List of prolific inventors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 100 known most prolific inventors based on worldwide utility patents are shown in the following table. While in many cases this is the number of utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it may include utility patents granted by other countries, as noted by the source references for an inventor.

Prolific Inventors[edit]

Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6326 2801 44.3% 1972—2024 52.1 121 3.6  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kia Silverbrook [2] 4747 1311 27.6% 1994—2014 20 237 1.6  Australia Silverbrook Research
Tao Luo [3] 3145 2643 84.0% 2006—2024 17.9 176 5.6  USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2733 1493 54.6% 2004—2024 19.5 140 3.9  USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2277 1087 47.7% 2005—2024 18.9 120 4.5  USA Ethicon
Peter Gaal [6] 2066 1595 77.2% 2002—2024 21.7 95 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Junyi Li [7] 2060 1746 84.8% 2002—2024 21.5 96 5.2  USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [8] 1994 1325 66.4% 1971—2024 52.5 38 8.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Wanshi Chen [9] 1952 1516 77.7% 2009—2024 15 130 5.7  USA Qualcomm
Roderick A. Hyde [10] 1888 1252 66.3% 2001—2023 22.5 84 8.7  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1691 926 54.8% 1996—2024 27.9 61 4.9  Taiwan TSMC
Hanbyul Seo [12] 1591 1166 73.3% 2012—2024 12 133 3.8  South Korea LG
Xiaoxia Zhang [13] 1506 1313 87.2% 2009—2024 15.3 98 5.5  USA Qualcomm
Jun Koyama [14] 1483 620 41.8% 1991—2024 32.9 45 3.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Esmael H. Dinan [15] 1428 610 42.7% 2006—2024 17.9 80 3.6  USA Ofinno
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [16] 1422 584 41.1% 1991—2024 32.7 43 2.5  USA Micron
Paul Lapstun [17] 1304 246 18.9% 2000—2023 23 57 2.5  Australia Silverbrook Research
Shou-Shan Fan [18] 1301 1087 83.6% 2006—2024 18 72 4.2  China Hon Hai
Jing Sun [19] 1255 1071 85.3% 2012—2024 11.4 110 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [20] 1246 1031 82.7% 2013—2024 11.3 110 3.4  India IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [21] 1245 902 72.4% 2000—2024 23.1 54 10.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Alexander Reznicek [22] 1230 731 59.4% 2006—2024 18 68 3.9  USA IBM
Satoshi Seo [23] 1149 548 47.7% 2002—2024 21.4 54 4.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kijun Kim [24] 1125 787 70.0% 2013—2024 10.4 108 4.6  South Korea LG
Leonard Forbes [25] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6  USA Micron
Edward K. Y. Jung [26] 1109 794 71.6% 1996—2023 27.4 40 8.0  USA Intellectual Ventures
Suckchel Yang [27] 1104 714 64.7% 2013—2024 10.8 102 4.7  South Korea LG
Thomas Edison [28] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0  USA Thomas Edison
Joonkui Ahn [29] 1083 704 65.0% 2013—2024 10.8 100 4.7  South Korea LG
Shan Liu [30] 1075 727 67.6% 2013—2024 10.6 101 3.4  USA Tencent
Rick Allen Hamilton II [31] 1062 714 67.2% 1999—2024 25 42 4.2  USA IBM
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1032 855 82.8% 2000—2024 23.4 44 4.0  USA Qualcomm
Juan Montojo [33] 1021 831 81.4% 2004—2024 20.2 51 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Donald E. Weder [34] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1  USA Weder Family Trust
Ruilong Xie [35] 998 741 74.2% 2013—2024 11.3 88 4.2  USA IBM
George Albert Lyon [36] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0  Canada Lyon George Albert
Michael J. Sullivan [37] 992 534 53.8% 1989—2024 34.5 29 3.8  USA Acushnet Holdings
Jason K. Resch [38] 991 497 50.2% 2009—2024 14.7 67 4.2  USA IBM
Jordin T. Kare [39] 988 640 64.8% 1992—2024 31.4 31 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Jay S. Walker [40] 978 421 43.0% 1998—2024 25.8 38 5.2  USA Walker Digital
Jason L. Harris [41] 973 585 60.1% 2011—2024 13.3 73 6.0  USA Ethicon
Yunjung Yi [42] 965 685 71.0% 2015—2024 8.5 114 3.3  South Korea LG
Tingfang Ji [43] 954 708 74.2% 2006—2024 17.8 54 6.9  USA Qualcomm
John F. O'Connor [44] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA  USA William H. Miner
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [45] 944 459 48.6% 2002—2024 21.9 43 6.4  USA Broadcom
Takahiro Nishi [46] 934 337 36.1% 2001—2024 22.7 41 6.3  Japan Panasonic
Melvin De Groote [47] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA  USA Petrolite
