IEEE Spectrum November, 2007 - 28

Rank Company/Organization, Country

2006 U.S. Pipeline
Patents Impact

Adjusted
Adjusted
Pipeline Pipeline Pipeline Pipeline Pipeline
Impact Generality Originality Power
Power

Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

ASML Holding NV, Netherlands
KLA-Tencor Corp., U.S.
Applied Materials Inc., U.S.
ASM International NV,
Netherlands
FormFactor Inc., U.S.
Micronic Laser Systems AB,
Sweden
Amberwave Systems Corp., U.S.
Tokyo Electron Ltd., Japan
Advanced Semiconductor
Engineering Inc., Taiwan
Aixtron AG, Germany

297
127
369
95

1.48
2.81
1.74
3.97

1.16
2.45
1.62
3.97

1.92
2.88
1.91
3.03

1.09
0.98
1.15
1.06

1897
1632
1397
1060

1491
1427
1298
1060

36
14

5.00
5.00

5.00
5.00

2.87
3.68

1.25
1.27

726
457

726
457

15
237
83

5.00
0.90
1.44

4.24
0.90
1.44

4.96
1.22
1.58

0.99
1.11
0.88

426
309
306

362
309
306

13

5.00

5.00

3.72

1.06

257

257

Semiconductor Manufacturing
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Intel Corp., U.S.
Broadcom Corp., U.S.
Micron Technology Inc., U.S.
Samsung Electronics Co., Korea
Semiconductor Energy
Laboratory Co., Japan
Texas Instruments Inc., U.S.
Xilinx Inc., U.S.
SanDisk Corp., U.S.
Altera Corp., U.S.
Rambus Inc., U.S.

1961
661
1617
2474
403

1.18
1.51
1.43
0.84
1.90

1.18
1.51
0.93
0.84
1.16

1.23
1.47
1.38
0.84
2.32

1.04
1.04
1.13
0.92
1.17

3752
2410
3696
2346
2831

3752
2410
2394
2346
1728

890
261
116
202
101

1.06
1.49
2.51
1.42
1.73

1.06
1.47
2.24
1.25
1.61

1.11
1.87
2.47
1.70
1.89

0.94
1.03
1.04
0.98
1.29

1183
1106
845
822
731

1183
1088
755
726
679

676
798
744
415
885
126
44
85
390

1.41
1.18
1.04
1.23
0.92
1.60
1.71
2.18
0.99

1.41
1.18
1.04
1.23
0.92
1.59
1.71
2.18
0.99

1.28
1.18
1.09
1.30
0.96
2.01
2.19
1.51
1.04

1.00
0.98
1.03
1.01
0.96
1.14
1.12
0.84
0.97

1796
1484
1340
1285
1002
515
475
430
388

1796
1484
1340
1285
1002
513
475
430
388

322

1.17

1.17

1.20

0.99

374

374

763
88
1514
191
237

1.12
3.57
0.67
0.99
0.86

1.12
2.56
0.67
0.99
0.86

1.16
1.21
0.69
0.92
0.96

0.96
1.08
0.99
0.95
0.96

1445
1233
822
323
298

1445
882
822
323
298

103

1.46

1.46

1.40

1.04

203

203

213

0.84

0.75

0.79

1.01

225

201

140

0.69

0.69

0.60

0.95

102

102

138
39

0.53
0.94

0.53
0.94

0.87
1.23

0.96
1.05

85
68

85
68

telecom Equipment
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Cisco Systems Inc., U.S.
Motorola Inc., U.S.
Nokia Corp., Finland
Qualcomm Inc., U.S.
Alcatel-Lucent, France
Finisar Corp., U.S.
Tekelec, U.S.
Juniper Networks Inc., U.S.
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson,
Sweden
10 Nortel Networks Corp., Canada

telecom Services
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

AT&T Inc., U.S.
Research in Motion Ltd., Canada
Siemens AG, Germany
Sprint Nextel Corp., U.S.
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone
Corp. (NTT), Japan
Verizon Communications Inc.,
U.S.
InterDigital Communications
Corp., U.S.
NTT DoCoMo Inc. (subsidiary
of NTT), Japan
BenQ Corp., Taiwan
Qwest Communications
International Inc., U.S.

