Samsung has more smartphone patents than any other company

Patents are important to companies because this helps protect them from intellectual property thieves who might otherwise try to steal their ideas and/or designs and pass it off as their own. It can also serve as an alternate revenue stream, like how Microsoft holds various patents pertaining to Android that OEMs have to pay them if they want to keep making Android devices. That being said, when it comes to smartphone patents, who do you think has the highest number of patents? Nokia? Apple? Samsung? Well if you thought Nokia you’d be wrong. It’s true that they do own a massive portfolio of patents, but in reality it seems that it is Samsung who has the largest number of patents related to smartphones.

With a new handset coming out almost every other day, Samsung no doubt has the highest amount of devices in its smartphone lineup compared to the competition. Well, according to a new report, Samsung also leads the pack when it comes to patents, with the Korean manufacturer having a total of 2,179 patents – both granted and applied for – under its belt. That’s more than three times higher than Apple’s, which currently holds around 647 patents according to the report, and a tad higher than LG’s 1678 patents. In third place is Qualcomm with 1,383 patents, followed by Sony with 1,071 patents. Samsung’s frequent applications for new patents has often bought to fore what the manufacturer is working on, but most of the time those are future concepts that show no sign of coming to market in the form of an actual product any time soon.