If you want to lay any claim to innovation, your patent portfolio is the benchmark by which you will be measured. In that regard, Microsoft has set a very high bar. For the third year in a row, Microsoft has been awarded more software patents than any other firm. But where’s Big Blue in all this? Datamation has that and more.
Microsoft again earned the most software patents in 2009, the third time in three years for the Redmond giant, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
With 2,913 patents granted last year, Microsoft ran away with the majority of software patents. The next closest in the software category was SAP with 388.
“This year again, Microsoft’s portfolio is rated the strongest in the software industry … the third straight year that Microsoft has topped the IEEE Spectrum Patent Scorecard,” Bart Eppenauer, the company’s chief patent counsel, said in a post to the Microsoft On the Issues blog late Thursday afternoon.
Although IBM is listed in a different category on the IEEE lists — under “computer systems” instead of “computer software” — Big Blue still beat out Microsoft for the number of new patents granted overall last year, with 4,916.
