Posts Tagged: "IBM patents"

IBM: Patent Troll Problem is ‘Just Noise’ Post-America Invents Act

This marks Part III of my four-part interview with IBM discussing the state of innovation and the U.S. patent system from the standpoint of a company that has obtained the most U.S. patents for 26 years in a row. Below, I continue the conversation with Mark Ringes, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for IBM, and Manny Schecter, Chief Patent Counsel for IBM, picking up on the topics of prior art and patent trolls, moving on to a comparison of the U.S. patent system with the rapidly evolving systems of China and Europe and, finally, examining how companies are refining patent prosecution practices to address the Section 101 chaos.

In Pursuit of the Hardest, Riskiest and Most Valuable Innovation

As IBM was preparing to announce yet another milestone achievement, this year receiving 9,100 U.S. patents in 2018, I had the opportunity to sit down for an on the record conversation with Mark Ringes, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for IBM, and Manny Schecter, Chief Patent Counsel for IBM. Our conversation was wide-ranging, but what appears below specifically relates to IBM’s innovation leadership and quest to patent as much of its technology and innovation as possible. We discuss how IBM’s commitment to innovation and how the company is unafraid of pursuing the hardest, riskiest innovations because those will be the most valuable innovations in the future. Of course, even IBM is constrained with a budget, and must report to shareholders, so the philosophy is to obtain patents in a variety of areas and allow the research, technology and market realities dictate where future resources, and company efforts, are placed.

IBM Tops Patent Charts (Again) with 9,100 U.S. Patents in 2018

As it has for the past quarter century, IBM today topped the charts for U.S. patent holders, with 9,100 patents granted in 2018. This is the 26th consecutive year that IBM has claimed the number one spot on the annual list of U.S. patent recipients. This year, nearly half of the patents the company received relate to hot button technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, security, blockchain and quantum computing.

IBM Wins $82.5 Million Award Against Groupon in Jury Verdict

On July 27th, a jury verdict entered into the District of Delaware awarded $82.5 million in reasonable royalties to information technology giant IBM after that company asserted a series of patents against e-commerce marketplace provider Groupon. The jury determined that Groupon infringed on a series of four patents asserted by IBM.

With 9,043 U.S. Patents, IBM Tops for 25th Consecutive Year

IBM inventors received a record number of U.S. patents in 2017, again blowing past their own previous record to sail past 9,000 issued patents. Over the last 25 years IBM inventors have received patents for such transformative ideas as secure credit card transactions, guiding the visually-impaired using RFID, the world’s fastest supercomputers and earthquake detectors. With more than a quarter-century of innovation under its belt, IBM has continued to work on the most contemporary, relevant problems that exist today. This year alone IBM inventors obtained patents in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Blockchain, Cybersecurity and Quantum Computing technologies.