Life Sciences Top 54

Last month, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) announced the release of its 35th annual list of the top 300 organizations receiving U.S. patents (see "Top 300 Organizations Granted U.S. Patents in 2017").  Patent Docs Readers may recall that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office stopped releasing its annual list of top patent recipients in 2006 in order to "discourag[e] any perception that we believe more is better."

The IPO compiled its list by counting the number of utility patents granted during 2017 that listed an organization or a subsidiary as the owner on the printed patent.  The IPO notes that patents that were granted to two or more organizations jointly were attributed to the organization listed first on the patent.  The IPO also noted that 318,829 patents were issued in 2017, which was an increase from the 303,051 patents that issued in 2016.  The top fifteen companies on the IPO Top 300 are listed below (click on table to expand):

Toshiba Corp. was the only company to fall out of the Top 15 in 2017.  Toshiba Corp., which dropped to 16th in 2017, was replaced in the Top 15 by Toyota Jidosha K.K., which ranked 20th in 2016.

As in past years, Patent Docs used the IPO's list of top patent holders to compile a list of the top "life sciences" companies and organizations receiving U.S. patents in 2017.  Each organization's IPO top 300 ranking for 2017 is indicated in the "2017 IPO Rank" column; the IPO top 300 ranking for 2016 (if available) is indicated in the "2016 IPO Rank" column; and the change in number of patents from 2016 is indicated in "% Change from 2016."  The Life Sciences Top 54 is listed below (click on table to expand):

Please note that some of the companies and organizations listed above may be involved in work outside the life sciences sector, and therefore, a portion of the patents granted to these companies and organizations may be directed to other than life sciences-related inventions.  In addition, our list includes medical device companies.