 228/16 67/17 81 29 2.81 2.28 1.42 0.80 6.6 6.3 Cirrus Logic 223/17 224/11 112 100 1.99 2.24 1.47 1.36 6.7 5.8 Cypress Semiconductors   188/18 130/16 113 64 1.66 2.03 1.42 1.06 5.6 5.2 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents. Telecommunications   Company Lucent Technologies 2485/1 1701/2 1445 881 1.72 1.93 1.31 1.78 5.4 5.4 Motorola 2035/2 2148/1 1241 1193 1.64 1.80 0.63 0.76 5.4 5.5 Ericsson Telephone 1651/3 714/3 775 320 2.13 2.23 0.99 1.32 5.2 5.8 BCE 1024/4 369/5 472 179 2.17 2.06 0.89 1.09 4.8 4.9 AT&T 875/5 566/4 343 135 2.55 4.18 1.07 1.12 4.6 4.8 Nokia 630/6 259/8 306 163 2.06 1.59 0.49 0.53 5.3 5.3 Alcatel 478/7 319/7 423 285 1.13 1.12 0.79 1.06 6.4 6.7 Qualcomm 451/8 350/6 111 63 4.06 5.56 0.71 1.47 6.7 6.4 Verizon Communications 375/9 147/11 93 74 4.03 1.99 0.73 1.75 5.9 6.1 Cabletron Systems 253/10 116/12 41 17 6.18 6.98 2.00 2.39 5.2 4.5 MCI Worldcom 216/11 193/10 82 63 2.64 3.05 0.99 1.13 4.7 4.6 Nippon Telegraph & Telephone 168/12 204/9 127 120 1.32 1.70 2.04 2.15 4.6 5.0 Ciena 109/13 30/17 26 6 4.18 4.61 1.73 1.97 5.0 4.1 JDS Uniphase 100/14 57/15 52 36 1.93 1.61 2.21 1.31 7.1 7.5 Qwest Communications International 97/15 105/13 29 33 3.33 3.16 0.34 1.13 4.1 5.0 British Telecommunications 95/16 78/14 70 60 1.35 1.31 3.36 3.54 6.5 5.9 BellSouth 92/17 52/16 27 19 3.42 2.80 0.30 0.45 5.1 5.7 *average Indexing Innovation Technology Review has teamed with CHI Research of Haddon Heights, NJ, to produce the Patent Scorecard, an industry-by-industry ranking of corporate patent portfolios. CHI combines the number of a firm’s patents with other indicators to flesh out this deeper picture of innovation. Here are the specifics: Technology Strength: This figure, the basis of the rankings, provides an overall assessment of a firm’s intellectual-property power. It is calculated by multiplying the number of a company’s U.S. patents by its Current Impact Index (see below). Number of Patents: The total number of U.S. patents awarded, excluding design and other special-case inventions. Current Impact Index: This measure showcases the broader significance of a company’s patents by examining how often its U.S. patents from the previous five years are cited as “prior art” in the current year’s batch. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; so 1.4 would indicate a company’s patents were cited 40 percent more often than average, and so on. Science Linkage: Patents sometimes cite scientific papers as prior art. This value shows the average number of science references listed in a company’s U.S. patents. A high figure indicates the company is closer to the cutting edge than its competitors. Technology Cycle Time: An indicator of a firm’s speed in turning leading-edge technology into intellectual property, defined as the median age (in years) of the U.S. patents cited as prior art in the company’s patents.