2022 U.S. Patent Filings StatisticsJanuary 18, 2023

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received 646,855 patent applications in fiscal 2022 (October 1, 2021 – September 30, 2022), according to preliminary data from the USPTO. This is a slight decrease over filings in 2021. These filings include 589,155 utility applications, 54,476 design applications, and 918 plant applications. In addition, 147,339 provisional applications were filed for the year.

A total of 382,559 patents were granted in fiscal 2022, including 325,445 utility patents, 34,370 design patents, and 1138 plant patents. 

The Patent Office also noted that the average pendency for a utility patent application is 25.2 months from filing to disposition (grant or abandonment).

Approximately 56% of issued U.S. patents are granted to foreign companies. Leading the way is Samsung, which received 6248 U.S. patents in 2022. IBM was second in issued U.S. patents, at 4398 (down almost 50% from 2021 patents).

Other top 10 U.S. patentees include: Taiwan Semiconductor, Huawei Technologies, Canon, LG Electronics, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple and Toyota.  Globally, the top 10 patent companies for 2022 are: Panasonic Holdings Corp; Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Hitachi Ltd.; Chinese Academy of Sciences CAS, Canon Inc., Toshiba Corp., Midea Group Co. Ltd., Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp, and China State Construction Engineering Corp.

On a country-by-country basis, U.S. companies received the most patents, followed by companies based in Japan, China, South Korea, Germany, Taiwan, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Canada. Clearly, Asian companies see value in U.S. patents. While U.S. filings (140,000+ applications) were nearly 7 times more than China (approximately 25,000), China applicants had the highest growth rate of any country, compared to 2021 application filings.

According to research firm IFI Claims Patent Services, the top 10  technologies for U.S. patent filings include:

1. Autonomous vehicles;
2. Electrical digital data processing;
3. Earth drilling for oil, gas and water;
4. Computer arrangements based on biological models
5. Electrical Smoking devices;
6. Quantum computers;
7. Cigarettes;
8. 3D culture;
9. Machine Learning; and
10. Breathing masks.

Kirk Hartung is a member of the Mechanical Patent Practice Group at McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC. For additional information please visit  www.ipmvs.com or contact Kirk directly via email at kirk.hartung@ipmvs.com.