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The ten most prolific inventors in recorded history, ranked by the number of issued U.S. utility patents issued, are:

†This table was last updated on March 10, 2011.

A utility patent is a patent of invention. Other patent types are: design patents for the ornamental design of an object; plant patents for plant varieties; and reissue patents. This list does not include patent applications, as there is no certainty that an application will actually be granted. Patent applications are included in this list only when the patents are granted. Because the U.S. market is so large, most inventions are patented in the U.S. However, as the process of applying for patents in every country is very expensive, most patents are applied for in only a limited number of countries, and many only in the U.S. These factors combine to make U.S. utility patents the best data available to indicate the worldwide number of inventions.

For all of the 20th century, Thomas Edison was the most prolific inventor in history. He was passed by Shunpei Yamazaki on June 17, 2003. Shunpei Yamazaki was subsequently passed by Kia Silverbrook on February 26, 2008. Kia Silverbrook is currently the most prolific inventor in history.

Significance of inventions

This table is a ranking of the most prolific inventors, not necessarily the most significant inventors. 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.

The common symbol for inventiveness - the light bulb - is a perfect example. The first incandescent light bulb was invented by British chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1802. Many subsequent inventors improved Davy's invention prior to the successful commercialization of electric lighting by Thomas Edison in 1880, 78 years later. Electric lighting continued to be developed. Edison's carbon filament light bulb was made obsolete by the tungsten filament light bulb, invented in 1904. It is this that forms the popular conception of a light bulb, though there are other major forms of lighting. The principle of fluorescent lights was known since 1845, and various inventors, including Edison and Nikola Tesla worked on them without commercial success. Various improvements were made by many other inventors, until General Electric introduced "fluorescent lumiline lamps" commercially in 1938. LED lamps also have a long history, with the first light-emitting diode (LED) invented in 1927 by Oleg Losev. LEDs were initially of low brightness, and have been used as indicator lamps and seven-segment displays since 1968. It wasn't until the development of high efficiency blue LEDs by Shuji Nakamura in the 1980's that white LEDs for lighting applications became practical. Although higher cost than incandescent light bulbs, LEDs have higher efficiency and longer life and may finally displace light bulbs in general lighting applications. In each case, more than 50 years passed between the initial invention and commercial success in general lighting applications.

Published lists

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 does not keep rankings of individual inventors. 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.

Popular Science (1936)

In January 1936, Popular Science Magazine published a list of the "most prolific living inventors to be found in America today":

Thomas Edison was not included in the list, as he died in 1931, five years earlier.

Time Magazine (2000)

On December 4, 2000, Time Magazine published a list of the "top five inventors".

This list only included U.S. inventors, so omitted Canadian inventor and industrialist George Albert Lyon, with 993 U.S. patents at the time. Also omitted were Japanese inventor Shunpei Yamazaki, who held 745 U.S. patents at the time of publication, John F. O'Connor with 949 patents, and Carleton Ellis, with 753 .

USA Today (2005)

On December 13, 2005 USA Today published a list of "the top 10 living U.S. patent holders":

This research was performed by ipIQ of Chicago (now "The Patent Board") and 1790 Analytics of New Jersey. This list only considered living inventors, and thus did not include such prolific inventors as Thomas Edison. This list also included design patents, which are not patents for inventions.

Condé Nast Portfolio (2007)

On October 15, 2007 Condé Nast Portfolio Magazine published a list of "the world's most prolific inventors alive":

This research was performed by The Patent Board, a Chicago patent research and advisory firm. As with the USA Today list, the Portfolio list only considered living inventors, and thus did not include such prolific inventors as Thomas Edison. This list also included design patents, which are not patents for inventions.

Boliven U.S. Patent ranking (2010)

On January 22, 2010, a search on Boliven for the top 25 U.S. Utility patent holders gave the following results:

These results did not include Thomas Edison, Francis H. Richards, Elihu Thomson, or Carleton Ellis as these inventors are not searchable by name at the USPTO, as they predate electronic records.

International patents

On January 22, 2010, a search on Boliven for the top 25 Utility patent holders from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Korea gave the following results:

These results omitted Thomas Edison, Francis H. Richards, Elihu Thomson, and Carleton Ellis.

