The Lowdown: 10,000,000 Patents in 228 years

On June 19, 2018, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the issuance of patent number 10,000,000.

“More than just a number, patent 10 million celebrates the rich history and strength of the American intellectual property system dating back to the first U.S. patent, signed 228 years ago by George Washington on July 31, 1790, and issued to Samuel Hopkins for a process of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer.” – USPTO

With application filings available on-line from 2001 forward, patent analysis offers easy insights into trends and industry focus. For instance, searching the USPTO database by key words such as ‘insurance’ reveals 268 patent applications dating back to 2001. Take a more general approach and search ‘telematics’ – the number of filings jumps to 11,734, try ‘digitization’ – get 17,535 applications, and ‘fraud’ reveals 35,196. While a search using ‘insurance’ limits our results, we gain a manageable snap shot of who is interested in what! So at Research & Trends, we’ve decided to aggregate monthly activity to share with you.

In our first Patent Activity Brief, you’ll skim through all of the insurance related patent activity for June and we’ll provide a few insights like Figure 1 – who are the top beneficiaries of filings?

Or in Figure 2, we’ll share what the focus of the filings appears to be. In June, emphasis is on the collection of data through telematics and other solutions in order to improve claims, inspections and customer support/engagement.

Speaking of telematics, if you work for insurer that has adopted (or is considering adopting) telematics, please take our survey, and help us gain new insights about the progress telematics is making in your organization.

We invite you to take a look at our first Patent Activity Brief. You’re interest will tell us whether to keep producing them! And for the latest updates at Research & Trends, be sure to sign up for our Friday e-newsletter.

Happy reading! – Pam