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

Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6260 2801 44.7% 1972—2024 51.7 121 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] 2826 2379 84.2% 2006—2024 17.6 161 5.6  USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2705 1475 54.5% 2004—2024 19.2 141 3.9  USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2148 1058 49.3% 2005—2024 18.5 116 4.5  USA Ethicon
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [6] 1991 1324 66.5% 1971—2024 52.2 38 8.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Peter Gaal [7] 1927 1491 77.4% 2002—2024 21.4 90 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Junyi Li [8] 1896 1606 84.7% 2002—2024 21.1 90 5.2  USA Qualcomm
Roderick A. Hyde [9] 1888 1252 66.3% 2001—2023 22.5 84 8.7  USA Intellectual Ventures
Wanshi Chen [10] 1842 1442 78.3% 2009—2024 14.7 125 5.7  USA Qualcomm
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1652 919 55.6% 1996—2024 27.6 60 4.9  Taiwan TSMC
Hanbyul Seo [12] 1537 1136 73.9% 2012—2024 11.7 131 3.8  South Korea LG
Jun Koyama [13] 1476 619 41.9% 1991—2023 32.4 46 3.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [14] 1414 584 41.3% 1991—2023 32.4 44 2.5  USA Micron
Xiaoxia Zhang [15] 1361 1206 88.6% 2009—2024 15 91 5.5  USA Qualcomm
Esmael H. Dinan [16] 1315 593 45.1% 2006—2024 17.5 75 3.6  USA Ofinno
Shou-Shan Fan [17] 1308 1094 83.6% 2006—2023 17.6 74 4.2  China Hon Hai
Paul Lapstun [18] 1304 246 18.9% 2000—2023 23 57 2.5  Australia Silverbrook Research
Clarence T. Tegreene [19] 1245 903 72.5% 2000—2024 23.1 54 10.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Alexander Reznicek [20] 1220 729 59.8% 2006—2024 17.7 69 3.9  USA IBM
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [21] 1182 970 82.1% 2013—2024 11 107 3.4  India IBM
Jing Sun [22] 1135 980 86.3% 2012—2024 11 103 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Satoshi Seo [23] 1116 535 47.9% 2002—2024 21.1 53 4.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Leonard Forbes [24] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6  USA Micron
Edward K. Y. Jung [25] 1109 794 71.6% 1996—2023 27.4 40 8.0  USA Intellectual Ventures
Kijun Kim [26] 1098 778 70.9% 2013—2024 10.1 109 4.6  South Korea LG
Thomas Edison [27] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0  USA Thomas Edison
Rick Allen Hamilton II [28] 1061 714 67.3% 1999—2024 24.8 43 4.2  USA IBM
Suckchel Yang [29] 1047 673 64.3% 2013—2024 10.5 100 4.7  South Korea LG
Joonkui Ahn [30] 1039 677 65.2% 2013—2023 10.5 99 4.7  South Korea LG
Marta Karczewicz [31] 1006 832 82.7% 2000—2024 23 44 4.0  USA Qualcomm
Donald E. Weder [32] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1  USA Weder Family Trust
George Albert Lyon [33] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0  Canada Lyon George Albert
Michael J. Sullivan [34] 992 534 53.8% 1989—2024 34.5 29 3.8  USA Acushnet Holdings
Jordin T. Kare [35] 986 640 64.9% 1992—2023 30.7 32 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Jay S. Walker [36] 977 421 43.1% 1998—2023 25.1 39 5.2  USA Walker Digital
Jason K. Resch [37] 977 500 51.2% 2009—2024 14.4 68 4.2  USA IBM
Ruilong Xie [38] 963 716 74.4% 2013—2024 10.9 88 4.2  USA IBM
Shan Liu [39] 962 684 71.1% 2013—2024 10.3 93 3.4  USA Tencent
Yunjung Yi [40] 952 686 72.1% 2015—2024 8.1 118 3.3  South Korea LG
John F. O'Connor [41] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA  USA William H. Miner
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [42] 940 456 48.5% 2002—2023 21.5 44 6.4  USA Broadcom
Juan Montojo [43] 940 763 81.2% 2004—2024 19.8 47 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Melvin De Groote [44] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA  USA Petrolite
Tingfang Ji [45] 906 676 74.6% 2006—2024 17.4 52 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Nathan Myhrvold [46] 904 612 67.7% 1994—2023 29.1 31 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Jason L. Harris [47] 903 564 62.5% 2011—2024 13 69 6.0  USA Ethicon
William H. Eby [48] 898 894 99.6% 1994—2024 29.7 30 1.2  USA Monsanto
David R. Hall [49] 897 742 82.7% 1985—2023 38.4 23 3.8  USA Hall Labs
Francis H. Richards [50] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA  USA Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud [51] 885 690 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 34 7.5  USA Intellectual Ventures
