Microsoft’s Patent Dowry Now 10,000 Items Strong

Microsoft’s intellectual patent dowry now accounts for in excess of 10,000 items the company revealed this week. With the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently awarding Microsoft the 10,000th U.S. patent, the company managed to join an elite group of innovators worldwide that have also passed the milestone. In 2008 alone, the software giant received in excess of 2,000 patents, advancing to the fourth place among the companies with the most U.S. patents per year. Still, Microsoft's innovation drive reserved for the company just half of the patents awarded to IBM in 2008, which climbed over 4,000 items. The Redmond company spent over $8 billion on Research and Development in 2008, and Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, recently promised that in 2009 Microsoft's R&D efforts would cost over $9 billion.

“Most technology companies, Microsoft included, have been increasing their emphasis on IP in recent years, trying to derive greater business value from their intellectual assets,” explained Bart Eppenauer, chief patent counsel, who oversees Microsoft’s patent portfolio. “One way to value a patent portfolio is to look at the quantity of patents it contains. Another way is to look at the influence the portfolio has on others.”

But Eppenauer emphasized that patent quantity alone was by no means the only metric by which the company measured its innovation. Taking into consideration attributes such as power and influence, Microsoft's patent portfolio was ranked by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as no. 1 in 2008 in comparison to the IP dowries of other companies, IBM included. “Patents are the currency of innovation,” Eppenauer commented. “They enable Microsoft to share our innovations with others through licensing, and that in turn enables others to share their innovations back with us.”

“U.S. Patent No. 7,479,950 is the 10,000th U.S. patent awarded to Microsoft by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The technology described in the patent deals with the ability of Microsoft's surface computing products to recognize not just finger (touch, multi-touch and gestures), but also physical objects. Surface computing gives people instant access to digital information in a new way,” revealed Curtis Wong, one of four co-inventors of the patent from Microsoft Research. “The goal of this patent is to make the interaction between the physical and virtual worlds a little more seamless.” By pure coincidence, Wong is also one of the authors of the 5,000th patent issued to Microsoft.