By Lindsey Gilroy and Scott Oldach of Patent Board™
The Telecom & Communications Patent Scorecard represents companies involved in the distribution and management of communications through systems such as broadband, wireless and cable. It also encompasses networking systems such as remote access servers and VPNs as well as optical switching and transmission components.
Telecom & Communications is the third largest of the seventeen industries tracked by The Patent Board and accounts for 8.8% of all active utility patents issued this past year. When looking at overall active utility patents, however, Telecom & Communications drops down to the fourth largest industry, indicating that recently patents grew faster in Telecommunications than other industries. The Telecom industry’s average patent age is 6.6 years. The Telecom industry shows significant growth, with a 4.6% increase in the number of utility patents issued from the previous year and an 11.2% increase for companies in the top 10. Further, the Telecom industry’s Innovation Cycle Time reveals that patents issued in the past year are not just growing, but also innovating at a rapid pace compared to other industries: patents issued in the past year in the Telecom industry are building off of inventions that are 7.8 years old – over three years younger than the average for all sev...
