IBM's US patent count fell 44% YoY in 2022 to 4,743, behind Samsung's 8,513, losing its top spot after decades as the company refocuses on its core businesses
Context & Ripple Effects
For nearly three decades, IBM treated the USPTO's annual ranking as a scoreboard it always won — 24 straight years at the top by 2016, peaking at 9,130 grants in 2020 when Samsung trailed at 6,415 (the 2020 count). That run is now over: 2022 grants collapsed 44% to 4,743, handing the crown to Samsung's 8,513.
The drop is framed as deliberate rather than decline — IBM research chief Darío Gil says the company will stop chasing numeric patent leadership and pursue open innovation instead, aligning the patent pullback with a broader refocus on core businesses.
First-order effects
- Samsung inherits the top spot on the USPTO list after years as runner-up, gaining the signaling value of the #1 position without having changed its own filing behavior.
- IBM's patent portfolio shrinks by more than 4,000 annual grants, directly reducing the volume of new IP it can license, defend with, or trade.
Second-order effects
- With IBM publicly disavowing the metric, the annual patent-count ranking loses its most reliable headline occupant — press coverage and investor shorthand built on 'most US patents' now default to Samsung, whose leadership reflects persistence rather than a claimed strategic victory.
- Rivals weighing their own filing budgets get cover to trim defensive patenting, since the company that defined the leaderboard no longer treats it as a KPI.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, patent counts decouple from perceived innovation leadership: large tech firms shift weight toward open-source contribution and collaborative IP, and the decades-old ritual of crowning an annual patent champion becomes a weaker proxy for R&D strength.
The trend: Patent-volume leadership is losing its status as the default scoreboard for corporate innovation, as long-dominant filers like IBM redirect toward open collaboration and core-business focus.