2:25 PM – Google has been pushing for a patent reform for quite some time now. The company publicly criticizes software patents and wants things to change. These days, lawsuits are being filed due to patents and technology companies own. You’ve probably heard of the famous Apple versus Samsung lawsuits that have been going on.
Google may criticize patents in general, but the company sure is racking up their own patent portfolio. According to a new report from MIT’s Technology Review, Google has been awarded over 1,800 patents this year alone. The company has been hard at work to patent new ideas and technology it comes up with. Basically, the main reason why most companies do this is to protect their Intellectual Property. Apple does the same thing and has been doing this for many years.
Google is currently third on the top 10 list of patent recipients, trailing behind IBM and Microsoft. If you look at the chart above, you will notice that came into the patent game quite late. In 2008, the company really took off by filing and being awarded the patents.
The company now has over 51,000 patents in its portfolio and continues to add more. On average, Google is awarded 10 patents per day from United States Patent & Trademark office. Not to mention the portfolio gained even more patents when Motorola was bought by Google for $12.5 billion.