IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, a division of Fairview Research which tracks patent grants, today announced a ranking of global companies based on the number of U.S. patents in 2010.

Coming as no big surprise, IBM topped the list for its 18th consecutive year. IBM recorded 5,896 patents in 2010 and became the first company to ever break the 5,000-patent mark in a single year. Samsung missed the mark by just 449 patents, while Microsoft took third place with 3.094 patents, up 6.5 percent from 2009.

Some would say that the number of patents recorded in 2010 is just another sign that the whole system is broken and setup to support patent trolls, but IFI sees it another way.

'The tremendous increase in patent issues in 2010 suggests that so far the economy doesn't appear to have slowed patent flow significantly in the U.S.,' said Darlene Slaughter, general manager of IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. 'Another important factor is the stepped up effort of the USPTO to improve turnaround times and its five-year strategic plan to increase efficiencies and reduce pendency. The bottom line: there is still a backlog of patents pending but the number of grants continues to grow even after a period of economic downturn.'

The total number of U.S. utility patents in 2010 came out to 219,614, up 31 percent from 2009, the biggest annual increase ever, IFI says.

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