David R. Hall [48] 908 753 82.9% 1985—2024 38.8 23 3.8  USA Hall Labs
Nathan Myhrvold [49] 904 612 67.7% 1994—2023 29.1 31 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
William H. Eby [50] 898 894 99.6% 1994—2024 29.7 30 1.2  USA Monsanto
Francis H. Richards [51] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA  USA Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud [52] 885 690 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 34 7.5  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hao Xu [53] 880 630 71.6% 2005—2024 19.1 46 4.7  China Qualcomm
Seungmin Lee [54] 871 639 73.4% 2014—2024 9.6 91 3.5  South Korea LG
Hajime Kimura [55] 870 279 32.1% 2002—2024 21.5 40 2.6  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Robert W. Lord [56] 865 681 78.7% 2003—2023 19.4 45 7.6  USA Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien [57] 854 666 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 33 6.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hongyuan Zhang [58] 848 469 55.3% 2009—2024 15 57 3.9  USA Marvell
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [59] 838 560 66.8% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind [60] 836 442 52.9% 2001—2024 23.2 36 2.6  USA IBM
Clifford A. Pickover [61] 829 546 65.9% 1992—2024 31.8 26 3.9  USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [62] 828 128 15.5% 1991—2024 33 25 1.1  USA Texas Instruments
Chih-Chao Yang [63] 827 513 62.0% 2003—2024 20.3 41 3.4  USA IBM
Devendra K. Sadana [64] 806 455 56.5% 1983—2024 41.2 20 4.3  USA IBM
SungDuck Chun [65] 785 478 60.9% 2007—2024 16.4 48 3.8  South Korea LG
Salman Akram [66] 782 290 37.1% 1995—2024 28.6 27 2.9  USA Micron
Warren M. Farnworth [67] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2020 24.4 32 2.8  USA Micron
Bruce B. Doris [68] 763 433 56.7% 1995—2023 28.7 27 4.2  USA IBM
Jeyhan Karaoguz [69] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2024 27.5 28 4.6  USA Broadcom
Carleton Ellis [70] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA  USA Ellis Foster Co
Hsien-Wei Chen [71] 751 377 50.2% 2005—2024 19.2 39 3.5  Taiwan TSMC
Ali Khakifirooz [72] 749 405 54.1% 2011—2023 12 62 4.2  USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [73] 749 703 93.9% 2009—2024 14.4 52 4.8  USA Ford
Youngdae Lee [74] 743 584 78.6% 2014—2024 10.1 74 3.1  South Korea LG
Justin T. Mason [75] 740 736 99.5% 2008—2024 15.5 48 1.0  USA MS Technologies
John M. Santosuosso [76] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2024 22.5 33 3.9  USA IBM
Xue Dong [77] 734 718 97.8% 2010—2024 13.3 55 7.4  China BOE
Hideo Ando [78] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1  Japan Toshiba
George Spector [79] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1  USA George Spector
Austin L. Gurney [80] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9  USA Genentech
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [81] 711 576 81.0% 2006—2024 18 40 2.6  France Cisco Systems
Shougo Sato [82] 709 279 39.4% 1992—2024 31.5 23 1.8  Japan Brother
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [83] 706 513 72.7% 2009—2024 15.2 46 2.7  USA IBM
Gregory J. Boss [84] 705 482 68.4% 2008—2024 16.2 44 4.2  USA IBM
Frederick A. Ware [85] 705 224 31.8% 1981—2024 42.4 17 2.8  USA Rambus
Tetsujiro Kondo [86] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8  Japan Sony
Elihu Thomson [87] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA  USA GE
Yan Zhou [88] 691 619 89.6% 2012—2024 11.7 59 4.4  USA Qualcomm
Satoshi Nagata [89] 689 654 94.9% 2011—2024 12.6 55 4.0  Japan NTT
Irwin Gerszberg [90] 680 312 45.9% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8  USA AT&T
Eric C. Leuthardt [91] 676 457 67.6% 2006—2024 17.5 39 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chung-Shi Liu [92] 676 376 55.6% 2000—2024 24.3 28 6.1  Taiwan TSMC
Paul S. Henry [93] 656 301 45.9% 1978—2023 44.9 15 6.3  USA AT&T
William I. Wood [94] 653 259 39.7% 1981—2013 32.2 20 5.2  USA Genentech
Simon R. Walmsley [95] 651 171 26.3% 1995—2012 17.2 38 3.2  Australia Silverbrook Research
Jae Hoon Chung [96] 650 381 58.6% 2010—2023 13 50 4.5  South Korea LG
Kyungmin Park [97] 648 360 55.6% 2014—2024 10 65 5.2  USA Ofinno
Woosuk Ko [98] 647 250 38.6% 2015—2024 9 72 3.4  South Korea LG
Xiaochuan Chen [99] 646 633 98.0% 2014—2024 9.8 66 7.0  China BOE
Hui-Ling Lou [100] 640 344 53.8% 1997—2024 26.7 24 3.9  USA Marvell

