We monitored the patent publications of Apple for the past 20 years at the USPTO. Apple’s patent portfolio shows that they have their footprints in 63 different technology areas ranging from Selective Visual Display Systems to Electrical circuits and systems.
Below are the top technology areas of their interest –
| Technology Areas | Number of Applications |
| Selective Visual Display Systems | 2937 |
| Graphic User Interface and Document Processing | 2503 |
| Telecommunications: Analog Radio telephone; Equipment details | 1079 |
| Computer Graphic Processing, 3D Animation, Display Color Attributes,Object Processing, Hardware & Memory | 1039 |
| Multiplex and VoIP | 995 |
| Electrical Circuits and Systems | 962 |
Since they have patents covering a wide array of technologies so we thought why not check which type of companies are getting blocked by these patents.
Interestingly, ~35000 rejections (102/103) were given based on Apple’s patents. Refer to the table below for more information:
| Number of Blocked assignees | 4041 |
| Number of publications monitored | 16262 |
| Publications involved in rejections | 6512 |
| Number of 102/103 rejections | 35272 |
Which assignees faced the most rejections?
The below chart shows the top 20 competitors which get maximum rejections because of Apple’s patents.
| Assignee | Applications Blocked | 102 Rejections |
| Samsung | 1191 | 351 |
| Microsoft | 871 | 204 |
| Qualcomm | 681 | 181 |
| IBM | 592 | 120 |
| 540 | 130 | |
| Intel | 404 | 115 |
| Sony | 335 | 93 |
| Blackberry | 292 | 89 |
| LG | 338 | 69 |
| Samsung | 256 | 56 |
| Nokia | 183 | 74 |
| BOE Technologies | 180 | 32 |
| Canon | 166 | 39 |
| Ericsson | 168 | 33 |
| Wells Fargo Bank, National Association | 130 | 49 |
| LG Display Co | 148 | 44 |
| HTC | 110 | 32 |
| Amazon | 119 | 22 |
| Huawei | 138 | 24 |
| Hon Hai Precision Industry | 136 | 29 |
We used our proprietary tool BOS to track which assignees were getting blocked by Apple’s patents.