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] 6342 2806 44.2% 1972—2024 52.2 121 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] 3226 2710 84.0% 2006—2024 18 179 5.6  USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2737 1497 54.7% 2004—2024 19.6 140 3.9  USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2310 1104 47.8% 2005—2024 19 122 4.5  USA Ethicon
Junyi Li [6] 2111 1787 84.7% 2002—2024 21.6 98 5.2  USA Qualcomm
Peter Gaal [7] 2094 1614 77.1% 2002—2024 21.8 96 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [8] 1994 1325 66.4% 1971—2024 52.5 38 8.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Wanshi Chen [9] 1985 1539 77.5% 2009—2024 15.1 131 5.7  USA Qualcomm
Roderick A. Hyde [10] 1889 1252 66.3% 2001—2024 23.1 82 8.7  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1703 930 54.6% 1996—2024 28 61 4.9  Taiwan TSMC
Hanbyul Seo [12] 1605 1176 73.3% 2012—2024 12.1 133 3.8  South Korea LG
Xiaoxia Zhang [13] 1537 1338 87.1% 2009—2024 15.4 100 5.5  USA Qualcomm
Jun Koyama [14] 1484 618 41.6% 1991—2024 32.9 45 3.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Esmael H. Dinan [15] 1464 624 42.6% 2006—2024 18 81 3.6  USA Ofinno
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [16] 1423 585 41.1% 1991—2024 32.9 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] 1302 1088 83.6% 2006—2024 18.1 72 4.2  China Hon Hai
Jing Sun [19] 1284 1095 85.3% 2012—2024 11.5 112 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [20] 1258 1043 82.9% 2013—2024 11.4 110 3.4  India IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [21] 1246 903 72.5% 2000—2024 23.5 53 10.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Alexander Reznicek [22] 1235 736 59.6% 2006—2024 18.2 68 3.9  USA IBM
Satoshi Seo [23] 1156 549 47.5% 2002—2024 21.5 54 4.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kijun Kim [24] 1131 791 69.9% 2013—2024 10.5 108 4.6  South Korea LG
Suckchel Yang [25] 1117 722 64.6% 2013—2024 10.9 102 4.7  South Korea LG
Leonard Forbes [26] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6  USA Micron
Edward K. Y. Jung [27] 1109 794 71.6% 1996—2023 27.4 40 8.0  USA Intellectual Ventures
Joonkui Ahn [28] 1092 710 65.0% 2013—2024 10.9 100 4.7  South Korea LG
Shan Liu [29] 1092 731 66.9% 2013—2024 10.7 102 3.4  USA Tencent
Thomas Edison [30] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0  USA Thomas Edison
Rick Allen Hamilton II [31] 1062 714 67.2% 1999—2024 25 42 4.2  USA IBM
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1040 861 82.8% 2000—2024 23.4 44 4.0  USA Qualcomm
Juan Montojo [33] 1035 844 81.5% 2004—2024 20.3 51 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Ruilong Xie [34] 1011 751 74.3% 2013—2024 11.4 89 4.2  USA IBM
Donald E. Weder [35] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1  USA Weder Family Trust
Jason K. Resch [36] 994 498 50.1% 2009—2024 14.7 68 4.2  USA IBM
George Albert Lyon [37] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0  Canada Lyon George Albert
Michael J. Sullivan [38] 993 534 53.8% 1989—2024 34.9 28 3.8  USA Acushnet Holdings
Jason L. Harris [39] 989 594 60.1% 2011—2024 13.4 74 6.0  USA Ethicon
Jordin T. Kare [40] 988 640 64.8% 1992—2024 31.4 31 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Jay S. Walker [41] 978 421 43.0% 1998—2024 25.8 38 5.2  USA Walker Digital
Yunjung Yi [42] 968 687 71.0% 2015—2024 8.6 113 3.3  South Korea LG
Tingfang Ji [43] 965 716 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] 946 458 48.4% 2002—2024 21.8 43 6.4  USA Broadcom
Takahiro Nishi [46] 944 339 35.9% 2001—2024 22.8 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] 905 613 67.7% 1994—2024 29.7 30 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
Hao Xu [52] 890 635 71.3% 2005—2024 19.1 47 4.7  China Qualcomm
Seungmin Lee [53] 888 653 73.5% 2014—2024 9.6 92 3.5  South Korea LG
Mark Malamud [54] 885 690 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 34 7.5  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hajime Kimura [55] 875 280 32.0% 2002—2024 21.6 41 2.6  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Robert W. Lord [56] 866 682 78.8% 2003—2024 20.4 42 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] 849 468 55.1% 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] 833 548 65.8% 1992—2024 32.2 26 3.9  USA IBM
Chih-Chao Yang [62] 830 515 62.0% 2003—2024 20.4 41 3.4  USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [63] 830 129 15.5% 1991—2024 33.2 25 1.1  USA Texas Instruments
