We monitored the patent publications of Samsung for the past 20 years at the USPTO. Samsung’s patent portfolio shows that they have their footprints in 69 different technology areas ranging from Semiconductors to Optics.
Below are the top technology areas of their interest –
| Technology Areas | Number of Applications |
| Semiconductors/memory | 19844 |
| Selective Visual Display Systems | 10817 |
| Computer Graphic Processing, 3D Animation, Display Color Attributes,Object Processing, Hardware & Memory | 10036 |
| Multiplex and VoIP | 7930 |
| Optics | 7592 |
| Electrical Circuits and Systems | 3848 |
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. Refer to the table below for more information:
| Number of Blocked assignees | 11870 |
| Number of publications monitored | 140422 |
| Publications involved in rejections | 53788 |
| Number of 102/103 rejections | 201001 |
Interestingly, ~200,000 rejections (102/103) were given based on Samsung’s patents. More so, Samsung has patents covering varying technology areas so it would be even more interesting to see which companies are getting rejections based on Samsung patents.
Which assignees faced the most rejections?
The below chart shows the top 20 competitors which get maximum rejections because of Samsung’s patents.
| Assignee | Applications Blocked | 102 Rejections |
| Qualcomm | 3235 | 1020 |
| LG electronics | 3863 | 1115 |
| BOE Technology Group | 2303 | 1048 |
| Sony Corporation | 1844 | 632 |
| LG Display | 1737 | 672 |
| IBM | 1837 | 470 |
| Intel | 1576 | 441 |
| Apple | 1390 | 432 |
| Shenzhen China Star Opto-electronics Technology | 1204 | 501 |
| Sharp | 1441 | 480 |
| Ericsson | 1330 | 310 |
| Micron Technology | 1222 | 741 |
| SK Hynix | 1241 | 771 |
| Microsoft | 1272 | 273 |
| Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute | 1189 | 344 |
| Canon | 1192 | 324 |
| Huawei | 1045 | 283 |
| Semiconductor Energy Laboratory | 827 | 227 |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company | 836 | 365 |
| Toshiba | 1077 | 326 |
We used our proprietary tool BOS to track which assignees were getting blocked by Samsung’s patents.