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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

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Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6359 2814 44.3% 1972—2024 52.3 122 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] 3333 2799 84.0% 2006—2024 18.2 183 5.6  USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2739 1499 54.7% 2004—2024 19.7 139 3.9  USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2350 1111 47.3% 2005—2024 19.1 123 4.5  USA Ethicon
Junyi Li [6] 2153 1825 84.8% 2002—2024 21.7 99 5.2  USA Qualcomm
Peter Gaal [7] 2127 1638 77.0% 2002—2024 21.9 97 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen [8] 2014 1558 77.4% 2009—2024 15.2 132 5.7  USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [9] 1995 1325 66.4% 1971—2024 52.8 38 8.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Roderick A. Hyde [10] 1890 1252 66.2% 2001—2024 23.2 81 8.7  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1721 935 54.3% 1996—2024 28.1 61 4.9  Taiwan TSMC
Hanbyul Seo [12] 1619 1182 73.0% 2012—2024 12.2 133 3.8  South Korea LG
Xiaoxia Zhang [13] 1579 1372 86.9% 2009—2024 15.5 102 5.5  USA Qualcomm
Esmael H. Dinan [14] 1497 635 42.4% 2006—2024 18.1 83 3.6  USA Ofinno
Jun Koyama [15] 1489 618 41.5% 1991—2024 33.1 45 3.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [16] 1427 586 41.1% 1991—2024 33 43 2.5  USA Micron
Jing Sun [17] 1321 1124 85.1% 2012—2024 11.6 114 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Paul Lapstun [18] 1304 246 18.9% 2000—2023 23 57 2.5  Australia Silverbrook Research
Shou-Shan Fan [19] 1302 1088 83.6% 2006—2024 18.1 72 4.2  China Hon Hai
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [20] 1273 1058 83.1% 2013—2024 11.5 111 3.4  India IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [21] 1247 903 72.4% 2000—2024 23.7 53 10.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Alexander Reznicek [22] 1236 737 59.6% 2006—2024 18.2 68 3.9  USA IBM
Satoshi Seo [23] 1167 553 47.4% 2002—2024 21.6 54 4.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kijun Kim [24] 1136 793 69.8% 2013—2024 10.6 107 4.6  South Korea LG
Suckchel Yang [25] 1135 736 64.8% 2013—2024 11 103 4.7  South Korea LG
Shan Liu [26] 1113 746 67.0% 2013—2024 10.9 102 3.4  USA Tencent
Leonard Forbes [27] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6  USA Micron
Edward K. Y. Jung [28] 1109 794 71.6% 1996—2023 27.4 40 8.0  USA Intellectual Ventures
Joonkui Ahn [29] 1104 721 65.3% 2013—2024 11 100 4.7  South Korea LG
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
Juan Montojo [32] 1059 867 81.9% 2004—2024 20.4 52 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Marta Karczewicz [33] 1050 867 82.6% 2000—2024 23.6 44 4.0  USA Qualcomm
Ruilong Xie [34] 1013 753 74.3% 2013—2024 11.5 88 4.2  USA IBM
Jason L. Harris [35] 1009 601 59.6% 2011—2024 13.5 75 6.0  USA Ethicon
Donald E. Weder [36] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1  USA Weder Family Trust
Jason K. Resch [37] 998 500 50.1% 2009—2024 14.9 67 4.2  USA IBM
George Albert Lyon [38] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0  Canada Lyon George Albert
Michael J. Sullivan [39] 993 534 53.8% 1989—2024 34.9 28 3.8  USA Acushnet Holdings
Jordin T. Kare [40] 988 640 64.8% 1992—2024 31.4 31 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Tingfang Ji [41] 980 727 74.2% 2006—2024 17.9 55 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Jay S. Walker [42] 978 421 43.0% 1998—2024 25.8 38 5.2  USA Walker Digital
Yunjung Yi [43] 973 690 70.9% 2015—2024 8.7 112 3.3  South Korea LG
Takahiro Nishi [44] 962 346 36.0% 2001—2024 22.9 42 6.3  Japan Panasonic
John F. O'Connor [45] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA  USA William H. Miner
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [46] 947 459 48.5% 2002—2024 22.1 43 6.4  USA Broadcom
Melvin De Groote [47] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA  USA Petrolite
David R. Hall [48] 909 754 82.9% 1985—2024 39 23 3.8  USA Hall Labs
Seungmin Lee [49] 907 665 73.3% 2014—2024 9.8 93 3.5  South Korea LG
