In recent years, the title of leading filer of Australian patent applications has been hotly (though probably inadvertently) contested between Huawei Technologies Ltd (China), Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Ltd (China), and LG Electronics (South Korea). In 2022, LG was a clear winner, with 283 new standard patent applications. Huawei filed 181 applications, while OPPO disappeared entirely from the leader board, with just 16 applications filed in 2022 – a long way short of the 435 applications it filed at its peak in 2020.
The big surprise of the past year, however, is the appearance of IBM in second place, with 189 applications. The company affectionately known as ‘Big Blue’ was the leading US patent recipient for a remarkable 29 consecutive years. At its peak, it filed more than 10,000 applications in a single year, and received 8,682 US patents in 2021. However, throughout all of this time IBM has not been a major patent applicant in Australia, filing no more than 35 applications (in 1995) during any year between 1991 and 2020.
Other major filers of recent years to have dropped out of the top 30 include cloud computing and virtualization technology provider Citrix Systems, Inc (sixth placed in 2021 with 147 applications, down to just 19 filings in 2022) and semiconductor and wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc (which peaked at 326 applications in 2018, but filed just 28 times in 2022).
Once again, the leading Australian-based applicant was Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd with 69 applications, followed by the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with 51 applications. As in 2021, the top New Zealand applicant was Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd which, with 111 applications, easily out-filed the leading Australians.
Top Patent Applicants
The table below lists the top 30 applicants for Australian standard patents, from all countries of origin.
| Rank | Applicant Name | Country | Filings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LG ELECTRONICS INC | KR | 283 |
| 2 | IBM CORPORATION | US | 189 |
| 3 | HUAWEI TECH LTD | CN | 182 |
| 4 | BECTON DICKINSON & CO | US | 158 |
| 5 | APPLE INC | US | 149 |
| 6 | SOCIETE DES PRODUITS NESTLE SA | CH | 131 |
| 7 | REGENERON PHARMACEUTICALS INC | US | 123 |
| 8 | AMGEN INC | US | 122 |
| 9 | CATERPILLAR INC | US | 117 |
| =10 | HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC | US | 111 |
| =10 | FISHER & PAYKEL HEALTHCARE LTD | NZ | 111 |
| 12 | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA | US | 107 |
| 13 | F HOFFMANN LA ROCHE AG | CH | 105 |
| 14 | ILLUMINA INC | US | 95 |
| 15 | BOSTON SCIENTIFIC SCIMED INC | US | 79 |
| 16 | BAYER AG | DE | 78 |
| =17 | DEERE & CO | US | 74 |
| =17 | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | US | 74 |
| =19 | LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY | US | 71 |
| =19 | THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM | US | 71 |
| =19 | NOVARTIS AG | CH | 71 |
| =22 | SUNTORY HOLDINGS LTD | JP | 70 |
| =22 | INTUIT INC | US | 70 |
| =22 | TECHTRONIC CORDLESS GP | US | 70 |
| 25 | ARISTOCRAT TECH AUSTRALIA PTY LTD | AU | 69 |
| 26 | CAREFUSION 303 INC | US | 68 |
| 27 | BASF SE | DE | 67 |
| 28 | ANGEL GROUP LTD | JP | 66 |
| =29 | GOOGLE LLC | US | 63 |
| =29 | GENENTECH INC | US | 63 |
| =29 | NICOVENTURES TRADING LTD | GB | 63 |
| =29 | MAGIC LEAP INC | US | 63 |
As I have already observed, the surprise entrant in this table is IBM, at number two. It has been a very long time since IBM was a major filer in Australia. In 1966, it filed 100 Australian patent applications. The total number of applications filed in that year was around 13,000, so in relative terms IBM’s filings were comparable to LG’s in 2022. Even so, IBM was only the sixth biggest filer of 1966, behind General Electric (107), Monsanto (114), Standard Telephones & Cables a.k.a. STC (119), Philips (221) and Imperial Chemical Industries a.k.a. ICI (293). By the 1990s IBM had become a minor filer in Australia, averaging just 12.1 applications per year between 1991 and 2020.
IBM’s Australian patenting strategy appears to have changed in 2021, when it filed 54 applications – not enough to make last year’s top 30 list, but significantly more than it had filed in any year since 1990. And this number has then grown to 189 in 2022.
