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List of prolific inventors

The 100 known most prolific inventors based on worldwide utility patents are shown in the following table. While in many cases this is the number of utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it may include utility patents granted by other countries, as noted by the source references for an inventor.

Prolific Inventors

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Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6456 2851 44.2% 1972—2024 52.7 123 3.6   Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kia Silverbrook [2] 4747 1311 27.6% 1994—2014 20 237 1.6   Australia Silverbrook Research
Tao Luo [3] 3609 3034 84.1% 2006—2024 18.6 194 5.6   USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2761 1516 54.9% 2004—2024 20.1 137 3.9   USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2448 1144 46.7% 2005—2024 19.5 126 4.5   USA Ethicon
Junyi Li [6] 2306 1951 84.6% 2002—2024 22.1 104 5.2   USA Qualcomm
Peter Gaal [7] 2251 1732 76.9% 2002—2024 22.3 101 5.9   USA Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen [8] 2094 1616 77.2% 2009—2024 15.6 134 5.7   USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [9] 1996 1325 66.4% 1971—2024 52.5 38 8.8   USA Intellectual Ventures
Roderick A. Hyde [10] 1891 1252 66.2% 2001—2023 22.4 84 8.7   USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1771 951 53.7% 1996—2024 28.5 62 4.9   Taiwan TSMC
Xiaoxia Zhang [12] 1733 1496 86.3% 2009—2024 15.9 109 5.5   USA Qualcomm
Hanbyul Seo [13] 1684 1242 73.8% 2012—2024 12.6 134 3.8   South Korea LG
Esmael H. Dinan [14] 1643 686 41.8% 2006—2024 18.5 89 3.6   USA Ofinno
Jun Koyama [15] 1495 618 41.3% 1991—2022 30.8 49 3.1   Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Jing Sun [16] 1445 1221 84.5% 2012—2024 12 120 5.9   USA Qualcomm
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [17] 1427 584 40.9% 1991—2024 32.5 44 2.5   USA Micron
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [18] 1339 1118 83.5% 2013—2024 11.9 113 3.4   India IBM
Shou-Shan Fan [19] 1307 1093 83.6% 2006—2024 18.5 71 4.2   China Hon Hai
Paul Lapstun [20] 1305 246 18.9% 2000—2022 21.4 61 2.5   Australia Silverbrook Research
Shan Liu [21] 1256 824 65.6% 2013—2024 11.3 111 3.4   USA Tencent
Alexander Reznicek [22] 1254 751 59.9% 2006—2024 18.7 67 3.9   USA IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [23] 1248 903 72.4% 2000—2024 23.5 53 10.1   USA Intellectual Ventures
Satoshi Seo [24] 1196 564 47.2% 2002—2024 22 54 4.1   Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Suckchel Yang [25] 1189 766 64.4% 2013—2024 11.4 104 4.7   South Korea LG
Kijun Kim [26] 1154 801 69.4% 2013—2024 11 105 4.6   South Korea LG
Joonkui Ahn [27] 1128 733 65.0% 2013—2024 11.4 99 4.7   South Korea LG
Juan Montojo [28] 1117 913 81.7% 2004—2024 20.8 54 6.9   USA Qualcomm
Edward K. Y. Jung [29] 1111 794 71.5% 1996—2022 26.1 43 8.0   USA Intellectual Ventures
Leonard Forbes [30] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6   USA Micron
Thomas Edison [31] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0   USA Thomas Edison
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1070 880 82.2% 2000—2024 24 45 4.0   USA Qualcomm
Rick Allen Hamilton II [33] 1063 714 67.2% 1999—2024 25 43 4.2   USA IBM
Jason L. Harris [34] 1063 615 57.9% 2011—2024 13.9 76 6.0   USA Ethicon
Ruilong Xie [35] 1040 777 74.7% 2013—2024 11.9 87 4.2   USA IBM
Takahiro Nishi [36] 1035 362 35.0% 2001—2024 23.3 44 6.3   Japan Panasonic
Tingfang Ji [37] 1020 757 74.2% 2006—2024 18.4 55 6.9   USA Qualcomm
Jason K. Resch [38] 1019 508 49.9% 2009—2024 15.3 67 4.2   USA IBM
Donald E. Weder [39] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1   USA Weder Family Trust
Michael J. Sullivan [40] 994 534 53.7% 1989—2024 34.5 29 3.8   USA Acushnet Holdings
George Albert Lyon [41] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0   Canada Lyon George Albert
Jordin T. Kare [42] 989 640 64.7% 1992—2023 30.5 32 9.1   USA Intellectual Ventures
Yunjung Yi [43] 986 696 70.6% 2015—2024 9.1 108 3.3   South Korea LG
Jay S. Walker [44] 979 422 43.1% 1998—2024 26.3 37 5.2   USA Walker Digital
Seungmin Lee [45] 967 716 74.0% 2014—2024 10.2 95 3.5   South Korea LG
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [46] 964 467 48.4% 2002—2024 22.5 43 6.4   USA Broadcom
John F. O'Connor [47] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA   USA William H. Miner
