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List of prolific inventors

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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

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Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6483 2867 44.2% 1972—2025 52.8 123 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] 3705 3118 84.2% 2006—2025 18.7 198 5.6  USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2767 1522 55.0% 2004—2025 20.2 137 3.9  USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2467 1158 46.9% 2005—2025 19.6 126 4.5  USA Ethicon
Junyi Li [6] 2354 1996 84.8% 2002—2025 22.2 106 5.2  USA Qualcomm
Peter Gaal [7] 2289 1768 77.2% 2002—2025 22.4 102 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen [8] 2121 1638 77.2% 2009—2025 15.7 135 5.7  USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [9] 1996 1325 66.4% 1971—2024 52.5 38 8.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Roderick A. Hyde [10] 1891 1252 66.2% 2001—2023 22.4 84 8.7  USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [11] 1787 961 53.8% 1996—2025 28.6 62 4.9  Taiwan TSMC
Xiaoxia Zhang [12] 1781 1540 86.5% 2009—2025 16 111 5.5  USA Qualcomm
Hanbyul Seo [13] 1702 1259 74.0% 2012—2025 12.7 134 3.8  South Korea LG
Esmael H. Dinan [14] 1670 699 41.9% 2006—2025 18.6 90 3.6  USA Ofinno
Jun Koyama [15] 1499 620 41.4% 1991—2025 33.6 45 3.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Jing Sun [16] 1482 1256 84.8% 2012—2025 12.1 122 5.9  USA Qualcomm
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [17] 1428 584 40.9% 1991—2024 32.5 44 2.5  USA Micron
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [18] 1356 1135 83.7% 2013—2025 12 113 3.4  India IBM
Shou-Shan Fan [19] 1308 1094 83.6% 2006—2025 18.7 70 4.2  China Hon Hai
Paul Lapstun [20] 1305 246 18.9% 2000—2022 21.4 61 2.5  Australia Silverbrook Research
Shan Liu [21] 1288 846 65.7% 2013—2025 11.4 113 3.4  USA Tencent
Alexander Reznicek [22] 1256 753 60.0% 2006—2025 18.7 67 3.9  USA IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [23] 1248 903 72.4% 2000—2024 23.5 53 10.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Satoshi Seo [24] 1201 567 47.2% 2002—2025 22.1 54 4.1  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Suckchel Yang [25] 1200 775 64.6% 2013—2025 11.5 104 4.7  South Korea LG
Kijun Kim [26] 1160 806 69.5% 2013—2025 11.1 105 4.6  South Korea LG
Juan Montojo [27] 1136 930 81.9% 2004—2025 20.9 54 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Joonkui Ahn [28] 1133 738 65.1% 2013—2025 11.5 99 4.7  South Korea LG
Edward K. Y. Jung [29] 1111 794 71.5% 1996—2022 26.1 43 8.0  USA Intellectual Ventures
Leonard Forbes [30] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6  USA Micron
Thomas Edison [31] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0  USA Thomas Edison
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1077 887 82.4% 2000—2025 24.1 45 4.0  USA Qualcomm
Jason L. Harris [33] 1075 624 58.0% 2011—2025 14 77 6.0  USA Ethicon
Rick Allen Hamilton II [34] 1063 714 67.2% 1999—2024 25 43 4.2  USA IBM
Takahiro Nishi [35] 1057 376 35.6% 2001—2025 23.4 45 6.3  Japan Panasonic
Ruilong Xie [36] 1043 780 74.8% 2013—2025 12 87 4.2  USA IBM
Tingfang Ji [37] 1028 763 74.2% 2006—2025 18.4 56 6.9  USA Qualcomm
Jason K. Resch [38] 1024 513 50.1% 2009—2025 15.4 66 4.2  USA IBM
Donald E. Weder [39] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1  USA Weder Family Trust
Michael J. Sullivan [40] 996 536 53.8% 1989—2025 35.6 28 3.8  USA Acushnet Holdings
George Albert Lyon [41] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0  Canada Lyon George Albert
Jordin T. Kare [42] 989 640 64.7% 1992—2023 30.5 32 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Yunjung Yi [43] 986 696 70.6% 2015—2024 9.1 108 3.3  South Korea LG
Seungmin Lee [44] 982 730 74.3% 2014—2025 10.3 95 3.5  South Korea LG
Jay S. Walker [45] 979 422 43.1% 1998—2024 26.3 37 5.2  USA Walker Digital
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [46] 965 467 48.4% 2002—2024 22.5 43 6.4  USA Broadcom
John F. O'Connor [47] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA  USA William H. Miner
Hao Xu [48] 931 669 71.9% 2005—2025 19.8 47 4.7  China Qualcomm
Melvin De Groote [49] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA  USA Petrolite
David R. Hall [50] 919 760 82.7% 1985—2024 39.4 23 3.8  USA Hall Labs
