[AKcrab]

The 50 Most Inventive Companies - The Daily Beast
Some highlights chosen by me:

50 Lexmark
49 Canon
34 Microsoft
33 Qualcom (screenshot for Qualcom below)

29 Intel
23 nVidia
15 AMD
1 InterDigital Communications.

Even going with the criteria they used for the list:

So to measure the 50 most inventive companies, we factored in total approved patents over the past five years, and then added a twist: we divided by the number of worldwide employees. The idea, of course, was to measure which companies are inventive in their DNA, versus their bulk size. If a company was acquired by or merged with another company on the list, the total patent count was attributed to the existing company.

I'm quite surprised that Apple isn't in the top 50.

[besson3c]

I don't know either, but how would they separate genuinely new ideas from codification of existing ideas?

[imitchellg5]

Surprised about no Apple, but it makes sense. Apple never really invents an idea or product. They take a market and then simply make a better, more attractive product.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Surprised about no Apple, but it makes sense. Apple never really invents an idea or product. They take a market and then simply make a better, more attractive product.

Is this sort of codification "inventive"?

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Surprised about no Apple, but it makes sense. Apple never really invents an idea or product. They take a market and then simply make a better, more attractive product.

That's simply not true. Apple has invented or helped co-invent a lot of new technology on its own, in addition to innovating based on the work of others.

[Cold Warrior]

Sounds like their methodology is creative = patent trolls.

[Eug]

No IBM?

So to measure the 50 most inventive companies, we factored in total approved patents over the past five years, and then added a twist: we divided by the number of worldwide employees. The idea, of course, was to measure which companies are inventive in their DNA, versus their bulk size. If a company was acquired by or merged with another company on the list, the total patent count was attributed to the existing company.

So basically it rewards companies for not being successful enough to hire more employees.

[-Q-]

Originally Posted by Eug 

No IBM?


So basically it rewards companies for not being successful enough to hire more employees.

Excellent point. With almost 400,000 employees in over 200 countries, and 4100 patents in 2008 (most recent data I could find), they should definitely make the list.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That's simply not true. Apple has invented or helped co-invent a lot of new technology on its own, in addition to innovating based on the work of others.

Examples? The major products that I can think of weren't invented by Apple. They just used the groundwork that already existed to make it much better. Steve himself has said that Apple doesn't make things first, they make things best. Apple reinvents things, but I don't think they really invent a whole lot.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Examples? The major products that I can think of weren't invented by Apple. They just used the groundwork that already existed to make it much better. Steve himself has said that Apple doesn't make things first, they make things best. Apple reinvents things, but I don't think they really invent a whole lot.

The accelerometer stuff in the iPhone or whatever it is called now, the magnetic power adapter, Firewire, Several Webkit CSS3 properties, combined trackpad + mouse button, Facetime, several visual design ideas, mini DVI (I think?!), ADC, the desktop bus mouse, probably several GUI conventions, launchd, Core ___, vector animation in the OS and GPU acceleration of this, AFP (although that's pretty weak), the iTunes store, several accessibility conventions, Macintalk (I think?!)...

[imitchellg5]

None of those are major products besides perhaps the iTunes Store, which wasn't the first online music store. The Magsafe was a first for a computer sure, but a lot of heavy duty restaurant equipment uses connectors very similar to MagSafe (the tilt skillet at the resort I work at has a power connection that looks almost exactly the same as a Magsafe, but it's from the '80s). Wasn't FaceTime purchased?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

None of those are major products besides perhaps the iTunes Store, which wasn't the first online music store. The Magsafe was a first for a computer sure, but a lot of heavy duty restaurant equipment uses connectors very similar to MagSafe (the tilt skillet at the resort I work at has a power connection that looks almost exactly the same as a Magsafe, but it's from the '80s). Wasn't FaceTime purchased?

Why do they have to be major products? It is very rare that any company makes a major product, it is usually that a bunch of not-so-major products add up.

[imitchellg5]

I'm not saying that they have to be. But you can't beat the maths.