Study predicts 50% of all patents will be owned by just 150 big companies
The ‘Fat Head’ of patent ownership worldwide just keeps getting bigger – a new study out this week predicts that in the near future, most patents worldwide will be held by just 150 blue-chip companies. For a system designed to promote innovation (when these companies already rely massively on innovation – I would argue even unprotected innovation – to compete), that’s really not very heartwarming, and certainly lends purpose to the unfortunately named Pirate Party recently given a presence in the European Parliament in this summer’s elections.
Mind out, though, that whilst these are impressive numbers, this isn’t a very scientific study and the statistical analysis seems overly simplistic. If anyone knows of a better study along these lines, I’d be indebted to be pointed to it…
Announcement: http://www.grayonclaims.com/home/2009/11/23/top-150-customers-increasing-domination-of-the-patent-system.html
Direct link to the results slideshow: http://www.grayonclaims.com/storage/GrayWegnerTop300Nov23REV.pdf
Via: http://www.patenthawk.com/blog/2009/11/1.html and http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/11/patently-o-bits-and-bytes-2.html
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