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The Korean Press Sift through Patent Statistics in an Effort to Find Apple's Next Great Direction

10PX1. PATENTLY XTRA NEWS

A Korean report published today is trying to figure out what Apple is up to in the future and they've turned to studying Apple's patents for 2014 to achieve that. Of course that's a desperate method of trying to find Apple's future products when looking at them in terms of straight statistics in tiny little categories. But that didn't stop this report from trying.

 

According to a report published by Korean IP site called IPnomix, they focused on "What is Apple's weapon to be competitive in the future?"

 

The report notes that "Apple is rapidly increasing the number of their registered patents to make up for its quantitative inferiority to Samsung. Just looking at Apple's number of registered patents, it actually falls outside of top 40 businesses in the U.S. Patents that Apple secured in last 10 years is only about 22% of what Samsung secured, and Samsung secured about 40,000 patents within last 10 years."

 

The report further noted that Apple's number of registered patents passed 500 for the first time in 2009, and it passed 1000 in 2012. Its margin of increase of registered patents is speeding up as it passed 2000 in last year. As they are increasing the number of their registered patents, one can recognize their choice and focus on specific technologies.

 

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Out of 8854 patents that Apple registered in last 10 years, 2036 of them were about iOS. They also registered 1744 patents in communication field, which overwhelmed other technologies. One can see that Apple focused its technical development centered around iOS and communication. Besides these, Apple also registered about 900 patents in design, application, general hardware, and etc.

 

Apple also registered most parents in iOS and communication last year. It registered 470 and 420 patents in iOS and communication respectively.

 

As an IP site it's hard not to appreciate the statistics that IPnomix has put together for us. Yet without any texture or focus, the stats prove little other than Apple's total focus appears to be on iDevices fueled by iOS. But that's not a revelation.

 

The Korean and mass media love Samsung's smartphone "Volume" statistics even though profitability, which is what really counts, has been non-existent in the last year. Apple's Tim Cook on this matter thought that quoting volume stats was like a disease by some.

 

Now, even when it comes to patents, the article tries to get their knife into Apple by comparing Apple's "quantitative inferiority" to those from Samsung. Obviously we can chalk up the "quantitative" value of patents as being a completely useless statistic in light of Samsung's lack of "qualitative profits" to those of Apple.

 

In the end, the Korean press is clueless as to how to successfully and meaningfully attack Apple so as to prop up their native son. And trying to interpret Apple's patent statistics as a means of understanding their future weapons coming to market is like trying to find the meaning to Led Zeppelin's lyrics for Stairway to Heaven by reading the hieroglyphics on a pyramid wall. It may sound cool, but good luck with that approach.

 

125. PA2 - Bar - Xtra NewsAbout Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 7pm PST and sporadically over the weekend.

 

 

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