Devendra K. Sadana [64] 806 455 56.5% 1983—2024 41.2 20 4.3  USA IBM
SungDuck Chun [65] 788 481 61.0% 2007—2024 16.5 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
James A. Jorasch [68] 769 309 40.2% 1994—2024 29.7 26 3.9  USA Walker Digital
Bruce B. Doris [69] 763 433 56.7% 1995—2023 28.7 27 4.2  USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [70] 758 712 93.9% 2009—2024 14.5 52 4.8  USA Ford
Jeyhan Karaoguz [71] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2024 27.5 28 4.6  USA Broadcom
Hsien-Wei Chen [72] 756 377 49.9% 2005—2024 19.3 39 3.5  Taiwan TSMC
Carleton Ellis [73] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA  USA Ellis Foster Co
Youngdae Lee [74] 751 591 78.7% 2014—2024 10.2 74 3.1  South Korea LG
Ali Khakifirooz [75] 750 406 54.1% 2011—2024 12.8 59 4.2  USA IBM
Justin T. Mason [76] 747 743 99.5% 2008—2024 15.6 48 1.0  USA MS Technologies
John M. Santosuosso [77] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2024 22.5 33 3.9  USA IBM
Xue Dong [78] 737 721 97.8% 2010—2024 13.4 55 7.4  China BOE
Hideo Ando [79] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1  Japan Toshiba
George Spector [80] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1  USA George Spector
Austin L. Gurney [81] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9  USA Genentech
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [82] 713 578 81.1% 2006—2024 18.1 39 2.6  France Cisco Systems
Shougo Sato [83] 712 280 39.3% 1992—2024 31.7 22 1.8  Japan Brother
Frederick A. Ware [84] 712 225 31.6% 1981—2024 42.5 17 2.8  USA Rambus
Yan Zhou [85] 710 635 89.4% 2012—2024 11.8 60 4.4  USA Qualcomm
Gregory J. Boss [86] 707 484 68.5% 2008—2024 16.3 43 4.2  USA IBM
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [87] 707 514 72.7% 2009—2024 15.3 46 2.7  USA IBM
Satoshi Nagata [88] 703 668 95.0% 2011—2024 12.7 55 4.0  Japan NTT
Tetsujiro Kondo [89] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8  Japan Sony
Elihu Thomson [90] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA  USA GE
Chung-Shi Liu [91] 684 378 55.3% 2000—2024 24.4 28 6.1  Taiwan TSMC
Irwin Gerszberg [92] 680 312 45.9% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8  USA AT&T
Eric C. Leuthardt [93] 676 457 67.6% 2006—2024 17.5 39 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Kyungmin Park [94] 669 367 54.9% 2014—2024 10.1 66 5.2  USA Ofinno
Paul S. Henry [95] 656 301 45.9% 1978—2023 44.9 15 6.3  USA AT&T
William I. Wood [96] 653 259 39.7% 1981—2013 32.2 20 5.2  USA Genentech
Woosuk Ko [97] 652 252 38.7% 2015—2024 9.1 72 3.4  South Korea LG
Simon R. Walmsley [98] 651 171 26.3% 1995—2012 17.2 38 3.2  Australia Silverbrook Research
Jae Hoon Chung [99] 650 381 58.6% 2010—2023 13 50 4.5  South Korea LG
Xiaochuan Chen [100] 647 634 98.0% 2014—2024 9.9 65 7.0  China BOE

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of June 18, 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. ^ Junyi Li
  7. ^ Peter Gaal
  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. ^ Suckchel Yang
  26. ^ Leonard Forbes
  27. ^ Edward K. Y. Jung
  28. ^ Joonkui Ahn
  29. ^ Shan Liu
  30. ^ Thomas Edison
  31. ^ Rick Allen Hamilton II
  32. ^ Marta Karczewicz
  33. ^ Juan Montojo
  34. ^ Ruilong Xie
  35. ^ Donald E. Weder
  36. ^ Jason K. Resch
  37. ^ George Albert Lyon
  38. ^ Michael J. Sullivan
  39. ^ Jason L. Harris
  40. ^ Jordin T. Kare
  41. ^ Jay S. Walker
  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. ^ Hao Xu
  53. ^ Seungmin Lee
  54. ^ Mark Malamud
  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. ^ Chih-Chao Yang
  63. ^ Lee D. Whetsel
  64. ^ Devendra K. Sadana
  65. ^ SungDuck Chun
  66. ^ Salman Akram
  67. ^ Warren M. Farnworth
  68. ^ James A. Jorasch
  69. ^ Bruce B. Doris
  70. ^ Stuart C. Salter
  71. ^ Jeyhan Karaoguz
  72. ^ Hsien-Wei Chen
  73. ^ Carleton Ellis
  74. ^ Youngdae Lee
  75. ^ Ali Khakifirooz
  76. ^ Justin T. Mason
  77. ^ John M. Santosuosso
  78. ^ Xue Dong
  79. ^ Hideo Ando
  80. ^ George Spector
  81. ^ Austin L. Gurney
  82. ^ Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur
  83. ^ Shougo Sato
  84. ^ Frederick A. Ware
  85. ^ Yan Zhou
  86. ^ Gregory J. Boss
  87. ^ Lisa Seacat DeLuca
  88. ^ Satoshi Nagata
  89. ^ Tetsujiro Kondo
  90. ^ Elihu Thomson
  91. ^ Chung-Shi Liu
  92. ^ Irwin Gerszberg
  93. ^ Eric C. Leuthardt
  94. ^ Kyungmin Park
  95. ^ Paul S. Henry
  96. ^ William I. Wood
  97. ^ Woosuk Ko
  98. ^ Simon R. Walmsley
  99. ^ Jae Hoon Chung
  100. ^ Xiaochuan Chen
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