Interesting People mailing list archives
Software patent statistics for 1994
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 07:02:22 -0400
From: srctran () world std com (Gregory Aharonian)
(NOTE: While the following article is about US software patent statistics
in general, there are a variety of Japanese aspects to it).
Last spring I predicted that 4500 software patents would be issued in
1994. As of the end of September, about 3300 patents have been issued, with
one quarter of the year left, so projecting out at this point comes to 4400
patents. What follows is a list of software patents by application areas,
and then a list of corporate assignees.
Some observations based on having read the OG entries for all of these
patents (kids - don't try this at home). First, much software patenting is
being done by end-users of software (automobiles, copiers, medical equipment,
industrial control, etc.) as opposed to software and hardware vendors. A
disturbing trend is that US companies tend to file the software technology
patents, while Japanese companies tend to file end-user application patents.
There are trends here someone should investigate. In general though, I see
no evidence whatsoever that the existence of software patents is impeding
the growth of, or innovation in, the software industry. Lots of nuisance
lawsuits, maybe, but little stiffling of boundary progress.
Few things have changed in these postings. IBM is still the number one
recipient of software patents (historically having 1/8 of all software patents
but now slowing down to 1/9). Image processing is still the leading software
application being patented due in large part to medical imaging and the
Japanese copier companies. GUI/Multimedia/Graphics is still a popular area,
but for the most part these patents are worthless offensively since most have
cubic feet of ACM and IEEE prior art.
Second, some areas of software patenting are more "hot" than others. The
following list is in order of popularity when considered over a five year
period from 1989 to 1994, while the numbers are only for 1994. For example,
network/communications patents in 1994 is more active than operating systems,
while traditionally it has been less active. In this light, networking,
medical, automobile, office automation and music are "hot", while AI, word
processing, and database are "cold". Examining such patent trends is a good
way to discover new software niches to invest R&D money in (though if you are
going to do so, learn Japanese).
Third, at least 25% of these patents should have some or all of their
claims disallowed based on prior art grounds. Admittedly having the only
large software prior art database, I can provide the supporting evidence
for proving such under MPEP rules, and hopefully someday the PTO examiners
will be given access to similar databases and search systems. But for the time
being, a lot of software patents are being issued that shouldn't be, patents
that will lead to lots of expensive and costly nuisance infringement lawsuits.
Based on sparse data, I estimate that hundreds of software patent lawsuits
are being filed based on software patents from the mid-1970's to mid-1980's,
when only one-tenth the number of software patents were being issued as are
now. Expect the lawsuits to scale similarly, especially as people salivate
over the potential high stakes possible as seens in the STAC versus Microsoft
case (though maybe dampened by the eventually dismissal of Billing's suit
against Novell). Keep me in mind if you get sued :-)
I have a report for sale with pages of statistics on software patents,
for those who want details of these trends, all of which will continue into
1995.
Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service
(for subscription info, send 'help' to patents () world std com )
(for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to patents () world std com )
(for WWW patent searching, try http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/intropat.html )
====================
Patent counts by application classification for patents
awarded January to October 1994 (total = 3334)
464 Image processing
304 Operating systems
299 Process/numerical control
385 Networks/communications
236 Graphics
174 Graphical user interface
134 Database
189 Engineering
62 Artificial intelligence
95 Word processing
114 Financial / management
112 Computer aided software engineering
208 Medical
100 CAE / Circuit Design
104 CAD / Computer aided design
111 Security
147 Signal processing
68 Neural networks
61 Compression
150 Automobiles
30 Geophysical
38 Numerical analysis
47 Multiprocessing
64 Speech recognition/synthesis
105 Office automation
45 Natural language analysis
42 Character recognition
70 Distributed processing
65 Navigation
64 Pattern recognition
41 Biology
40 Algorithms
27 Simulation
65 Robotics
35 Fuzzy logic
38 Object oriented programming
77 Physics
25 Vision
18 Parallel programming
49 Music
35 Chemistry
23 Education
28 Games
7 Spreadsheets
4 Biotechnology
14 Virtual reality
Leading corporate software patent assignees for patents
awarded January to October 1994 (total = 3334)
(* = Japanese company)
299 IBM
138 *Hitachi
88 DEC
80 Xerox & Fuji Xerox
77 *Toshiba
75 Hewlett-Packard
61 ATT Bell Laboratories
53 *Fujitsu
49 *Matsushita Electric Industrial
48 *Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
48 *Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
47 Motorola
40 *Ricoh
36 General Electric
34 *Fanuc
32 *NEC
30 Eastman Kodak
29 *Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
23 Intel
23 *Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
22 *Yamaha
20 Sun Microsystems
20 *Sony
18 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
18 Hughes Aircraft
17 *Honda
17 Bell Communications Research
16 Samsung Electronics
16 Texas Instruments
16 U.S. Navy
16 Westinghouse Electric
15 Honeywell
15 Apple Computer
14 *Fuji Photo Film
14 *Casio Computer
12 Unisys
11 E. I. Du Pont de Nemours
11 Picker International
11 *Zexel
11 *Nissan Motor
11 *Dainippon Screen Manufacturing
10 Microsoft
9 Ford Motor
9 *Konica
8 Compaq Computer
8 VLSI Technology
8 *Pioneer Electronic
8 Pitney Bowes
8 Schlumberger Technology
8 *Seiko Epson
8 *Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
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- Software patent statistics for 1994 David Farber (Oct 22)