Samsung Beats TSMC and Apple in the US... No. 1 in Patent Registrations for 3 Consecutive Years

- 1st place with 6,377 patents registered... TSMC, Qualcomm, Apple in that order
- South Korea, US patent registration 24,115, 4th place overall

U.S. market patent registrations ranked in 2024. / Graphic=Korea Financial Times

[Korea Financial Times, Kim JaeHun] Samsung has ranked first in patent registrations for three consecutive years in the US patent market last year, beating out global companies such as TSMC, Qualcomm, and Apple.

According to the 2024 Global Patent Trends Report released by patent information research agency IFI Claims Pattern Service on the 14th (local time), Samsung Electronics ranked first with 6,377 patent registrations out of 324,043 patent registrations in the US in 2024. This accounts for about 2% of all patents.

A company's patent activities are an indicator of research and development (R&D) trends and technological competitiveness. IFI Claims Pattern Service is analyzing patent trends of companies by building a global patent database. It provides real-time patent status of the top 1,000 companies through the free analysis tool 'IFI Claims Live 1000'.

Samsung's patent registration performance in the United States, the biggest competition for global technology, is an important milestone for domestic technology competitiveness. Samsung has ranked first in patent registration in the US market for the past three consecutive years, including 2024. Following Samsung, Taiwan's TSMC came in second with 3,989 patents, Qualcomm came in third with 3,422 patents, and Apple came in fourth.

Meanwhile, according to IFI Claims Patent Service, patent registrations in the US in 2024 increased by 3.8% from the previous year to 324,043. This is the first increase in four years. Ronald Kratz, CEO of IFI Claims Patent Service, said, "Patent registrations increased as the US Patent Office increased the number of examiners," and "Unexamined applications increased from 540,000 before COVID-19 to 813,000 in 2024."

Last year, in the US patent market, the US had the most patents registered by country, with 143,382. Following the US, Japan (43,364) and China (28,258) followed. Korea registered 24,115 patents, ranking fourth after China. Germany ranked fifth with 14,044 patents behind Korea.

Kim JaeHun (rlqm93@fntimes.com)