India, China could be big players in patent game

BANGALORE: Last month, software giant Microsoft clocked its 5000th US patent. This number pales in comparison with that of IBM, which has whopping 25,000 patents to its name.





In the West, many companies are using intellectual property as a tool to gain competitive advantage. According to ipIQ, a consulting firm that tracks intellectual property and patents filed by companies, there has been a significant growth in the number of patents filed by countries other than the US.





It started with Japan in the 1980s, Taiwan and South Korea in the 1990s, and more recently by China and India. The report notes that the governments of both China and India have made intellectual property a priority to boost economic growth.





ipIQ has bought out the "Patent scorecard 2006" that ranks companies based on the number of patents granted, the number of previous-year patents and growth of patents year-over-year. It also evaluates the impact and relevance of patents by tracking the frequency with which they are cited in scientific papers and by producing a science linkage index.





"While the Patent Scorecard's corresponding benchmark study, the International Patent Standings, confirms these trends in China and India, it is important to note this patenting is largely sourced from foreign companies," said Jim Finnegan, VP-business development, ipIQ. "While it will take some time for China and India to achieve the levels of corporate innovation tracked by the Patent Scorecard, their pace of growth cannot be ignored." North America accounted for 41 per cent of the IT patents while 59 per cent of the patents filed were from Asia.





Besides the scorecard, ipIQ's has also compiled a listing of the world's Technology Top 10, which shows the dominance of Asian companies, which occupy six positions.





IBM occupied the number one spot while Micron Technology and Hitachi took second and third places. Intel stood fourth and is followed by HP, Samsung and Canon.





Not surprisingly, the semiconductor industry, which forms the core of the high-tech industry, churns out more patents than any other industry. IT companies constitute 17% of all overall patents filed in the US.