- 1 Volume
Volume
The following is a closer look at the data used and how it was calculated and analyzed to determine the 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators. Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index® (DWPISM), Derwent Patents Citation Index™ data and Thomson Innovation®, the Thomson Reuters IP intelligence and collaboration platform, were utilized in our research and analysis.
The 2012 award focuses on companies which are responsible for generating a sizeable amount of innovation. All organizations with 100 or more "innovative" patents from the most recent three years were included. An "innovative" patent is defined as the first publication in a patent document of a new technology, drug, business process, etc. In DWPI, these are called "basic" patents. DWPI provides a record of patents published by over 40 patent issuing authorities worldwide to enable a comprehensive picture of activity to be produced. Subsequent filings for the same invention are recorded as "equivalents" in DWPI and collated in "patent families" and, for this analysis, were not included.
Success - 2 Success
Success
Patenting an invention through one or more patent offices is expensive. Not all patent applications pass through the patent examination process at the patent offices to become granted. Therefore, the ratio of published applications to granted patents over the most recent three years is a measure of success.
Global - 3 Global
Global
Protecting an invention in major world markets is an indication that the company places a significant value on those pieces of their intellectual property. The number of "innovative" patents that have quadrilateral patents in their patent families, according to the Thomson Reuters Quadrilateral Patent Index™, was calculated to create a ratio to show which companies place a high value on their portfolios. The quadrilateral authorities comprise the Chinese Patent Office, the European Patent Office, the Japanese Patent Office, and the United States Patent & Trademark Office.
Influence - 4 Influence
Influence
The impact of an invention "down the line" can be determined by looking at how often it is subsequently cited by other companies in their inventions. Thomson Reuters used its Derwent Patents Citation Index™ database to count citations to organization’s patents over the most recent 10 years, excluding self-citations.
The final list was determined using the combination of these key performance indices to give a multi-faceted perspective and enable us to identify the 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators.
Please direct any methodology-related questions to laura.gaze@thomsonreuters.com.
2011 Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovators
Switzerland
ABB, Ltd.
USA
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
France
Airbus
France
Alcatel-Lucent
USA
Alcon, Inc.
Sweden
Alfa Laval
USA
Analog Devices, Inc.
USA
Apple, Inc.
USA
Applied Materials, Inc.
France
Arkema
Netherlands
ASML
Sweden
Atlas Copco
USA
Avaya, Inc.
Germany
BASF
Germany
Bayer
USA
Boeing
USA
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Japan
Brother Industries, Ltd.
Japan
Canon Inc.
South Korea
Cheil Industries, Inc.
USA
Chevron U.S.A, Inc.
France
CNRS, The French National Center for Scientific Research
France
Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique
USA
Corning Incorporated
Japan
Daikin Industries, Ltd.
Japan
Denso Corporation
USA
Dow Chemical Company
USA
DuPont
USA
Eaton Corporation
Sweden
Ericsson
USA
Ethicon, Inc.
USA
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Japan
FANUC Ltd.
Japan
Fujitsu Limited
USA
General Electric Company
USA
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
USA
Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation
USA
Harris Corporation
USA
Hewlett-Packard Company
Liechtenstein
Hilti Corporation
Japan
Hitachi, Ltd.
USA
Hoffmann-La Roche
Japan
Honda Motor Company, Ltd.
USA
Honeywell International Inc.
France
IFP Energies Nouvelles
USA
Intel Corporation
USA
International Business Machines Corporation
Japan
Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Ltd.
Japan
Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.
France
L’Oréal
South Korea
LG Electronics, Inc
South Korea
LS Industrial Systems Co., Ltd.
USA
LSI Corporation
USA
Microsoft Corporation
Japan
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
USA
Motorola, Inc.
Japan
Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
USA
NCR Corporation
Japan
NEC Corporation
Japan
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
Japan
Nitto Denko Corporation
Japan
Olympus Optical
Japan
Panasonic Corporation
Netherlands
Philips
USA
Procter & Gamble Company
USA
Qualcomm Incorporated
USA
Raytheon Company
France
Rhodia Operations
USA
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
USA
Rohm and Haas Company
USA
Rosemount, Inc.
Netherlands
Royal Dutch Shell
France
Saint-Gobain
South Korea
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
USA
SanDisk Corporation
Sweden
Sandvik Intellectual Property AB
Sweden
Scania
Japan
Seiko Epson Corporation
Japan
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.
Japan
Sharp Corporation
Japan
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.
Germany
Siemens
France
Snecma
France
Societe de Technologie Michelin
Japan
Sony Corporation
Japan
Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd.
Japan
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
USA
Symantec Corporation
USA
Synopsys, Inc.
Switzerland
TE Connectivity
Switzerland
Tetra Laval
Japan
Toshiba Corporation
Japan
Toyota Motor Corporation
Netherlands/UK
Unilever
USA
UOP LLC., a Honeywell Company
Sweden
Volvo
Germany
Wacker Chemie
USA
Xerox Corporation
Japan
Yamaha Corporation