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of May 14, 2024.

The columns are defined as follows:

  • Inventor: The name of the inventor.
  • Pats: The number of utility patents that have been issued. Only utility patents (or the international equivalent) are listed, as a utility patent is a patent for an invention. Not all patents are for inventions. Other patent types include: design patents for the ornamental design of an object; plant patents for plant varieties; and reissue patents, where a correction is made to an already granted patent. This list does not include patent applications (patents pending) as there is no guarantee that a patent application actually describes a novel invention until the patent is granted.
  • Fams: The number of patent families, which in USPTO data includes an original or continuation-in-part patent by itself or with one or more continuation or divisional patents based on the original or continuation-in-part patent. This is different than global patent families that represent a patent filed in more than one jurisdiction. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Fam %: The percentage of original and continuation-in-part patents that are in the inventor's patent portfolio [Fams column divided by Pats column, rounded to first decimal as a percentage]. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Yrs: The first and last year in which an inventor received a patent issuance.
  • Yrs: The number of years from first issuance to most recent issuance, rounded to first decimal based on dates.
  • Pats /Yr: The average number of patents received per year [Pats column divided by Yrs column, rounded].
  • Inv / Pat: The average number of inventors listed on the inventor's most recent 50 patents as of September 7, 2021 or on the date the inventor was added to the table if later. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Residence: The country of inventor's residence listed in their most recent patent issuance.
  • Majority Assignment: The entity that has the most patents assigned from an inventor's portfolio. This is current and not original assignment. It is usually, but not always an indication of which company the inventor worked at for the majority of their patent activity.

Significance of inventions[edit]

This table is a sortable list of the most prolific inventors as measured by utility patents granted. It does not include other types of invention, such as inventions that were never applied for nor granted, for which there is no known source. Nor does the table attempt to measure the significance of an inventor and their inventions. The significance of inventions is often not apparent until many decades after the invention has been made. For recent inventors, it is not yet possible to determine their place in history.

Various published lists[edit]

Rankings of prolific inventors have been published at various times. However, until the patent records were digitized, these lists were very tedious to prepare, as many thousands of patent records had to be checked manually. Even after digitization, it is still not a simple process. While the USPTO keeps statistics for annual rankings of inventions assigned to companies, it no longer publishes rankings of individual inventors. The last such list was published by the USPTO in 1998.[Info 1] Also, patents predating 1976 have not yet been digitized in the USPTO records. This means that patents before 1976 will not be included in a USPTO search by inventor name, and the number of patents granted before 1976 must be added to current searches.

A more extensive list of prolific inventors with additional information and ability to filter on country, gender, time period, patent type, and Nobel laureate title can be found at idiyas.com/top/inventors. There are some discrepancies with this article due to different inventor queries that attempt to account for data issues such as typos and multiple inventors with the same name.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "USPTO publication: Prolific Inventors Receiving Utility Patents 1988–1997" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2011-07-12.

