For the uninitiated, FAANG is an acronym for five American tech stocks of the S&P 500 with a combined market cap of $4 trillion. These five companies are Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google which are all household names. And last but not the least, these five stocks collectively make 15% of the S&P 500!
That was rather a quick introduction to the stellar performance of the FAANG at the US stock market. And now we will quickly see how the FAANG has been doing at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Here as well, it seems the FAANG group has decoded the formula to get a successful grant at USPTO. All five members have a higher grant index than the average grant index of their GAUs and of the USPTO as well.
| Companies | Total Applications | Granted Patents | Grant Rate | Average Grant rate of GAUs |
| 7556 | 5683 | 89.78 | 73.17 | |
| Amazon | 14316 | 12764 | 97.26 | 75.37 |
| Apple | 31357 | 23821 | 87.82 | 79.75 |
| Netflix | 318 | 224 | 97.82 | 72.42 |
| Google (Alphabet) | 42657 | 34188 | 87.09 | 74.42 |
Let’s find out the individual performance of the FAANG members at their respective top GAUs. In case you are wondering what is this term GAU: A Group Art Unit (GAU) at the USPTO deals with patent applications relating to very similar technologies. Each GAU consists of a team of patent examiners that are subject matter experts.
Amazon
| GAU | Grant % |
| 3625 | 93.49% |
| 3651 | 99.25% |
| 2454 | 98.48% |
| 2457 | 97.94% |
| 2872 | 97.99% |
| 2196 | 98.75% |
| 2441 | 98.68% |
| 2657 | 100.0% |
| 2658 | 98.52% |
| 3684 | 95.97% |
Apple
| GAU | Grant % |
| 2835 | 93.25% |
| 2833 | 91.58% |
| 2611 | 92.57% |
| 2845 | 95.47% |
| 2645 | 94.08% |
| 2618 | 90.32% |
| 2649 | 87.59% |
| 2624 | 94.17% |
| 2628 | 91.27% |
| 2617 | 91.54% |
Netflix
| GAU | Grant % |
| 2455 | 100.0% |
| 2448 | 100.0% |
| 2458 | 100.0% |
| 2481 | 100.0% |
| 2424 | 100.0% |
| 2425 | 100.0% |
| 2436 | 100.0% |
| 2421 | 83.33% |
| 2484 | 100.0% |
| 2438 | 100.0% |
| GAU | Grant % |
| 2617 | 88.82% |
| 2618 | 88.77% |
| 2161 | 92.86% |
| 2665 | 95.37% |
| 2611 | 94.87% |
| 2163 | 90.93% |
| 2162 | 90.99% |
| 2659 | 88.89% |
| 2657 | 91.29% |
| 2168 | 89.37% |
| GAU | Grant % |
| 2457 | 96.0% |
| 2872 | 96.43% |
| 3681 | 41.38% |
| 2171 | 92.08% |
| 2455 | 89.66% |
| 3622 | 27.54% |
| 3682 | 73.97% |
| 2447 | 91.03% |
| 2174 | 78.57% |
| 2454 | 88.89% |