By Lindsey Gilroy and Tammy D'Amato of Patent Board™
The Aerospace & Defense industry includes companies that are involved in the manufacture of and technology required for aircrafts and their parts including engines, propulsion systems, interior cabin products, landing gear and avionics. It also includes space vehicles and communications, surveillance, weaponry, munitions and military equipment.
The Aerospace & Defense industry shows tremendous growth in the past year, with a 31% industry-wide increase in patenting over the previous year. This growth is consistently distributed across the industry with 80% of entities showing year to year growth. The average increase in patents granted is 16 more patents per entity. Patenting entities in the Aerospace & Defense industry are in general publicly traded companies, with a handful still privately held. Only one Aerospace & Defense entity is a government entity (European Space Agency), which received just seven out of the over 3500 patents issued in the 2010 Aerospace & Defense Patent Scorecard™. The bulk of Aerospace & Defense patenting comes from a few large players. Boeing alone represents almost one fifth of all Aerospace & Defense patenting, while together the next largest patenting entities Lockheed Martin and EADS hold another fifth. Despite the dominance in portfolio volume of a few large patenting entities, smaller companies contr...
