I worked at IBM Research (Yorktown Hieghts, Last century, assisting infrastructure for research).
They spent 6 Billion Dollars on research that year (late 90s)
But Its true, IBM Values patents quite heavily. You can see some of them they printed as wall paper in the lobby (Along with mechanical calculators and models of some of daVinci's machines.)
But they also have "Trade Secrets" which are things they think they're competitors won't figure out and if you don't patent it you aren't telling the world how its done. I think some of the chip chemicals and processes for working with silicon wafers were to be classified as such.
They seemed always to be pushing the researchers to make something they could sell..
As an aside, IBM Yorktown is an oddly round building..
It's pretty tempting to rattle something off about the patent system with a story like this, but given that IBM has so many research facilities and an R&D budget rivaling the NSF's, I'd guess IBM has more legit patents (non-frivolous) than other company.
Appearing on the cutting edge to enterprise clients is important to IBM. That doesn't mean they are on the cutting edge (they might or might not be). IBM's large pool of patents is something they can advertise to clients. Most companies don't see their patents as valuable, and thus don't patent as much stuff.
I've worked with former IBM people - all (or some it seems) of them have a plaque of whatever their first patent was. When they talk about it they admit it was a trivial invention that is too specific to be of much use outside the one project (thus there is no value in keeping it from competitors). IBM encourages patenting everything and has people looking for things to patent. Most other companies only patent things that are unique and worth the costs. (keeping from competitors, licensing to competitors, or keeping competitors from patenting it and stopping your use)
IBM does a lot of stuff that's really patent-worthy - materials, processes, semiconductor techniques etc. It's not like they patented the most FAT filesystems, double-tap-to-open or one-click-purchases for the 21st year in a row.
Now it all makes sense how IBM is one of the most patent-producing companies and yet the patents don't seem to generate returns commensurate with their number (vaguely recall a study about this, could be wrong).
Patents/IP. They help other companies develop their manufacturing processes. I'm sure it's a profitable enough business for it to be worth the effort, or IBM wouldn't be wasting their time with it.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, IBM is the company that has been producing the largest amount of patents per year by a huge margin. In 2017 they managed to get around 9000, about 25 per day.
I used to work at IBM and having your name on patents was one of the most important things in order to rise through the ranks. Past a point, you could not go higher without some significant activity in the patents realm. There were many patent groups, many talks about it, there was a 'patent score' that people had in their email signature etc. You were also rewarded financially for each one.
In my humble opinion, this was a bunch of corporate bullshit. I've interacted with many people who had an impressive amount of patents and I was always disappointed. Their average patent was something along the lines of: a different way to use the browser history, a color-based way of handling support tickets, adding a list of blacklisted websites to a broswer or similar. It's hard to remember them because they were all unmemorable. Nothing was of substance or something worth being implemented.
No I mean I saw some patents on downright silly stuff. Things completely unrelated to IBM's business or even tech. IBM just wants to wave that number around.
"That was kinda shocking to me as a SE to see a patent writing as a part of my job but I realized it was a holdover from earlier times."
Useful activity for current times. Patent licensing and suits are a big money-maker and competition blocker for companies like IBM. For instance, Microsoft has made over a billion dollars on patent royalties *for Android." All that distracting paperwork paid off nicely. IBM used their legal team to crush a company selling commercial versions of Hercules emulator. Oracle vs Google. Apple vs Samsung. Intel recently threatened patent suits if anyone clones x86 to get off Intel chips.
This stuff has a real, financial benefit to these companies. So, they're justified in investing in it.
Since at least 1997 IBM has been the top recipient of patents every year, and has had the most patents for 24 consecutive years. They are into basic research from everything from chip design to brain research and quantum computing.
I did an internship at IBM (~15 years ago) and they said that not only does IBM have the most patents, it tries to have the most patents awarded every year. You could just send half arsed ideas to a team of lawyers and they would write it up into a proper patent.
Getting patents in your name was a big part of moving up the internal engineering ladder.
I'm an IBMer but I'm also personally disgusted with stupid patents. IBM does invent a lot of things. They also purchase companies that invent a lot of things. Though I have seen a few examples on HN where they were granted a patent for something that was already somewhat common (can't find the reference, sorry). Basically they aren't your typical patent trolls even though their business models relies on owning patents.
This isn't true and tens of thousands of IBM employees work in areas where writing patents is not part of the job.
IBM has a lot of patents because they invent a lot of things. It's in their culture. And it's profitable for the company, not because it gets individuals a promotion.
They spent 6 Billion Dollars on research that year (late 90s)
But Its true, IBM Values patents quite heavily. You can see some of them they printed as wall paper in the lobby (Along with mechanical calculators and models of some of daVinci's machines.)
But they also have "Trade Secrets" which are things they think they're competitors won't figure out and if you don't patent it you aren't telling the world how its done. I think some of the chip chemicals and processes for working with silicon wafers were to be classified as such.
They seemed always to be pushing the researchers to make something they could sell..
As an aside, IBM Yorktown is an oddly round building..
https://www.google.com/maps/place/IBM+Thomas+J.+Watson+Resea...
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