References of Inventors' Patents[edit]

  1. ^ Shunpei Yamazaki
  2. ^ Kia Silverbrook
  3. ^ Tao Luo
  4. ^ Kangguo Cheng
  5. ^ Frederick E. Shelton IV
  6. ^ Peter Gaal
  7. ^ Junyi Li
  8. ^ Lowell L. Wood, Jr.
  9. ^ Wanshi Chen
  10. ^ Roderick A. Hyde
  11. ^ Chen-Hua Yu
  12. ^ Hanbyul Seo
  13. ^ Xiaoxia Zhang
  14. ^ Jun Koyama
  15. ^ Esmael H. Dinan
  16. ^ Gurtej Singh Sandhu
  17. ^ Paul Lapstun
  18. ^ Shou-Shan Fan
  19. ^ Jing Sun
  20. ^ Sarbajit K. Rakshit
  21. ^ Clarence T. Tegreene
  22. ^ Alexander Reznicek
  23. ^ Satoshi Seo
  24. ^ Kijun Kim
  25. ^ Leonard Forbes
  26. ^ Edward K. Y. Jung
  27. ^ Suckchel Yang
  28. ^ Thomas Edison
  29. ^ Joonkui Ahn
  30. ^ Shan Liu
  31. ^ Rick Allen Hamilton II
  32. ^ Marta Karczewicz
  33. ^ Juan Montojo
  34. ^ Donald E. Weder
  35. ^ Ruilong Xie
  36. ^ George Albert Lyon
  37. ^ Michael J. Sullivan
  38. ^ Jason K. Resch
  39. ^ Jordin T. Kare
  40. ^ Jay S. Walker
  41. ^ Jason L. Harris
  42. ^ Yunjung Yi
  43. ^ Tingfang Ji
  44. ^ John F. O'Connor
  45. ^ Ahmadreza Rofougaran
  46. ^ Takahiro Nishi
  47. ^ Melvin De Groote
  48. ^ David R. Hall
  49. ^ Nathan Myhrvold
  50. ^ William H. Eby
  51. ^ Francis H. Richards
  52. ^ Mark Malamud
  53. ^ Hao Xu
  54. ^ Seungmin Lee
  55. ^ Hajime Kimura
  56. ^ Robert W. Lord
  57. ^ Royce A. Levien
  58. ^ Hongyuan Zhang
  59. ^ Muriel Y. Ishikawa
  60. ^ Michael K. Gschwind
  61. ^ Clifford A. Pickover
  62. ^ Lee D. Whetsel
  63. ^ Chih-Chao Yang
  64. ^ Devendra K. Sadana
  65. ^ SungDuck Chun
  66. ^ Salman Akram
  67. ^ Warren M. Farnworth
  68. ^ Bruce B. Doris
  69. ^ Jeyhan Karaoguz
  70. ^ Carleton Ellis
  71. ^ Hsien-Wei Chen
  72. ^ Ali Khakifirooz
  73. ^ Stuart C. Salter
  74. ^ Youngdae Lee
  75. ^ Justin T. Mason
  76. ^ John M. Santosuosso
  77. ^ Xue Dong
  78. ^ Hideo Ando
  79. ^ George Spector
  80. ^ Austin L. Gurney
  81. ^ Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur
  82. ^ Shougo Sato
  83. ^ Lisa Seacat DeLuca
  84. ^ Gregory J. Boss
  85. ^ Frederick A. Ware
  86. ^ Tetsujiro Kondo
  87. ^ Elihu Thomson
  88. ^ Yan Zhou
  89. ^ Satoshi Nagata
  90. ^ Irwin Gerszberg
  91. ^ Eric C. Leuthardt
  92. ^ Chung-Shi Liu
  93. ^ Paul S. Henry
  94. ^ William I. Wood
  95. ^ Simon R. Walmsley
  96. ^ Jae Hoon Chung
  97. ^ Kyungmin Park
  98. ^ Woosuk Ko
  99. ^ Xiaochuan Chen
  100. ^ Hui-Ling Lou
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