Internet search giant Google can lay claim to some pretty significant achievements in 2012, not the least impressive of which is the company’s massive power play in the realm of patents and intellectual property rights.
This week, figures from IFI Claims Patent Services showed that Google cracked the top 50 companies last year to acquire the most patents within a calendar year. Google placed No. 21 overall with 1,151 patents.
Important for Google is that it topped Apple in the patent collection race last year, although not by much. The iDevice maker nabbed just 15 fewer patents (1,136 grants).
For Google to hit the top 50 patenting companies in 2012, it must have been making significant efforts in filing for a few years, given the long delays that often happen between filing a patent application and receiving a granted patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Although Google and Apple were top names in patent acquisitions for 2012, neither can come close to IBM, which once again was the top dog in this process. In 2012, IBM secured a whopping 6,478 patents.