Nathan Myhrvold [51] 905 613 67.7% 1994—2024 29.7 30 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Hajime Kimura [52] 904 289 32.0% 2002—2025 22.2 41 2.6  Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
William H. Eby [53] 904 900 99.6% 1994—2025 30.7 29 1.2  USA Monsanto
Francis H. Richards [54] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA  USA Francis H. Richards
Hongyuan Zhang [55] 887 487 54.9% 2009—2025 15.7 56 3.9  USA Marvell
Mark Malamud [56] 886 690 77.9% 1997—2022 25.1 35 7.5  USA Intellectual Ventures
Robert W. Lord [57] 867 682 78.7% 2003—2024 20.4 42 7.6  USA Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien [58] 855 666 77.9% 1997—2020 23.4 37 6.8  USA Intellectual Ventures
Yan Zhou [59] 853 761 89.2% 2012—2025 12.4 69 4.4  USA Qualcomm
Chih-Chao Yang [60] 843 527 62.5% 2003—2025 21.1 40 3.4  USA IBM
Lee D. Whetsel [61] 843 129 15.3% 1991—2024 33.7 25 1.1  USA Texas Instruments
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [62] 839 560 66.7% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind [63] 836 442 52.9% 2001—2021 20.6 41 2.6  USA IBM
Clifford A. Pickover [64] 836 548 65.6% 1992—2024 32.2 26 3.9  USA IBM
Devendra K. Sadana [65] 818 462 56.5% 1983—2025 41.9 20 4.3  USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [66] 815 767 94.1% 2009—2025 15.1 54 4.8  USA Ford
Youngdae Lee [67] 806 635 78.8% 2014—2025 10.8 75 3.1  South Korea LG
Satoshi Nagata [68] 801 764 95.4% 2011—2025 13.3 60 4.0  Japan NTT
Justin T. Mason [69] 800 796 99.5% 2008—2025 16.2 49 1.0  USA MS Technologies
Hsien-Wei Chen [70] 799 391 48.9% 2005—2025 19.9 40 3.5  Taiwan TSMC
SungDuck Chun [71] 798 489 61.3% 2007—2025 17.1 47 3.8  South Korea LG
Salman Akram [72] 785 292 37.2% 1995—2025 29.6 27 2.9  USA Micron
Kyungmin Park [73] 781 397 50.8% 2014—2025 10.7 73 5.2  USA Ofinno
Warren M. Farnworth [74] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2014 24.4 32 2.8  USA Micron
James A. Jorasch [75] 771 309 40.1% 1994—2023 29 27 3.9  USA Walker Digital
Bruce B. Doris [76] 763 433 56.7% 1995—2023 28.6 27 4.2  USA IBM
Xue Dong [77] 761 740 97.2% 2010—2025 14.1 54 7.4  China BOE
Jeyhan Karaoguz [78] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2020 23.8 32 4.6  USA Broadcom
Carleton Ellis [79] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA  USA Ellis Foster Co
Ali Khakifirooz [80] 751 407 54.2% 2011—2024 12.9 58 4.2  USA IBM
Frederick A. Ware [81] 740 228 30.8% 1981—2024 42.8 17 2.8  USA Rambus
John M. Santosuosso [82] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2022 20.7 36 3.9  USA IBM
Shougo Sato [83] 736 286 38.9% 1992—2025 32.3 23 1.8  Japan Brother
Hideo Ando [84] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1  Japan Toshiba
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [85] 731 592 81.0% 2006—2025 18.7 39 2.6  France Cisco Systems
George Spector [86] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1  USA George Spector
Austin L. Gurney [87] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9  USA Genentech
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [88] 713 517 72.5% 2009—2024 15.9 45 2.7  USA IBM
Chung-Shi Liu [89] 712 387 54.4% 2000—2025 25 28 6.1  Taiwan TSMC
Gregory J. Boss [90] 711 488 68.6% 2008—2024 16.8 42 4.2  USA IBM
Hua Zhou [91] 706 392 55.5% 2012—2024 12.8 55 5.5  USA Ofinno
Tetsujiro Kondo [92] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8  Japan Sony
Elihu Thomson [93] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA  USA GE
Irwin Gerszberg [94] 682 312 45.7% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8  USA AT&T
Woosuk Ko [95] 682 281 41.2% 2015—2025 9.7 70 3.4  South Korea LG
Eric C. Leuthardt [96] 681 460 67.5% 2006—2024 18.2 37 9.1  USA Intellectual Ventures
Toshiyasu Sugio [97] 676 250 37.0% 2009—2025 15.3 44 4.9  Japan Panasonic
Xiaochuan Chen [98] 667 648 97.2% 2014—2025 10.5 64 7.0  China BOE
Aleksandar Damnjanovic [99] 660 484 73.3% 2003—2024 21.3 31 4.4  USA Qualcomm
Hui-Ling Lou [100] 660 347 52.6% 1997—2025 27.4 24 3.9  USA Marvell

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of January 28, 2025.

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

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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

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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

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References

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  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

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