The United States Patent and Trademark Office list of top 10 private sector patent recipients for 2004 was released a few days ago:-
IBM … with 3,248 patents
Matsushita … 1,934
Canon … 1,805
HP … 1,775
Micron … 1,760
Samsung … 1,604
Intel … 1,601
Hitachi … 1,514
Toshiba … 1,310
Sony … 1,305
The sub-heading for the article was “American Innovation Continues to Top the Field”. However, with 9,472 patents vs. 8,384 for the U.S., it looks more like the phrase should have read “Far-East Innovation Continues to…”.
Micron continues to be strong in the patent area. If it were not for the upcoming recession, MU might well be a long-term buy at these levels:
As always, contrarian viewpoints abound:- According to Kiplinger, most analysts are negative on this stock, with a consensus opinion of ‘Hold’.
Again, the analyst consensus on Micron is:- negative
Gadgetmaniac disclaimer: Gadgetmaniac is not qualified to offer investment advise of any type.
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I’m not surprised that IBM was in the lead, but the size of the lead does surprise me.