Takahiro Nishi [52] 870 331 38.0% 2001—2024 22.4 39 6.3  Japan Panasonic
Robert W. Lord [53] 865 681 78.7% 2003—2023 19.4 45 7.6  USA Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien [54] 854 666 78.0% 1997—2023 25.9 33 6.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hajime Kimura [55] 854 281 32.9% 2002—2024 21.1 40 2.6  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [56] 838 560 66.8% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind [57] 834 442 53.0% 2001—2023 22 38 2.6  USA IBM
Hongyuan Zhang [58] 832 465 55.9% 2009—2024 14.6 57 3.9  USA Marvell
Clifford A. Pickover [59] 829 547 66.0% 1992—2024 31.8 26 3.9  USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [60] 825 130 15.8% 1991—2024 32.8 25 1.1  USA Texas Instruments
Chih-Chao Yang [61] 814 502 61.7% 2003—2023 19.9 41 3.4  USA IBM
Seungmin Lee [62] 809 600 74.2% 2014—2024 9.2 88 3.5  South Korea LG
Devendra K. Sadana [63] 801 451 56.3% 1983—2023 40.8 20 4.3  USA IBM
Salman Akram [64] 782 290 37.1% 1995—2024 28.6 27 2.9  USA Micron
SungDuck Chun [65] 779 473 60.7% 2007—2024 16.1 48 3.8  South Korea LG
Warren M. Farnworth [66] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2020 24.4 32 2.8  USA Micron
Bruce B. Doris [67] 763 434 56.9% 1995—2023 28.7 27 4.2  USA IBM
Jeyhan Karaoguz [68] 756 371 49.1% 1996—2020 23.8 32 4.6  USA Broadcom
Carleton Ellis [69] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA  USA Ellis Foster Co
Ali Khakifirooz [70] 749 405 54.1% 2011—2023 12 62 4.2  USA IBM
John M. Santosuosso [71] 737 466 63.2% 2001—2023 21.4 34 3.9  USA IBM
Hsien-Wei Chen [72] 737 376 51.0% 2005—2024 18.9 39 3.5  Taiwan TSMC
Hideo Ando [73] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1  Japan Toshiba
George Spector [74] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1  USA George Spector
Xue Dong [75] 720 708 98.3% 2010—2024 13 55 7.4  China BOE
Austin L. Gurney [76] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2022 21.6 33 2.9  USA Genentech
Youngdae Lee [77] 715 562 78.6% 2014—2024 9.7 74 3.1  South Korea LG
Justin T. Mason [78] 713 709 99.4% 2008—2024 15.1 47 1.0  USA MS Technologies
Gregory J. Boss [79] 701 482 68.8% 2008—2024 15.9 44 4.2  USA IBM
Tetsujiro Kondo [80] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8  Japan Sony
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [81] 700 507 72.4% 2009—2023 14.8 47 2.7  USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [82] 697 653 93.7% 2009—2024 14 50 4.8  USA Ford
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [83] 697 563 80.8% 2006—2024 17.7 39 2.6  France Cisco Systems
Elihu Thomson [84] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA  USA GE
Shougo Sato [85] 696 276 39.7% 1992—2024 31.2 22 1.8  Japan Brother
Irwin Gerszberg [86] 680 312 45.9% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8  USA AT&T
Frederick A. Ware [87] 678 225 33.2% 1981—2024 42.1 16 2.8  USA Rambus
Eric C. Leuthardt [88] 674 457 67.8% 2006—2023 16.7 40 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chung-Shi Liu [89] 662 373 56.3% 2000—2023 23.9 28 6.1  Taiwan TSMC
Paul S. Henry [90] 656 301 45.9% 1978—2023 44.9 15 6.3  USA AT&T
William I. Wood [91] 653 259 39.7% 1981—2013 32.2 20 5.2  USA Genentech
Satoshi Nagata [92] 653 621 95.1% 2011—2024 12.2 54 4.0  Japan NTT
Simon R. Walmsley [93] 651 171 26.3% 1995—2012 17.2 38 3.2  Australia Silverbrook Research
Jae Hoon Chung [94] 650 381 58.6% 2010—2023 13 50 4.5  South Korea LG
Edward J. Nowak [95] 635 410 64.6% 1979—2021 41.1 15 3.0  USA IBM
Hui-Ling Lou [96] 633 347 54.8% 1997—2024 26.4 24 3.9  USA Marvell
Xiaochuan Chen [97] 631 621 98.4% 2014—2024 9.5 66 7.0  China BOE
Audrey D. Goddard [98] 630 154 24.4% 1997—2023 26.2 24 5.3  USA Genentech
Woosuk Ko [99] 629 237 37.7% 2015—2024 8.7 72 3.4  South Korea LG
Anthony K. Stamper [100] 623 342 54.9% 1998—2023 25.4 25 3.4  USA IBM

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of January 9, 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

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

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

References

  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

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