[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

IBM received 6,478 patents in 2012, for inventions 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.

More than 8,000 IBM inventors residing in 46 different U.S. states and 35 countries worked on the patents. IBM inventors residing outside the U.S. contributed to nearly 30% of the company’s 2012 U.S. patent output.

From 1993-2012, IBM inventors received nearly 67,000 U.S. patents. The company’s 2012 patent count exceeded the combined totals of Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EMC, HP, Intel, Oracle/SUN and Symantec.

The Top Ten list of 2012 U.S. patent recipients include:

1. IBM – 6,478
2. Samsung – 5,081
3. Canon – 3,174
4. Sony  –  3,032
5. Panasonic – 2,769
6. Microsoft  – 2,613
7. Toshiba – 2,447
8. Hon Hai – 2,013
9. General Electric – 1,652
10.  LG Electronics  – 1,624

(Data provided by: IFI CLAIMS Patent Services)