Following up on our previous analyses on IP activities in the US and China, today’s report focuses on the US assignment data for the third quarter of 2019.
Wondering why assignment data is so important? Read our previous report on the Q1 data to find out.
Data Scope
The patent data for this report was collected from Patentcloud — our cloud-based IP intelligence platform — and has the following characteristics:
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The patents were registered at the USPTO up until 2019/10/11 and were involved in assignments between 2019/7/1 and 2019/9/30;
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The statistics exclude patent assignments between affiliates under the same parent company;
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The calculation is based on the number of patent applications;
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The calculation of patent portfolios is determined by the number of distinct Reel/Frame IDs.
Key Takeaways
In this time frame, a total of 5,402 US patents — contained in 1,411 portfolios — were assigned. Of them, 63.3% had already been granted.
Most of the patents (95.4%) were Utility Patents, while only a small fraction (4.6%) were Design Patents.
The largest assignor was IBM with 319 patents, while the entity that acquired the highest number of patents is HCL Technologies with 225 patents.
The technologies prioritized by the Top 5 countries are quite similar. There are, however, some differences. Let’s check them in detail.
United States
Most of the patents assigned belong to the fields of Computer Technology and Medical Technology.
Top assignee: MEC MANAGEMENT LLC
China
Semiconductors and Electrical Machinery, Apparatus, and Energy are the fields from which most of the assigned patents came.
Top assignee: BEIJING E-TOWN SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGY CO LTD
Japan
The Japanese entities focused on acquisitions involving Electrical Machinery, Apparatus, and Energy and Medical Technology patents.
Top assignee: ENVISION AESC JAPAN LTD
India
Computer Technology and Digital Communication are the fields that included most of the patents assigned to Indian entities.
Top assignee: HCL TECHNOLOGIES LTD
South Korea
The biggest part of the patents acquired by South Korean entities belong to the fields of Electrical Machinery, Apparatus, and Energy and Digital Communication.
Top assignee: KUDKO CHEMICAL CO LTD
Download the full report by filling in the form here.
Stay tuned for our next in-depth analysis.
In the meantime, read our latest blog article here.
