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IBM will announce on Monday that it was the top recipient of U.S. patents in 2002.
CNET ^
| January 12, 2003, 9:00 PM PT
| By John G. Spooner
Posted on 01/12/2003 11:48:35 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Patents a virtue for IBM
IBM will announce on Monday that it was the top recipient of U.S. patents in 2002.Big Blue was awarded 3,288 patents during the past year, making it the top recipient among private sector companies for the 10th year in a row, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Canon ranked second during in 2002 with 1,893 patents.
IBM has generated just over 22,000 patents during the last 10 years, but those patents have changed with the times, IBM researchers said.
Many of the company's newest patents are related to servers; grid computing; and self-healing, or autonomic, computers and how to better put them to use for customers. Most of the new patents also fit into the framework of IBM's computing on demand initiative, announced late last year, said Ravi Arimilli, an IBM research fellow.
"The patent process has a lot to do with what customers are thinking about or where IBM wants to go into the market," Arimilli said. "The new technologies we're pursuing are for where we see growth in the (information technology) industry."
The computing on demand initiative seeks to provide self-organizing, self-healing computer networks that IBM or its customers can use to provide computing power like a utility. Many of the patents cover related technology.
Arimilli himself had 78 patents awarded during 2002. The technologies his patents cover went into IBM's Power4 processor for servers--as well as into its eventual successor, the Power5--and into the p690 server, which is built around the Power4.
"I'm kind of like the thread that crosses all these different technologies and then produces an architecture that IBM goes to market with," Arimilli said, of working with various teams inside the company to develop new products.
Arimilli is part of a small army of employees IBM calls "inventors," who contribute patents.
Big Blue, which spent $5.5 billion on research in 2001, has a cadre of about 3,000 researchers, though about 5,000 people across the company contributed to its 2002 patent total.
This year's patents came from several areas around the company. Although a large chunk--600--came straight from IBM Research, about 1,200 patents were awarded for work done by IBM's Technology Group, which includes the company's Microelectronics Division. Microelectronics is responsible for processors like the PowerPC.
IBM's server group, which stewards the Power4, contributed nearly 600 patents to the total. IBM's software group had 470 patents in 2002.
Meanwhile, Canon, with 7,300 researchers and engineers, spent 218,616,000 yen, or about $1.66 million, on research and development, according to its 2001 annual report.
IBM's nearest competitors, NEC, Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard, were ranked fourth, fifth and ninth, respectively.
One reason IBM is so prolific, aside from its large budget, lies in its philosophy, Arimilli said.
"We have a lot of young engineers at IBM. We give them big responsibilities," he said. "When we did Power4, (Intel engineers) were doing Merced (Intel's Itanium chip). We probably had one quarter of the people working on the microprocessor as they did.
"We said (to the young engineers), 'You've got to break these barriers. You've got to be better than these guys.' The mode is almost the underdog approach of trying to be better, and you'd be amazed with the results. They seem to respond to the challenge...It's really neat watching this happen."
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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: computing; ibm; patents; techindex
To: *tech_index; Sparta; Mathlete; grundle; beckett; billorites; One More Time; Dominic Harr; ...
2
posted on
01/12/2003 11:49:17 PM PST
by
Ernest_at_the_Beach
(Governor Gray Davis should be recalled!)
3
posted on
01/12/2003 11:52:08 PM PST
by
Mo1
(Join the DC Chapter at the Patriots Rally III on 1/18/03)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
4
posted on
01/12/2003 11:54:48 PM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: krb
Congrats!
Is this specific to POTS?
Now if we can get the stock back up over 120!
5
posted on
01/13/2003 12:05:51 AM PST
by
Ernest_at_the_Beach
(Governor Gray Davis should be recalled!)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Is this specific to POTS?Not at all...think of it as taking 1 COM port on your computer, and making it be 4 COM ports. Nothing really to do with the phone system per se, but rather anything that you want to hook into a COM port.
But you are right in seeing that this is greatly useful in making a computer have 4x more modems hooked up to it, even though I had embedded applications in mind when I did it...
6
posted on
01/13/2003 12:18:25 AM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
What, a huge multi-national corporation did research, possibly created wealth without tax cuts?
7
posted on
01/13/2003 12:20:42 AM PST
by
lewislynn
To: lewislynn
What, a huge multi-national corporation did research, possibly created wealth without tax cuts?That's missing the point of supply-side policy. With marginal tax rates cut, maybe someone besides IBM will be able to unleash their creativity.
