The Corporate King of PatentsJanuary 13, 2017 For the 24th straight year, IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other entity. In 2016, the Patent Office issued 8088 patents to IBM covering a wide range of inventions, including cloud computing, cyber security, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, health care, medical devices, and drones. These patents named over 8500 different inventors from 47 states and 47 foreign countries. These patents are the result of IBM’s annual investment of over $5 billion into research and development. The number 2 company for patents in 2016 was Samsung, with 5518 issued US patents. ← Return to Filewrapper