Often entities list the worldwide total number of patents that they hold. This is not the same as the number of inventions, as a patent in one country may be for the same invention as a patent in another country. The set of patents covering a single invention in different countries is a Patent family.

Merged list

Merging these five lists and other USPTO searches gives:

Differences in patent numbers between the various lists are due to several reasons:

• The lists were created on different dates. As many of the inventors in the lists are still active, the number of patents they hold are increasing.
• While the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the primary source for U.S. patent information, only patents issued since 1976 can be electronically searched by the inventor's name at the USPTO website . For some of the listed inventors, such as Thomas Edison, all of their patents predate 1976, so other sources must be used. For some inventors, such as Shunpei Yamazaki, some patents predate 1976. The earlier patents must be added to the results of a USPTO search to obtain the complete number.
• The Time, USA Today and Portfolio lists show the total number of U.S. patents, including patents for designs (Design patents) as well as patents for inventions (Utility patents).
• The International list includes granted patents from Europe, Korea, and Japan
• Small discrepancies can also occur in patent numbers given by database searches due to differences in the way that variations in the spelling of an inventor's name are dealt with.

Rankings below number 36 are listed as "not applicable". They are included in this list as a result of merging the previous lists. There are many other inventors with more patents than those marked 'NA', who would appear below number 36 in a complete ranked list. These inventors are not included as they have not appeared in published rankings of prolific inventors.

See also

• Timeline of historic inventions
• List of inventors

References

1. ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Kia Silverbrook
2. USPTO Patent Search for Kia Silverbrook
3. ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Shunpei Yamazaki (add 56 patents issued before 1976)
4. USPTO Patent Search for Shunpei Yamazaki (add 56 patents issued before 1976)
5. ^ List of Edison patents
6. "The Thomas Edison Papers"
7. ^ Archived Boliven Utility Patent Search for George Albert Lyon(s)
8. ^ Meet the Champion Inventors Popular Science, vol 128 No 1, January 1936
9. ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Donald Weder
10. USPTO Patent Search for Donald Weder
11. ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Leonard Forbes
12. USPTO Patent Search for Leonard Forbes
13. ^ Man-Made Marvels Time Magazine, Dec 4, 2000
14. ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Paul Lapstun
15. USPTO Patent Search for Paul Lapstun
16. Shunpei Yamazaki's 1085th U.S. Utility Patent
17. The patent where Silverbrook passes Yamazaki
18. USPTO Patent Search for Shunpei Yamazaki from 1976 to Dec 4, 2000 (add 56 patents issued before 1976)
19. ^ B. Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2005) pp209-210
20. You really can find identities of top patent holders USA Today, Dec 13, 2005
21. ^ The Patent Board website
22. 1790 Analytics website
23. Masters of invention Portfolio, October 15, 2007
24. Ranked results of Boliven search of U.S. utility patents
25. ^ Archived Boliven.com website
26. Ranked results of Boliven search of international utility patents
27. Edison's Foreign Patents (add 1084 U.S. Utility patents)
28. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Gurtej Sandhu
29. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Warren Farnworth
30. USPTO Utility Patent Search for George Spector (add 26 patents issued before 1976)
31. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Salman Akram
32. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Jun Koyama
33. USPTO Utility Patent Search for William I. Wood
34. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Josef Theurer (add 250 patents issued before 1976)
35. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Takashi Suzuki
36. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Audrey Goddard
37. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Jerome Lemelson (add 269 patents issued before 1976)
38. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Austin L. Gurney
39. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hiroshi Tanaka
40. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Paul J. Godowski
41. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hiroshi Suzuki
42. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hiroshi Watanabe
43. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Jay Walker
44. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Simon Walmsley
45. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Tetsujiro Kondo
46. Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
47. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Mark I. Gardner
48. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Heinz Focke
49. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hiroshi Sato
50. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Kie Y Ahn
51. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hiroshi Inoue
52. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Eberhard Ammermann
53. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Michael Sullivan
54. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Honyong Zhang
55. USPTO Utility Patent Search for Joseph Straeter
56. USPTO Patent Search website

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