Anaqua Analysis of USPTO Patenting Statistics 2023

Today, Anaqua released its annual analysis of USPTO patent statistics, prepared using Anaqua’s AcclaimIP patent analytics software. The analysis found that patent grants grew nearly one-half of one percent to 348,774 for the period of December 1, 2022 – November 30, 2023, marking a slight increase compared to 347,408 patents in 2022. This steady state is welcome news for the industry given last year’s 8% drop, the steepest decline in US patent granting in more than a decade.

This slight increase in granted patents for 2023 puts the total number of US grants above pre-2019 levels and demonstrates a continued, healthy level of innovation amongst both US-based and global companies.

In examining the data further, US-based companies led all countries for the total number of granted US patents (162,557) – an 18% increase from 2022 – while companies in the APAC region continue to be well represented in the top five US granting countries, with Japan in second place (40,960), followed by China (28,979) and South Korea (24,073). In fifth place is Germany, the leading European country, with 13,905 grants.

Most Innovative Companies Based on Granted Patents

When it comes to the most innovative companies, calculated by the number of granted patents, we saw changes in the top five in 2023. Last year, Samsung Electronics took the leadership position with 9,290 patents. This year Samsung maintains its number one spot with 10,043 US grants, an 8.1% increase from 2022.

Samsung’s top five percentage growth areas over the last five years include data indexing schemes, electronic advertising technology, electronics related to renewable energy generation, organic electric solid-state devices and plural semiconductor manufacturing. Their top five increase areas by volume include computer output arrangements, organic electric solid-state devices, organic light-emitting devices, control circuitry and common substrate plural semiconductor arrangements.

The other most innovative companies for 2023 include:

• IBM (4,003; up from the fifth spot in 2022)
• Qualcomm (3,852; up from the seventh spot in 2022)
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (3,442; up from the eighth spot in 2022)
• LG Corp (3,319; down from the second spot in 2022)

Top Technology Fields Based on Granted Patents

In examining the top technology fields in 2023 based on the most granted patents, semiconductor technology remains in first place for the second year in a row, followed by virtual reality, 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and software technology related to unauthorized user detection – the same top five as last year.

Semiconductor innovation was extremely prevalent across the globe in 2023 and is likely driven by the increase in 5G innovation, which increased US patent grants between 2022 and 2023 by 4%.

Virtual reality (VR) has been a much-discussed topic for several years, particularly with the rise of the metaverse in 2022. There was an increase in VR-related patent grants, which probably materialized from many patent applications filed as early as 2017. Last year saw over 300 VR-related US grants with first-invention family member application dates (i.e., priority dates) in 2017, while this year showed over 150 grants with priority that same year.

When it comes to AI-related US grants in 2023, the top inventive areas specifically under AI include machine learning models, general neural network development, neural networks combination technology, neural networks for image and video recognition and neural network training using backpropagation processes.

The top assignees receiving US granted patents in AI in 2023 were:

• IBM
• Samsung Electronics
• Alphabet
• Microsoft
• Amazon

Other Technologies

The rest of the top ten list of technology fields includes program control unit, medical related, wireless, chemicals and chemistry related and network security technologies. Of note, chemicals and chemistry-related technologies cracked the top ten list for the first time, pushing electric vehicle-related technologies out of the top ten rankings.

With patent grants holding steady in 2023, our analysis shows that companies across the globe are continuing to innovate despite economic uncertainty and volatility.

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Methodology: The data for this report was analyzed by Anaqua’s AcclaimIP system, a patent search and analytics software tool leveraging public patent information from the USPTO. The metric used to determine innovative organizations is patent applications published and granted applications over a 12-month period between December 1, 2022 and November 30, 2023.