Melvin De Groote [48] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA   USA Petrolite
Hao Xu [49] 922 660 71.6% 2005—2024 19.7 47 4.7   China Qualcomm
David R. Hall [50] 918 760 82.8% 1985—2024 39.4 23 3.8   USA Hall Labs
Nathan Myhrvold [51] 905 613 67.7% 1994—2024 29.7 30 11.1   USA Intellectual Ventures
William H. Eby [52] 899 895 99.6% 1994—2024 30.2 30 1.2   USA Monsanto
Hajime Kimura [53] 896 284 31.7% 2002—2024 22.1 41 2.6   Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Francis H. Richards [54] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA   USA Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud [55] 886 690 77.9% 1997—2022 25.1 35 7.5   USA Intellectual Ventures
Hongyuan Zhang [56] 876 478 54.6% 2009—2024 15.6 56 3.9   USA Marvell
Robert W. Lord [57] 867 682 78.7% 2003—2024 20.4 42 7.6   USA Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien [58] 855 666 77.9% 1997—2020 23.4 37 6.8   USA Intellectual Ventures
Chih-Chao Yang [59] 841 525 62.4% 2003—2024 21 40 3.4   USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [60] 840 128 15.2% 1991—2017 26.4 32 1.1   USA Texas Instruments
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [61] 839 560 66.7% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1   USA Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind [62] 836 442 52.9% 2001—2021 20.6 41 2.6   USA IBM
Clifford A. Pickover [63] 836 548 65.6% 1992—2024 32.2 26 3.9   USA IBM
Yan Zhou [64] 828 739 89.3% 2012—2024 12.3 67 4.4   USA Qualcomm
Devendra K. Sadana [65] 815 459 56.3% 1983—2024 41.8 19 4.3   USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [66] 802 754 94.0% 2009—2024 15 53 4.8   USA Ford
Youngdae Lee [67] 800 630 78.8% 2014—2024 10.7 75 3.1   South Korea LG
SungDuck Chun [68] 797 488 61.2% 2007—2024 17 47 3.8   South Korea LG
Hsien-Wei Chen [69] 788 385 48.9% 2005—2024 19.8 40 3.5   Taiwan TSMC
Salman Akram [70] 784 291 37.1% 1995—2024 29.4 27 2.9   USA Micron
Satoshi Nagata [71] 780 743 95.3% 2011—2024 13.2 59 4.0   Japan NTT
Warren M. Farnworth [72] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2020 24.4 32 2.8   USA Micron
Justin T. Mason [73] 774 770 99.5% 2008—2024 16 48 1.0   USA MS Technologies
James A. Jorasch [74] 771 309 40.1% 1994—2023 29 27 3.9   USA Walker Digital
Kyungmin Park [75] 769 393 51.1% 2014—2024 10.6 73 5.2   USA Ofinno
Bruce B. Doris [76] 763 433 56.7% 1995—2023 28.6 27 4.2   USA IBM
Jeyhan Karaoguz [77] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2020 23.8 32 4.6   USA Broadcom
Xue Dong [78] 754 733 97.2% 2010—2024 13.9 54 7.4   China BOE
Carleton Ellis [79] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA   USA Ellis Foster Co
Ali Khakifirooz [80] 751 407 54.2% 2011—2024 12.9 58 4.2   USA IBM
John M. Santosuosso [81] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2022 20.7 36 3.9   USA IBM
Hideo Ando [82] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1   Japan Toshiba
Frederick A. Ware [83] 732 227 31.0% 1981—2024 42.8 17 2.8   USA Rambus
Shougo Sato [84] 732 283 38.7% 1992—2024 32.2 23 1.8   Japan Brother
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [85] 729 591 81.1% 2006—2024 18.6 39 2.6   France Cisco Systems
George Spector [86] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1   USA George Spector
Austin L. Gurney [87] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9   USA Genentech
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [88] 712 516 72.5% 2009—2024 15.7 45 2.7   USA IBM
Gregory J. Boss [89] 711 488 68.6% 2008—2024 16.8 42 4.2   USA IBM
Chung-Shi Liu [90] 707 383 54.2% 2000—2024 24.9 28 6.1   Taiwan TSMC
Tetsujiro Kondo [91] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8   Japan Sony
Elihu Thomson [92] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA   USA GE
Hua Zhou [93] 696 392 56.3% 2012—2024 12.8 54 5.5   USA Ofinno
Irwin Gerszberg [94] 682 312 45.7% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8   USA AT&T
Eric C. Leuthardt [95] 681 460 67.5% 2006—2024 17.8 38 9.1   USA Intellectual Ventures
Woosuk Ko [96] 677 276 40.8% 2015—2024 9.6 71 3.4   South Korea LG
Toshiyasu Sugio [97] 665 242 36.4% 2009—2024 15.2 44 4.9   Japan Panasonic
Xiaochuan Chen [98] 664 645 97.1% 2014—2024 10.4 64 7.0   China BOE
Aleksandar Damnjanovic [99] 659 484 73.4% 2003—2024 21.3 31 4.4   USA Qualcomm
Paul S. Henry [100] 657 301 45.8% 1978—2023 44.9 15 6.3   USA AT&T

