Posts Tagged: "Top 10 patents"

With the close of another year upon us, IPWatchdog is returning to an annual feature with its Top 10 list of issued U.S. patents during 2021. While it’s impossible to produce a definitive list of the ten most important patents in terms of future commercialization, the following list reflects a series of innovations that either represent important advances in burgeoning areas of technology, or practical innovations that address many of the recurring problems that our world has been facing during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. From reducing the awkward nature of Zoom calls, during which it’s impossible to maintain genuine eye contact, to vehicle technologies using Bayesian inference models to predict the lane change behavior of nearby drivers, these patents offer an expansive view of the exciting state of invention during this early stage of the 2020s.

As the world bids good riddance to 2020, cursed as it has been by the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant shutdown of major swathes of the globe’s economy, this list of the Top 10 Patents of 2020 hopefully serves as a reminder that—although the world has missed out on concerts and sporting events aplenty—this year has not been a wasted opportunity for inventors. The world of patent law may be steeped in the tradition of legal precedent but the technologies covered by patents themselves are forward-looking, promising days of driverless vehicle commutes, personalized cancer treatments and fewer awkward moments on Zoom calls. This list does not purport to be an authoritative collection of the most economically valuable technologies protected by patents during 2020, but it offers an honest assessment of technologies that may provide an array of social benefits to consumers long after we ring out the current year.