The U.S. Navy received patents for more developments last year than most of the Fortune 500 corporations ranked in a recent report.
The Navy increased its patents by 12 percent, having been granted 399 patents while climbing three slots to no. 89 on the IP Record’s Top 300 Organizations Granted U.S. Patents in 2013.
“The Navy has continued to see its patent portfolio strengthen year after year,” said Dr. Walter F. Jones, executive director at the Office of Naval Research, in a news release. “The variety of patents granted is striking, but just as compelling are the partnerships we develop with academia, research institutions and industry to support research that addresses critical Navy needs.”
The Office of Naval Research manages the Navy’s intellectual property, which includes handling patents, trademarks, copyrights, inventions and royalty payments.
The top 10 number of patents granted between January and December 2013, found IBM atop the list, followed by Samsung and Canon. San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. took the number-11 slot, directly behind Google. Apple was ranked at number 15.
But farther down the list, the Navy ranked above several household names, including auto makers Nissan and Rolls-Royce, the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG and research giant Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Joining the Navy as a top-ranked public institution for patents is the University of California.
Last year, the Navy also sat atop the government category in IEEE Spectrum magazine’s 2013 Patent Power Scorecard. IEEE looked at 5,000 organizations in 17 industries for patents issued as well as their impact, originality and applicability.
The IP Record, published yearly by the Intellectual Property Owners Association, is based on data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.