In the last few years, the mobile industry has been filled with perhaps more lawsuits and patent litigation than it has true innovation. That statement might be a little too much, but it certainly feels that way, and that someone is always suing somebody else. The main culprit seems to be Apple, looking to assert their dominance on mobile innovation, despite the fact they’re relative newcomers to the industry. According to the latest “State of Innovation” Report from Thomson Reuters, Samsung filed for more smartphone-related patents than anyone else in the business, unsurprisingly dwarfing Apple’s small chest of patent ammunition.
In the report, it’s revealed that Samsung filed for 2,179 telephony patents throughout 2013, which is a little more than LG’s 1,879 patents and over twice Sony’s 1,071 patents. It’s no surprise that Samsung has filed more than anyone else, as we’ve been seeing all sorts of new designs and technologies trickling out in the form of patents, but it is interesting to see Apple filing just 647 patents, below even Research-in-Motion (the BlackBerry creators) with 854 patents filed. Qualcomm took over both of them – as well as Intel – to take the top spot in North America with 1,383 patents filed.
While this report doesn’t tell us all that much about what these patents are about, it does suggest that Samsung is taking patents a lot more seriously than before, as Apple had them blindsided with a lot of software and design patents. Historically, companies like Samsung, HTC and LG have all had their patents focused on things like 3G technology and radio technology. Patents like those are often deemed “Standard Essential Patents”, which means HTC and co must license these patents at a fair and reasonable price, which is no doubt why Samsung didn’t fare too well when fighting back against Apple and their crack team of lawyers. The whole report is an interesting read if you’re a business-minded kind of person and you can take a look at the source link below.