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of December 24, 2024.

The columns are defined as follows:

  • Inventor: The name of the inventor.
  • Pats: The number of utility patents that have been issued. Only utility patents (or the international equivalent) are listed, as a utility patent is a patent for an invention. Not all patents are for inventions. Other patent types include: design patents for the ornamental design of an object; plant patents for plant varieties; and reissue patents, where a correction is made to an already granted patent. This list does not include patent applications (patents pending) as there is no guarantee that a patent application actually describes a novel invention until the patent is granted.
  • Fams: The number of patent families, which in USPTO data includes an original or continuation-in-part patent by itself or with one or more continuation or divisional patents based on the original or continuation-in-part patent. This is different than global patent families that represent a patent filed in more than one jurisdiction. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Fam %: The percentage of original and continuation-in-part patents that are in the inventor's patent portfolio [Fams column divided by Pats column, rounded to first decimal as a percentage]. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Yrs: The first and last year in which an inventor received a patent issuance.
  • Yrs: The number of years from first issuance to most recent issuance, rounded to first decimal based on dates.
  • Pats /Yr: The average number of patents received per year [Pats column divided by Yrs column, rounded].
  • Inv / Pat: The average number of inventors listed on the inventor's most recent 50 patents as of September 7, 2021 or on the date the inventor was added to the table if later. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Residence: The country of inventor's residence listed in their most recent patent issuance.
  • Majority Assignment: The entity that has the most patents assigned from an inventor's portfolio. This is current and not original assignment. It is usually, but not always an indication of which company the inventor worked at for the majority of their patent activity.

Significance of inventions

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This table is a sortable list of the most prolific inventors as measured by utility patents granted. It does not include other types of invention, such as inventions that were never applied for nor granted, for which there is no known source. Nor does the table attempt to measure the significance of an inventor and their inventions. The significance of inventions is often not apparent until many decades after the invention has been made. For recent inventors, it is not yet possible to determine their place in history.

Various published lists

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Rankings of prolific inventors have been published at various times. However, until the patent records were digitized, these lists were very tedious to prepare, as many thousands of patent records had to be checked manually. Even after digitization, it is still not a simple process. While the USPTO keeps statistics for annual rankings of inventions assigned to companies, it no longer publishes rankings of individual inventors. The last such list was published by the USPTO in 1998.[Info 1] Also, patents predating 1976 have not yet been digitized in the USPTO records. This means that patents before 1976 will not be included in a USPTO search by inventor name, and the number of patents granted before 1976 must be added to current searches.

