The majority of US patent practitioners continue to work within traditional law firm environments. However, thousands serve as in-house counsel to innovative companies throughout the world. The following is a list of the top employers of US patent practitioners.
Company |
IBM |
3M |
Johnson & Johnson |
QUALCOMM |
Procter & Gamble |
Pfizer |
Microsoft |
Hewlett-Packard |
MERCK |
Intel |
Medtronic |
ELI LILLY |
|
Amgen |
General Electric |
Intellectual Ventures |
Genentech |
Research-In-Motion |
Abbott Laboratories |
Boeing |
Bristol Myers Squibb |
Dow Chemical |
Monsanto |
Life Technologies |
Caterpillar |
Chevron |
Texas Instruments |
Siemens |
Xerox |
Alcatel Lucent |
Thomson Licensing/Technicolor |
Glaxo Smith Kline |
Canon |
Wyeth |
Apple |
Nokia |
Honeywell International |
Novartis Pharmaceuticals |
E I DuPont de Nemours |
Shell Oil |
Schlumberger Technology |
Becton Dickinson |
Baxter Healthcare |
Eastman Kodak |
ExxonMobil |
Corning |
Pioneer Hi Bred International |
BP America |
Boston Scientific |
Deere |
“but not before first transferring their patents into their own “separate” entities (including LLCs) to hide their ownership from the prying eyes of the media and the public”
Um, you do know that in order to sue, you are required to list the real party in interest, right?
… and furthermore, not just, many of these (and other) product providing companies have in these past few years begun suing other product providing companies with various of their patents … but not before first transferring their patents into their own “separate” entities (including LLCs) to hide their ownership from the prying eyes of the media and the public … making them, too both NPEs … and trolls as well.
I built this table from the PTO's database of registered practitioners. The reason that I didn't post the numbers originally is that the PTO database is riddled with problems. So, while I'm confident that this is a good list, I'm not very confident that the underlying numbers are correct. With that caveat, here you go:
link to docs.google.com
The reason that I didn't present the underlying numbers is that they are not entirely accurate. Thus, my 'facts' presented would be somewhat misleading. The problem is that this data comes from the USPTO database of registered patent law practitioners and that database is not well updated.
IBM
144
E I DuPont de
Nemours
115
3M
102
Johnson
Johnson
100
QUALCOMM
98
Pfizer
78
Microsoft
69
Hewlett
Packard
63
Exxon Mobil
62
MERCK
61
Intel
56
Medtronic
52
Glaxo Smith
Kline
50
ELI LILLY
49
Amgen
48
Google
48
General
Electric
47
Intellectual
Ventures
46
Research In
Motion
44
Genentech
44
Abbott
Laboratories
43
Boeing
42
The Dow
Chemical
39
Monsanto
37
Life
Technologies
34
Caterpillar
34
Chevron
33
Texas
Instruments
29
Xerox
27
Alcatel Lucent
26
Thomson
Licensing
26
Canon
23
Apple
21
Nokia
20
Honeywell
International
19
Novartis
Pharmaceuticals
19
Shell Oil
19
Corning
Incorporated
18
Baxter
Healthcare
18
Eastman Kodak
18
Pioneer Hi
Bred Internati
18
Becton
Dickinson
18
BP America
17
Deere
17
University of
California
17
Motorola
Mobility
16
I agree. Numbers would add, well, facts.
A content free post. What would have been interesting it to add … Content.
How many attorneys? How many are registered with USPTO? What attorneys worked p. patents vs which work on licensing and enforcement? I’ve worked on patent cases where of a team of five attorneys only one is a registered patent attorney.
It’s not a legal issue either. You are reading into law a value judgement based on some misunderstanding of what a patent is (it is a negative right, not a right to practice or “make products” at all.
Please contain your anti-Troll bias.
P.S. the PTO patent attorney and agents roster by companies includes some in-house patent attorneys that have trasferred over to doing general legal [not patent] work. Also, some in-house engineers that took and passed the PTO examination to become registered patent agents, but have never actually represented anyone else at the PTO.
The NPE’s that are the problem – patent trolls – only have patents they acquired from others. Theythreaten and sue on almost all of those aquired patents, because that is their ONLY “businesss”. A very lucrative lawsuit business that is greatly increasing. [Wait to see the GAO report.]
Large performing (product providing) companies get patents to protect their own products and inventions, and only sue on a very small percentage of their patent portfolio, as Dennis or other statistics providers can easily prove.
This is not just a semantics issue.
Do any of these practice all of their patents? In that sense, aren’t they all NPE’s?
Funny that IV shows up on this list. Wonder if any other NPEs aren’t far behind.
How many in-house patent attorneys did it take to get onto this list? Also, how current is this? Some companies listed here have outsourced most of their patent work and substantially reduced their in-house staff. If this data is from the PTO roster, it is impacted both by patent attorneys who fail to timely provide the PTO with their new addresses and any PTO delay in entering new addresses.
Should there be numbers in this table?
Comments are closed.