The U.S. business patent database (IFI claims) publishes the latest patent report and the 250 largest global patent holders as of January 2, 2020.
In terms of the number of patent families, Samsung Electronics of South Korea ranks first in the world with 7663800 patents, followed by IBM, Canon, general electric, Microsoft, LG Electronics, apple, Ford, Amazon and Huawei.
A total of 10 Chinese enterprises and institutions have entered the list, ranking in order: Hon Hai Precision (11), Huawei (29), TSMC (39), BOE (74), Lenovo Group (82), TCL (99), MediaTek (103), ZTE (108), Tencent (206) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (229).
According to the data, of the 50 companies with the largest number of patents, 49% are American companies, up from 46% in 2018. In addition, Japanese enterprises account for 16%, South Korea accounts for about 7%, while Chinese enterprises account for 5%, surpassing Germany for the first time, ranking fourth.
Last year, the number of patents granted by Chinese companies increased nearly 35% year on year, with two companies ranking in the top 15, Huawei (10th) and BOE (13th).
There are 33 oil and chemical enterprises in the top 250, BASF ranks the highest, ranking 45, with 10987 patents; Bayer company ranks 51, with 9654 patents.