IBM Tops U.S. Patent List for 20th Consecutive Year

IBM – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today (Jan 10) announced that it received a record 6,478 patents in 2012 for inventions that will enable fundamental advancements across key domains including analytics, Big Data, cybersecurity, cloud, mobile, social networking and software defined environments, as well as industry solutions for retail, banking, healthcare, and transportation. These patented inventions also will advance a major shift in computing, known as the era of cognitive systems.

This is the 20^th consecutive year that IBM topped the annual list of U.S. patent recipients.

“We are proud of this new benchmark in technological and scientific creativity, which grows out of IBM’s century-long commitment to research and development,” said Ginni Rometty, chairman and CEO, IBM. “Most concretely, our 2012 patent record and the two decades of leadership it extends are a testament to thousands of brilliant IBM inventors — the living embodiments of our devotion to innovation that matters, for our clients, for our company and for the world.” more> http://tinyurl.com/affyvfs

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Siemens honors 12 inventors who are responsible for 734 individual patents

SIEMENS – Since 1995, Siemens has been presenting its annual Inventor of the Year award to outstanding researchers and developers whose inventions are making a major contribution to the success of the company.

The 12 inventors of the year 2012 — two of whom are women — are working in Germany, in Denmark, and the U.S. Their patents have laid the foundations for many products with which, for example, medical diagnostics can be improved or industrial manufacturing and power generation can be made more efficient and more flexible.

The Siemens researchers honored account for 613 invention disclosures and 734 individual patents. more> http://tinyurl.com/cn5xfgm

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What Apple and HTC’s Landmark Pact Means for the Patent Wars

By Sam Gustin – Put simply, these patent wars have spun out of control. This could have detrimental effects to U.S. competitiveness. No less a legal authority than federal judge Richard A. Posner — who recently dismissed a major patent lawsuit between Apple and Motorola — recently wrote that “there appear to be serious problems with our patent system.”

Last year, for the first time, Apple and Google spent more on patent litigation and intellectual property than on research and development. That’s not healthy for either of these companies or the U.S. economy. more> http://tinyurl.com/aqmffh4

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What Entrepreneurs Need to Know About the America Invents Act and Patent Protection

By Kate Rogers – Sunday marked the one- year anniversary of the Obama Administration’s America Invents Act, and the first wave of rules under the law went into effect. Charley Moore, founder and executive chairman at Rocket Lawyer, said the AIA is the “most important change to patent laws since Thomas Jefferson wrote patent laws into the Constitution.”

When the act was signed into law last year, the American patent system changed from a “first to invent” system to a “first to file system,” meaning that filing as soon as you have an invention or idea is all the more important, Moore said. more> http://tinyurl.com/8ublc8b

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Debunking Innovative Copycats and the Patent Monopoly

Patent 573907
(Photo credit: Michael Neubert)

By Gene Quinn – Those who argue against a patent system and say that patents inhibit innovation are intellectually bankrupt; willing to say anything no matter how wrong to achieve what they predetermined to be the preferred outcome. There is no talking to the anti-patent community because they simply ignore facts and reality. They prefer to wrap themselves around academic thought experiments rather than real, verifiable truths. They ignore the undeniable facts that when a country adopts a patent system economic progress follows.

The truth is a patent is an asset like any other business asset. Some will be quite valuable and some will be marginally valuable and many will be worth little or nothing. What matters is the quality of the patent and the breadth of the claims. What you want is a broad set of claims that offers wide coverage, but not so wide that the claims are likely easily defeated. more> http://tinyurl.com/c5kykvw

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