Nathan Myhrvold [50] 905 613 67.7% 1994—2024 29.7 30 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
William H. Eby [51] 899 895 99.6% 1994—2024 30.2 30 1.2  USA Monsanto
Francis H. Richards [52] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA  USA Francis H. Richards
Hao Xu [53] 892 637 71.4% 2005—2024 19.2 46 4.7  China Qualcomm
Mark Malamud [54] 885 690 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 34 7.5  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hajime Kimura [55] 879 280 31.9% 2002—2024 21.7 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
Hongyuan Zhang [57] 855 471 55.1% 2009—2024 15.2 56 3.9  USA Marvell
Royce A. Levien [58] 854 666 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 33 6.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [59] 839 560 66.7% 2002—2024 22 38 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] 834 548 65.7% 1992—2024 32.3 26 3.9  USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [62] 832 129 15.5% 1991—2024 33.3 25 1.1  USA Texas Instruments
Chih-Chao Yang [63] 831 516 62.1% 2003—2024 20.5 41 3.4  USA IBM
Devendra K. Sadana [64] 809 457 56.5% 1983—2024 41.4 20 4.3  USA IBM
SungDuck Chun [65] 789 481 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
Stuart C. Salter [69] 767 720 93.9% 2009—2024 14.6 53 4.8  USA Ford
Youngdae Lee [70] 766 605 79.0% 2014—2024 10.3 74 3.1  South Korea LG
Bruce B. Doris [71] 763 433 56.7% 1995—2023 28.7 27 4.2  USA IBM
Hsien-Wei Chen [72] 763 379 49.7% 2005—2024 19.4 39 3.5  Taiwan TSMC
Jeyhan Karaoguz [73] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2024 27.5 28 4.6  USA Broadcom
Justin T. Mason [74] 755 751 99.5% 2008—2024 15.7 48 1.0  USA MS Technologies
Carleton Ellis [75] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA  USA Ellis Foster Co
Ali Khakifirooz [76] 751 407 54.2% 2011—2024 12.9 58 4.2  USA IBM
Xue Dong [77] 743 726 97.7% 2010—2024 13.6 55 7.4  China BOE
Yan Zhou [78] 739 661 89.4% 2012—2024 11.9 62 4.4  USA Qualcomm
John M. Santosuosso [79] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2024 22.5 33 3.9  USA IBM
Hideo Ando [80] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1  Japan Toshiba
George Spector [81] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1  USA George Spector
Austin L. Gurney [82] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9  USA Genentech
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [83] 717 582 81.2% 2006—2024 18.2 39 2.6  France Cisco Systems
Satoshi Nagata [84] 715 679 95.0% 2011—2024 12.8 56 4.0  Japan NTT
Frederick A. Ware [85] 715 225 31.5% 1981—2024 42.6 17 2.8  USA Rambus
Shougo Sato [86] 714 280 39.2% 1992—2024 31.8 22 1.8  Japan Brother
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [87] 708 513 72.5% 2009—2024 15.4 46 2.7  USA IBM
Gregory J. Boss [88] 708 485 68.5% 2008—2024 16.4 43 4.2  USA IBM
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
Kyungmin Park [91] 691 372 53.8% 2014—2024 10.2 68 5.2  USA Ofinno
Chung-Shi Liu [92] 689 377 54.7% 2000—2024 24.5 28 6.1  Taiwan TSMC
Irwin Gerszberg [93] 682 313 45.9% 1994—2024 30.3 23 6.8  USA AT&T
Eric C. Leuthardt [94] 678 458 67.6% 2006—2024 17.8 38 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Paul S. Henry [95] 657 302 46.0% 1978—2024 46.3 14 6.3  USA AT&T
Woosuk Ko [96] 654 254 38.8% 2015—2024 9.2 71 3.4  South Korea LG
William I. Wood [97] 653 259 39.7% 1981—2013 32.2 20 5.2  USA Genentech
Xiaochuan Chen [98] 653 637 97.5% 2014—2024 10 65 7.0  China BOE
Simon R. Walmsley [99] 651 171 26.3% 1995—2012 17.2 38 3.2  Australia Silverbrook Research
Jae Hoon Chung [100] 650 381 58.6% 2010—2023 13 50 4.5  South Korea LG

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of July 30, 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

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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

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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

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References

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  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

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