Innovation Nations: Thomson Reuters Analysis of 2008 World Patent Activity Finds U.S. Market Infused with Asian Innovations

PHILADELPHIA - Global Intellectual Property Analysis Finds Foreign Companies Dominate
List of Top Ten U.S. Innovators While Chinese, European, Japanese and Korean
Rankings Showcase Homegrown Technologies

The IP Solutions business of Thomson Reuters released the results of its
2008 Global Innovation Study today, analyzing the leading innovators by key
region over the last year. The study, which tracked the top ten innovators in
China, Europe, Japan, Korea and the U.S. on the basis of total number of
unique inventions issued in granted patents and published patent
applications, found that 70 percent of top ten innovators in the U.S. were
non-U.S. companies. In contrast, home region innovators dominate the Asian
and European top ten lists.

A total of 967,562 granted patents and published patent applications
representing unique inventions were received across the study sample of
China, Europe, Japan, Korea and the U.S. over the course of calendar year
2008. Of those, 207,364 were received in the U.S.; 251,071 were received in
Japan; 125,974 were received in Europe; 70,532 were received in Korea; and
312,621 were received in China.

Among the top innovators in the U.S. were — in order — Samsung
Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea); International Business Machines Corp. (U.S.);
Microsoft (U.S.); Toshiba (Japan); Canon (Japan); Fujitsu Ltd. (Japan); Sony
Corp. (Japan); General Electric Co. (U.S.); Seiko Epson Corp. (Japan); and
Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co. Ltd. (Taiwan). Among the Asian firms who have
developed a large innovation footprint in the U.S., Samsung, Toshiba, Canon,
Sony Corp. and Seiko Epson also rank among the top ten innovators in their
home regions. The American companies among the U.S. top ten do not rank in
the top ten of any other regions in this study.

In Europe, just one of the top ten innovators was from outside Europe:
Samsung Electronics Co. LTD (Korea), which was the third most innovative
company there last year. The remaining nine of the top ten are all European
businesses. No European companies were in the top ten in the U.S. or Asia.

All the Asian regions studied show that Asian companies see the
importance of their native markets in terms of innovation reinvestment. The
top ten innovators in Japan, China and Korea are Japanese, Chinese and Korean
organizations, respectively.

The data in this report was compiled using the Thomson Reuters Derwent
World Patents Index (DWPI) database. It aggregates granted patents and
published applications (examined and unexamined) within each region in
determining the top innovators.

To view the top innovators globally and the results of the study, go to
science.thomsonreuters.com/press/2009/innovation_study/charts/ .

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Source: Thomson Reuters

Laura Gaze, Senior Marketing Manager, IP Solutions of Thomson Reuters, +1-203-868-3340, laura.gaze at thomsonreuters.com