Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the Patent Power Scorecard, in 2017, it was a different technological and social landscape—Google had just filed a patent application on the transformer architecture, a momentous advance that spawned the generative AI revolution. China was just beginning to produce quality, affordable electric vehicles at scale. And the COVID pandemic wasn’t on anyone’s dance card.
Eight years is also a long time in the world of magazines, where we regularly play around with formats for articles and infographics. We now have more readers online than we do in print, so our art team is leveraging advances in interactive design software to make complex datasets grokkable at a glance, whether you’re on your phone or flipping through the pages of the magazine.
The scorecard’s return in this issue follows the return last month of The Data, which ran as our back page for several years; it’s curated by a different editor every month and edited by Editorial Director for Content Development Glenn Zorpette.
As we set out to recast the scorecard for this decade, we sought to strike the right balance between comprehensiveness and clarity, especially on a mobile-phone screen. As our Digital Product Designer Erik Vrielink, Assistant Editor Gwendolyn Rak, and Community Manager Kohava Mendelsohn explained to me, they wanted something that would be eye-catching while avoiding information overload. The solution they arrived at—a dynamic sunburst visualization—lets readers grasp the essential takeaways at glance in print, while the digital version, allows readers to dive as deep as they want into the data.
Working with sci-tech-focused data-mining company 1790 Analytics, which we partnered with on the original Patent Power Scorecard, the team prioritized three key metrics or characteristics: patent Pipeline Power (which goes beyond mere quantity to assess quality and impact), number of patents, and the country where companies are based. This last characteristic has become increasingly significant as geopolitical tensions reshape the global technology landscape. As 1790 Analytics cofounders Anthony Breitzman and Patrick Thomas note, the next few years could be particularly interesting as organizations adjust their patenting strategies in response to changing market access.
Some trends leap out immediately. In consumer electronics, Apple dominates Pipeline Power despite having a patent portfolio one-third the size of Samsung’s—a testament to the Cupertino company’s focus on high-impact innovations. The aerospace sector has seen dramatic consolidation, with RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies) now encompassing multiple subsidiaries that appear separately on our scorecard.
And in the university rankings, Harvard has seized the top spot from traditional tech powerhouses like MIT and Stanford, driven by patents that are more often cited as prior art in other recent patents. And then there are the subtle shifts that become apparent only when you dig deeper into the data. The rise of SEL (Semiconductor Energy Laboratory) over TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) in semiconductor design, despite having far fewer patents, suggests again that true innovation isn’t just about filing patents—it’s about creating technologies that others build upon.
Looking ahead, the real test will be how these patent portfolios translate into actual products and services. Patents are promises of innovation; the scorecard helps us see what companies are making those promises and the R&D investments to realize them. As we enter an era when technological leadership increasingly determines economic and strategic power, understanding these patterns is more crucial than ever.
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