Source: 1790 Analytics
The number for 2006 U.S. Patents is a proxy for relative patent prowess worldwide.
The Pipeline Power score is derived by multiplying the company's patent count by
the product of four other variables. Pipeline Growth (not shown here) represents
the firm's 2006 patent activity, relative to its average performance in the five
previous years. For the other three variables, a score above 1.00 indicates that
the company performed better than average in its technology class; below
1.00 indicates worse than average performance. Pipeline Impact indicates how
frequently all 2006 patents cited a company's patents from the previous five
years. Pipeline Generality is a measure of the variety of technologies drawing on a
company's patents. Pipeline Originality measures the variety of the technologies
upon which an organization's patents build. Adjusted Pipeline Impact eliminates
self-citation. The final score, Adjusted Pipeline Power, is an estimate of a
company's overall patent power. For the complete data, which include all of the top
20 companies in each category, as well as the Pipeline Growth and percentage of
self-citation numbers, see http://spectrum.ieee.org/nov07/scorecard.

40

IEEE Spectrum | November 2007 | NA

public imagination was the dispute over the technology of
the BlackBerry personal communicator-which went on
for years between Research in Motion, of Waterloo, Ont.,
Canada and NTP, a patent holding company in McLean, Va.
Finally, last year RIM paid NTP upward of $600 million, complying with a court judgment.
The BlackBerry case drew attention to another muchcriticized effect of the U.S. patent system: the presence
of "trolls," who allegedly acquire patents, sit on them hoping that one or more will turn out to have crucial business
applications, and then go to court to obtain what critics call
extortionist payouts.
The data on U.S. patent awards for 2006 show that the patents in any given field still go to a few top companies, that there
is little change from year to year among the dominant firms, and
that big gaps yawn between the leaders and the runners-up. In
almost all branches of electronics, computing, and telecommunications, awards made to the leading company jumped mightily
from 2005 to 2006-by as much as 48 percent in semiconductor
manufacturing, 60 percent in telecommunications equipment,
and 65 percent in electronics [see table, "Patent Push"].
Steven J. Frank, a patent lawyer in Boston and author of
the 2006 book Intellectual Property for Managers and Investors
(Cambridge University Press), cautions that such studies of
patent concentration and impact should be treated warily.
"Just looking at the leaders, you have to ask what their game
is," Frank muses. "Are they just trying to look like IP dynamos? Are they engaged in a kind of land grab?"
Of course that goes, too, for smaller companies making
big jumps in the ranks [for some examples, see table, "Patent
Performers on the Move"], some of which might be emerging
stars, while others might be merely padding their patent portfolios as a public relations exercise. To take the numbers at
face value, however, and to judge from the fields in which the
companies are shifting position most radically and frequently,
computing, semiconductors, and telecommunications appear
to be among the most dynamic areas in what the patent world
broadly calls information technology (IT). Presumably, some
chip and telecom companies are being truly innovative, while
others may be acquiring patents mainly to defend themselves
against possible litigation and position themselves to bargain
effectively in cross-licensing arrangements.
IEEE Spectrum's compilation of patent awards and patent
impact was prepared by 1790 Analytics, a Haddonfield, N.J.,
company that specializes in evaluating intellectual property.
This is the second year that the firm, which takes its name
from the year the first U.S. patent was awarded, has provided
its data to us.
The methodology this year is essentially the same as
last year's [see "Patent Power," Spectrum, November 2006 at
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nov06/4699]. This year, however,
1790 added a measure to account for self-citation, which produces lower Pipeline Impact ratings for companies whose
patents are referenced mainly internally.
Take Boeing as an example, suggests 1790's director of
research, Anthony Breitzman: its raw Pipeline Impact value
of 0.84 drops to 0.78 when adjusted for self-citation. Largely
because of the self-citation penalty, Micron Technology, a
semiconductor maker in Boise, Idaho, falls sharply from being
last year's overall patent winner and is replaced at the top of
the heap by Microsoft.
Looking at the compilation as a whole, the impression is
more one of stability than of change. In almost every major

www.spectrum.ieee.org
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nov06/4699 http://spectrum.ieee.org/nov07/scorecard http://www.spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2007