After 29 years at the top of the US rankings, in 2022 the number of patents granted to IBM fell by nearly 50% to 4,398, allowing Samsung easily to take the top spot. IBM still comfortably held second place, but I expect that its US patent grants will fall further in coming years, as the effect of recent changes in its patenting strategy flow through the examination process. In a recent blog post, IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research Darío Gil explained that as part of its ‘relentless capacity for reinvention, [IBM] decided in 2020 that [it] would no longer pursue the goal of numeric patent leadership.’ The one-word explanation given for this strategic change is ‘focus’. As Gil further explains:
IBM is a hybrid cloud and AI company today. While we will remain an intellectual property powerhouse with one of the strongest US patent portfolios, as part of our innovation strategy, focus means that we are taking a more selective approach to patenting. We have turned more of our talent and resources towards achieving high-quality, high-impact advancements in the specific areas of hybrid cloud, data and AI, automation, security, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
Gil does not discuss IBM’s international filing strategies. I doubt, however, that it is coincidence that IBM’s ‘more selective approach’ to US patent filing is resulting in fewer US patent grants at the same time as it is increasing its filing activity in Australia – and, presumably, other foreign jurisdictions as well. The cost of its US patenting program has historically been enormous, and one consequence of this is likely to have been a restriction in the budget available to secure rights in smaller markets for all but the most relevant and valuable inventions. It seems that a major goal for IBM over the past three decades has been to achieve and maintain numerical supremacy in US patent grants, probably at the expense of other objectives. But an increase in ‘focus’ means not only filing fewer applications in the US, but also filing more applications for many of those same important inventions in other jurisdictions. I anticipate that IBM will continue to feature among the leading filers of Australian patent applications in the years to come.
Leading Australian-Resident Applicants
The following table lists the top Australian applicants for standard patents. Only Aristocrat, on 69 filings, also appears in the previous table of overall leaders. Last year I commented on the appearance of Australian ‘unicorn’ Canva in the rankings. This year it has improved its position, from equal-ninth to equal-fifth alongside Resmed with 23 new applications. As always, universities and public research institutions are prominent among Australian filers, with CSIRO once again placing second, with 51 filings. This was sufficient to position it at 41st on the overall ranking, up from equal-46th in 2021. Interestingly, two self-represented sole inventor/applicants – Thanh Tri Lam and Julianne Mary Cripps Clark – appear in the top 20 this year. These types of applicants are common among provisional filers, but rarely proceed further by filing complete patent applications.
| Rank | Applicant Name | Filings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ARISTOCRAT TECH AUSTRALIA PTY LTD | 69 |
| 2 | CSIRO | 51 |
| 3 | THANH TRI LAM | 25 |
| 4 | MONASH UNIVERSITY | 24 |
| =5 | CANVA PTY LTD | 23 |
| =5 | RESMED PTY LTD | 23 |
| 7 | NEWSOUTH INNOVATIONS PTY LTD | 22 |
| 8 | UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE | 17 |
| =9 | XARD GROUP PTY LTD | 15 |
| =9 | NTHALMIC HOLDING PTY LTD | 15 |
| 11 | BREVILLE PTY LTD | 14 |
| 12 | UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND | 13 |
| =13 | ROYAL MELBOURNE INSTITUTE OF TECH | 12 |
| =13 | UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY | 12 |
| =13 | QUEENSLAND INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH | 12 |
| =16 | TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES PTY LTD | 11 |
| =16 | JULIANNE MARY CRIPPS CLARK | 11 |
| 18 | AGRICULTURE VICTORIA SERVICES PTY LTD | 10 |
| =19 | MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY | 9 |
| =19 | GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY | 9 |
| =19 | GLOBALTECH PTY LTD | 9 |
Top Provisional Applicants
The table below lists the top filers of provisional applications in 2022. As usual, almost all provisional applicants are Australian. The only foreign applicant on the list is the New Zealand online accounting platform provider Xero Ltd, in 9th position. (Xero has a presence in, and also files from, Australia and the US, however I have consolidated all of its applications under the NZ entity that owns the rights.)
This year, the selection of prolific individual, and mostly self-represented, provisional filers includes the two noted above as having also filed a number of complete applications.
| Rank | Applicant Name | Country | Provisional Filings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CSIRO | AU | 47 |
| 2 | NEWSOUTH INNOVATIONS PTY LTD | AU | 45 |
| 3 | RESMED PTY LTD | AU | 40 |
| 4 | UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY | AU | 37 |
| 5 | UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE | AU | 36 |
| 6 | UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND | AU | 25 |
| 7 | JULIANNE MARY CRIPPS CLARK | AU | 23 |
| 8 | MONASH UNIVERSITY | AU | 22 |
| 9 | XERO LTD | NZ | 21 |
| 10 | SALUDA MEDICAL PTY LTD | AU | 20 |
| 11 | BREVILLE PTY LTD | AU | 19 |
| =12 | THANH TRI LAM | AU | 16 |
| =12 | UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE | AU | 16 |
| =14 | AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY | AU | 15 |
| =14 | ANTHONY JOHN SCOLARO | AU | 15 |
| 16 | RMIT UNIVERSITY | AU | 14 |
| =17 | PYC THERAPEUTICS LTD | AU | 13 |
| =17 | GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY | AU | 13 |
| =19 | UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA | AU | 12 |
| =19 | DEAKIN UNIVERSITY | AU | 12 |
| =21 | NORMAN L MATTHEWS | AU | 11 |
| =21 | UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA | AU | 11 |
| =23 | ALBERT MASSEY TRIHEY | AU | 10 |
| =23 | NTHALMIC HOLDING PTY LTD | AU | 10 |
| =23 | NOURISH INGREDIENTS PTY LTD | AU | 10 |
| =23 | MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY | AU | 10 |
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