2018 Patent Rankings and Trends
The Top 50 and related rankings from IFI provide insights into the world's most innovative companies and R&D organizations. Our CLAIMS Direct platform processes thousands of new patent documents every day and standardizes the data, enabling quick and accurate analysis.
The number of patents granted by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) declined in 2018. Asia continues to be a strong player.
- The USPTO issued 308,853 Utility Grant patents in 2018. This represents a 3.5% decline from 2017's record year.
- US companies received 46% of these patents. Asian companies received 31% and European companies received 15%.
- Chinese companies represent only 4% of 2018 US Grants, but their total of 12,589 US patents is an increase of 12% over 2017. Chinese companies as a group grew their US grant total in 2018 — all other countries declined.
- US pre-grant publications increased slightly to 374,763 from 372,084 in 2017. This follows declines from 2016 to 2017.