8
posted on
01/13/2003 12:23:35 AM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: krb
Congratulations!
Pardon my computer ignorance but does that mean I can be online with my computer and receive a FAX at the same time on the same line?
9
posted on
01/13/2003 12:25:13 AM PST
by
lewislynn
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Wow, didn't know they could invent so many things with paper cups and string that could get patents on! Good for them.
10
posted on
01/13/2003 12:25:26 AM PST
by
A CA Guy
To: krb
With marginal tax rates cut, maybe someone besides IBM will be able to unleash their creativity. I'd like to maybe be that someone too...sadly I'm not in the targeted upper 1% though.
To: lewislynn
Does that mean I can be online with my computer and receive a FAX at the same time on the same line?Nope. It's not at the telephone line level. It multiplexes at the serial port level. It lets you take one serial port and make it seem to give you 4 ports.
Note that this was submitted in 1998 (based on work done in 1997). This was long before USB seems to have obviated it :-)
12
posted on
01/13/2003 12:34:55 AM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
For many years IBM ran their own patent search site ("free patent searches"). Now it's run by Delphion, I suspect it's still controled by IBM though.
I often wondered if IBM running such a site gave them valuable information on what their competitors were doing patent searches on, giving them a heads up on where the industry was headed.
Just a thought...
My patent searches mostly involved mechanical devices so I used their site anyway.
13
posted on
01/13/2003 12:35:50 AM PST
by
babygene
To: lewislynn
sadly I'm not in the targeted upper 1% though.Neither am I. In fact I won't get any tax relief this year, since I don't make enough money. But that's because I got mine the first 2 years of Bush's tax cut. The first year saw the poorest taxpayers seeing the benefit, with the lowest bracket lowered even further (from 15% to 10%) and the second year saw the next group up see their marginal rate drop.
Now the third group is seeing their rate drop, and so on. If you really buy into that 1% stuff, you probably should just go become a Democrat. The richest of the rich don't even see the bulk of tax relief until the end of the tax cut (like 6 years from now), which is stupid, because the richest of the rich are the ones who fund the creation of new jobs.
You may think that jobs somehow magically come from the government, but do you really want to be cleaning public urinals, pushing pencils in a government office, or digging ditches out on I-95?
14
posted on
01/13/2003 12:42:00 AM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: krb
From the description, it sounds like stuff that's been done for years. It surprises me that there is no prior art on this. Did like the multiple baud rates though... :-)
15
posted on
01/13/2003 12:48:43 AM PST
by
glorgau
To: glorgau
Yeah it's pretty basic stuff. It was done at a time when USB was coming on the scene and there were a lot of older machines around without USB. So we needed a way to squeeze more lifespan out of these older, but still useful boxes.
The patent thing is because IBM is a patent machine. They make it SO EASY to patent your stuff. The government says that all a company has to give you is $1 for your stuff if it chooses to patent it. But IBM doles out much nicer incentives and has patent panels with lawyers and technical experts and really gets their employees cranking them out.
16
posted on
01/13/2003 6:56:39 AM PST
by
krb
(the statement on the other side of ths tagline is false)
To: krb
If you really buy into that 1% stuff, you probably should just go become a DemocratOh yea the old "lesser of two evils" dangling carrot.
the richest of the rich are the ones who fund the creation of new jobs.
Talk about buying into crap. They don't use their own money...Wage earners don't "create jobs". Interest rates have never been lower. Funding the creation of new jobs has never been lower.
We little people save and invest our money, that money , we've been told is ultimately used to create new jobs. Now that theory has been changed. Now it's the money from the richest of the rich that "fund the creation of new jobs."
Step outside your sheltered little life someday and look around. Was it the richest of the rich that "created" the new contracting business?...was it the richest of the rich that opened the new sandwich shop? ...oh wait, I know, all the "creativity" from the richest of the rich gods trickeled down to the little people.
BTW, did these taxes just happen in the last few yrs?. Congress makes tax law, the Republicans were in charge of Congress from 95 to 2000. Just how did the richest of the rich manage to get that way before they initiated the help of you GOP puppets?
Anyway, congratulations on your accomplisment for your corporate god. I just think it's too bad you don't know how to use your talent to better your own life. I'm sure your corporate god will find a way to enrich some chinese lives with it though..in your own words:
In fact I won't get any tax relief this year, since I don't make enough money.
Maybe after you give them their tax break (in 6yrs?) they'll throw you a bone....or maybe they'll just move your job all the way to China.
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