Just call Big Blue the “Big Blue patent Machine.”
IBM (NYSE: IBM) amassed more U.S. patents than any other company for the 21st straight year as it looks to “big data” services, or the mining of large quantities of information, to boost sales.
IBM’s 6,809 patents in 2013 scored an annual record, the company said Tuesday in a statement. With inventors from 41 countries, more than 31 percent of the patents came from overseas.
Big Blue employs some 9,500 people across North Carolina, and each year inventors in RTP and elsewhere contributed to IBM’s patent haul. For example, in 2010, IBM credited North Carolina IBMers with some 500 patents.
This year, IBM told WRALTechWire, some 700 include links to North Carolina. IBM featured one RTP-based inventor – Ed Suffren, a 40-year company veteran, in a YouTube video about his invention, which involves cloud computing. (WRALTechWire has more details about Suffern.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Tokyo-based Canon Inc. ranked second and third. While computer-related patents can take almost three years to process, the annual list can show where companies are seeking the most growth.
As sluggish demand for computer hardware has dragged down revenue, IBM is focusing more on fast-growing areas such as analytics and cloud computing. Last week, IBM said it’s forming a separate division for its Watson tool — so-called cognitive technology that can analyze vast amounts of data and answer questions in plain English. Bernie Meyerson, vice president for innovation at IBM, said the unit relies on recent patents.
“The work on cognitive is based on numerous of the patents that were just issued related to Watson,” Meyerson said in an interview from IBM’s headquarters in Armonk, New York. “That new division is now a major commercial focus. By funding research in that area, you will fund patents in that area.”
Watson Bet
Watson, known for beating humans on the television game show “Jeopardy!,” is proving to be one of IBM’s most high- profile bets as it tries to show clients the value of the tool. IBM will invest more than $1 billion in the new division, which will have 2,000 employees, and give the unit its own headquarters in New York.
The move is meant to spur growth as the company tries to get ahead of an industrywide shift into the cloud era, where information is stored online instead of onsite. The transition has stifled demand for traditional hardware and spawned a new crop of competitors. Even as IBM has held the top spot for patents issued for more than two decades, the company’s revenue has fallen for the past six reported quarters.
To cope, IBM has spent more than $6 billion a year on research and development globally from 2010 to 2012. More than 8,000 inventors in 47 U.S. states and 41 countries contributed to last year’s patents, which give their owners the rights to block others from using the invention.
The latest batch of patents underscores the kinds of markets IBM is trying to enter. One invention allows Watson to better assess questions posed in natural language and determine confidence in the accuracy of an answer. In cloud computing, the company patented the ability to analyze encrypted data without compromising its security.
IBM Patent Highlights
IBM noted some of what it considers high-profile patents in areas of cognitive computing and big data:
- U.S. Patent #8,510,296 Lexical answer type confidence estimation and application – This patented invention enables IBM Watson to more accurately assess questions posed in natural language and determine confidence in the accuracy of potential answers. To accelerate the impact of patented Watson inventions, IBM has formed the Watson Group, a new business unit that will tap the company’s software, services, research, industry experts and sellers to advance development and delivery of a new class of Watson-enabled cognitive computing apps and technologies to the marketplace.
- U.S. Patent #8,515,885: Neuromorphic and synaptronic spiking neural network with synaptic weights learned using simulation – This patented invention describes breakthrough brain-inspired computers that lay the foundation for a new generation of cognitive systems via hardware and software co-design. As part of a DARPA-funded Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project, IBM is developing a chip architecture that aspires to emulate the human brain’s cognitive capabilities while rivaling its energy and volume efficiency.
- U.S. Patent #8,422,686: Automated validation and execution of cryptographic key and certificate deployment and distribution – This patented invention automates the lifecycle of cryptographic keys used to encrypt and secure data – from creation and deployment to deletion and can also enhance security for cloud computing applications.
- U.S. Patent #8,352,953: Dynamically Provisioning Virtual Machines – This invention solves the “noisy neighbor” problem that reduces online system availability and constrains cloud computing network bandwidth when websites, such as online retailers or auction sites encounter unexpected dramatic spikes in demand.
- ·U.S. Patent #8,387,065: Speculative popcount data creation – This patent describes an approach for Big Data and analytics computing where a small region or population of analyzed data — known as a popcount — is counted, sorted, and speculatively analyzed in real time for trends or outliers. The idea is based on a counter intuitive premise: that Big Data analysis is small. The method improves data analysis performance, reduces processor resources needed to analyze the data and is based upon modern graph theories. Built into IBM’s POWER processors — the chip within IBM’s Watson and IBM’s Power Systems servers — speculative popcount is advancing cryptanalysis, real-time error correction for streaming data and the cognitive computing era.
- U.S. Patent #8,423,339: Visual analysis of a protein folding process – This patented invention describes a method for discovering and viewing common patterns in protein folding simulation, which aids in understanding the protein folding process and can lead to significant advances in computer based drug discovery, among other applications.
- U.S. Patent #8,572,274: Estimating load shed data in streaming database application – This patented invention describes a technique that addresses the challenge of analyzing real-time streaming Big Data traffic jams by shedding or reducing the data pool without compromising accuracy of the insights.
- U.S. Patent #8,402,041: Analytics of historical conversations in relation to present communication – This patented invention uses Big Data analytics to establish relationships between past and present electronic conversations (social or business) that have similar attributes and provide relevant results in real-time.
Samsung Slumps
After IBM, Samsung claimed the No. 2 spot, which it has held since 2007. It received 4,676 patents, an 8 percent drop from the previous year.
Once again, only two other American-based companies made the top 10 in addition to IBM. In 2013 it was software maker Microsoft Corp. and phone-chip maker Qualcomm Inc.; the year before it was Microsoft and General Electric Co.
Patents give a company the freedom to move into new businesses with less risk of being sued over technology. Even so, IBM rarely files infringement lawsuits. It spent four years talking with Amazon.com Inc. before suing over Internet commerce-related patents in October 2006. The companies settled seven months later, with Amazon paying an undisclosed amount.
Twitter Letter
IBM sent a letter to Twitter Inc., “alleging that we infringe on at least three U.S. patents held by IBM, and inviting us to negotiate a business resolution of the allegations,” according to a filing by Twitter in November. The patents relate to a networking technique based on common contacts, a way to show advertisements without interfering with an interactive site, and using interconnected computers to reduce Web traffic.
Meyerson said the company pursues negotiations like the one with Twitter when there’s a question of infringement to figure out a reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing agreement. IBM’s trove of patents lets the computer-services giant generate about $1 billion a year in licensing revenue.
“We want to maintain leadership,” he said. “You want to get the innovations out there that will lead the next field.”
The Top 10 U.S. Patent Winners of 2013:
1. IBM 6,809
2. Samsung 4,676
3. Canon 3,825
4. Sony 3,098
5. Microsoft 2,660
6. Panasonic 2,601
7. Toshiba 2,416
8. Hon Hai 2,279
9. Qualcomm 2,103
10. LG Electronics 1,947
[IBM ARCHIVE: Check out more than a decade of IBM stories as reported in WRALTechWire.]
