In a world where litigation can be taken over nearly every occurrence in life and ideas are only protected with patents, you can get an idea of just how created an automotive company is if you look at the number of patents that are applied for in a given year. The US Patent Office keeps track of these numbers and some companies are certainly applying for a large number of patents while others seem to only apply for a few. Ideas and the development of technology are important to the future of the industry which is why this is a good report card to let us know how creative a company may be.
The Patent 300
The team at Harrity & Harrity is the leading law firm when it comes to patent litigation and offers us the numbers from their Harrity Patent Analytics report. This report allows us to see the number of utility patents that are applied for to cover the products, processes, and machinery used by a variety of companies around the country. Here are the numbers and the companies that filed for the most patents last year.
Toyota
Among automakers, Toyota ranks the highest in the number of patents filed with 2,554 in 2018. This places Toyota at sixth on the list behind only IBM, Samsung, Canon, Intel, Alphabet, and GE. Not bad company to keep at all from a brand that’s known for creating some of the most reliable and useful cars that we see on the roads today.
Ford
Ford is next with 2,149 patents filed last year. The Ford Motor Company filed 72 percent mechanical patents and 23 percent electrical which is similar to what we saw from Toyota. Ford had been known for offering us new technology and development dating back to the moving assembly line.
Fun Fact: Henry Ford wanted to figure out how to use the wood scraps from the Model T frames and what he came up with is the charcoal briquettes that we know as Kingsford Charcoal today.
Moving Down the List
Next on the list is Hyundai which comes in at number 22 overall with 1,539 patents. (If you’re looking for an affordable vehicle, check out your local Hyundai dealer today!) GM makes its way to number 35 with 1,197 patents which is a few less than Fujifilm at 34. Honda is tied for 43rd with TCL at 958 patents filed. Porsche makes its way to the list at number 89 with 503 patents filed last year and Nissan squeaks into the top 100 at the 97th spot with 446 patents filed last year.
The Creativity Shows Through
Moving through the list of companies and the number of patents, BMW filed 198 patents last year, Mazda filed for 159, and FCA filed for 155. The surprises in this trio may be BMW and FCA which both have large lines of vehicles offered in the US. Mazda only offers us a small lineup of vehicles, which makes the low number from Mazda fitting one for us to see. It will be interesting to see what comes from these patents that are filed to give us an idea of what the future of the automotive industry will be.
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