A more extensive list of prolific inventors with additional information and ability to filter on country, gender, time period, patent type, and Nobel laureate title can be found at idiyas.com/top/inventors. There are some discrepancies with this article due to different inventor queries that attempt to account for data issues such as typos and multiple inventors with the same name.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "USPTO publication: Prolific Inventors Receiving Utility Patents 1988–1997" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2011-07-12.

References of Inventors' Patents

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  1. ^ Shunpei Yamazaki
  2. ^ Kia Silverbrook
  3. ^ Tao Luo
  4. ^ Kangguo Cheng
  5. ^ Frederick E. Shelton IV
  6. ^ Junyi Li
  7. ^ Peter Gaal
  8. ^ Wanshi Chen
  9. ^ Lowell L. Wood, Jr.
  10. ^ Roderick A. Hyde
  11. ^ Chen-Hua Yu
  12. ^ Xiaoxia Zhang
  13. ^ Hanbyul Seo
  14. ^ Esmael H. Dinan
  15. ^ Jun Koyama
  16. ^ Jing Sun
  17. ^ Gurtej Singh Sandhu
  18. ^ Sarbajit K. Rakshit
  19. ^ Shou-Shan Fan
  20. ^ Paul Lapstun
  21. ^ Shan Liu
  22. ^ Alexander Reznicek
  23. ^ Clarence T. Tegreene
  24. ^ Satoshi Seo
  25. ^ Suckchel Yang
  26. ^ Kijun Kim
  27. ^ Joonkui Ahn
  28. ^ Juan Montojo
  29. ^ Edward K. Y. Jung
  30. ^ Leonard Forbes
  31. ^ Thomas Edison
  32. ^ Marta Karczewicz
  33. ^ Rick Allen Hamilton II
  34. ^ Jason L. Harris
  35. ^ Ruilong Xie
  36. ^ Takahiro Nishi
  37. ^ Tingfang Ji
  38. ^ Jason K. Resch
  39. ^ Donald E. Weder
  40. ^ Michael J. Sullivan
  41. ^ George Albert Lyon
  42. ^ Jordin T. Kare
  43. ^ Yunjung Yi
  44. ^ Jay S. Walker
  45. ^ Seungmin Lee
  46. ^ Ahmadreza Rofougaran
  47. ^ John F. O'Connor
  48. ^ Melvin De Groote
  49. ^ Hao Xu
  50. ^ David R. Hall
  51. ^ Nathan Myhrvold
  52. ^ William H. Eby
  53. ^ Hajime Kimura
  54. ^ Francis H. Richards
  55. ^ Mark Malamud
  56. ^ Hongyuan Zhang
  57. ^ Robert W. Lord
  58. ^ Royce A. Levien
  59. ^ Chih-Chao Yang
  60. ^ Lee D. Whetsel
  61. ^ Muriel Y. Ishikawa
  62. ^ Michael K. Gschwind
  63. ^ Clifford A. Pickover
  64. ^ Yan Zhou
  65. ^ Devendra K. Sadana
  66. ^ Stuart C. Salter
  67. ^ Youngdae Lee
  68. ^ SungDuck Chun
  69. ^ Hsien-Wei Chen
  70. ^ Salman Akram
  71. ^ Satoshi Nagata
  72. ^ Warren M. Farnworth
  73. ^ Justin T. Mason
  74. ^ James A. Jorasch
  75. ^ Kyungmin Park
  76. ^ Bruce B. Doris
  77. ^ Jeyhan Karaoguz
  78. ^ Xue Dong
  79. ^ Carleton Ellis
  80. ^ Ali Khakifirooz
  81. ^ John M. Santosuosso
  82. ^ Hideo Ando
  83. ^ Frederick A. Ware
  84. ^ Shougo Sato
  85. ^ Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur
  86. ^ George Spector
  87. ^ Austin L. Gurney
  88. ^ Lisa Seacat DeLuca
  89. ^ Gregory J. Boss
  90. ^ Chung-Shi Liu
  91. ^ Tetsujiro Kondo
  92. ^ Elihu Thomson
  93. ^ Hua Zhou
  94. ^ Irwin Gerszberg
  95. ^ Eric C. Leuthardt
  96. ^ Woosuk Ko
  97. ^ Toshiyasu Sugio
  98. ^ Xiaochuan Chen
  99. ^ Aleksandar Damnjanovic
  100. ^ Paul S. Henry
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