List of prolific inventors

The 100 known most prolific inventors based on worldwide utility patents are shown in the following table. While in many cases this is the number of utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it may include utility patents granted by other countries, as noted by the source references for an inventor.

Prolific Inventors

Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6748 2990 44.3% 1972—2026 54.4 124 3.6 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Kia Silverbrook [2] 4747 1311 27.6% 1994—2014 20 237 1.6 Australia Silverbrook Research
Tao Luo [3] 4702 3944 83.9% 2006—2026 20.2 233 5.6 USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2868 1601 55.8% 2004—2026 21.8 132 3.9 USA IBM
Junyi Li [5] 2867 2438 85.0% 2002—2026 23.8 120 5.2 USA Qualcomm
Frederick E. Shelton IV [6] 2756 1267 46.0% 2005—2026 21.1 131 4.5 USA Ethicon
Peter Gaal [7] 2674 2070 77.4% 2002—2026 24 111 5.9 USA Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen [8] 2449 1882 76.8% 2009—2026 17.3 142 5.7 USA Qualcomm
Xiaoxia Zhang [9] 2342 1991 85.0% 2009—2026 17.6 133 5.5 USA Qualcomm
Esmael H. Dinan [10] 2138 916 42.8% 2006—2026 20.2 106 3.6 USA Ofinno
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [11] 2003 1328 66.3% 1971—2026 54.3 37 8.8 USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [12] 1979 1033 52.2% 1996—2026 30.2 66 4.9 Taiwan TSMC
Jing Sun [13] 1954 1642 84.0% 2012—2026 13.7 143 5.9 USA Qualcomm
Roderick A. Hyde [14] 1893 1252 66.1% 2001—2023 22.4 85 8.7 USA Intellectual Ventures
Hanbyul Seo [15] 1835 1375 74.9% 2012—2026 14.3 128 3.8 South Korea LG
Shan Liu [16] 1831 1180 64.4% 2013—2026 12.9 142 3.4 USA Tencent
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [17] 1617 1388 85.8% 2013—2026 13.6 119 3.4 India IBM
Jun Koyama [18] 1517 619 40.8% 1991—2026 34.9 43 3.1 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Yunjung Yi [19] 1459 986 67.6% 2011—2026 15.6 94 3.3 USA LG
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [20] 1436 584 40.7% 1991—2024 32.5 44 2.5 USA Micron
Ruilong Xie [21] 1381 1105 80.0% 2013—2026 13.6 102 4.2 USA IBM
Suckchel Yang [22] 1328 874 65.8% 2013—2026 13.1 101 4.7 South Korea LG
Shou-Shan Fan [23] 1318 1103 83.7% 2006—2026 20.2 65 4.2 China Hon Hai
Alexander Reznicek [24] 1318 810 61.5% 2006—2026 20.3 65 3.9 USA IBM
Paul Lapstun [25] 1306 247 18.9% 2000—2026 25.2 52 2.5 Australia Silverbrook Research
Juan Montojo [26] 1302 1062 81.6% 2004—2026 22.5 58 6.9 USA Qualcomm
Satoshi Seo [27] 1300 622 47.8% 2002—2026 23.7 55 4.1 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Yan Zhou [28] 1263 1120 88.7% 2012—2026 14 90 4.4 USA Qualcomm
Takahiro Nishi [29] 1261 403 32.0% 2001—2026 25 50 6.3 Japan Panasonic
Clarence T. Tegreene [30] 1253 904 72.1% 2000—2025 24.8 51 10.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Jason L. Harris [31] 1229 676 55.0% 2011—2026 15.6 79 6.0 USA Ethicon
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1215 1006 82.8% 2000—2026 25.6 47 4.0 USA Qualcomm
Kijun Kim [33] 1188 827 69.6% 2013—2026 12.6 94 4.6 South Korea LG
Joonkui Ahn [34] 1183 770 65.1% 2013—2026 13.1 90 4.7 South Korea LG
Tingfang Ji [35] 1147 851 74.2% 2006—2026 20 57 6.9 USA Qualcomm
Seungmin Lee [36] 1135 865 76.2% 2014—2026 11.8 96 3.5 South Korea LG
Edward K. Y. Jung [37] 1112 794 71.4% 1996—2022 26.1 43 8.0 USA Intellectual Ventures
Hao Xu [38] 1111 833 75.0% 2005—2026 21.3 52 4.7 China Qualcomm
Leonard Forbes [39] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6 USA Micron
Thomas Edison [40] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0 USA Thomas Edison
Jason K. Resch [41] 1075 516 48.0% 2009—2026 17 63 4.2 USA IBM
Rick Allen Hamilton II [42] 1065 716 67.2% 1999—2026 27.3 39 4.2 USA IBM
Justin T. Mason [43] 1047 1043 99.6% 2008—2026 17.7 59 1.0 USA MS Technologies
Satoshi Nagata [44] 1027 990 96.4% 2011—2026 14.9 69 4.0 Japan NTT
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [45] 1020 490 48.0% 2002—2026 24.2 42 6.4 USA Broadcom
Donald E. Weder [46] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1 USA Weder Family Trust
Michael J. Sullivan [47] 997 534 53.6% 1989—2024 34.5 29 3.8 USA Acushnet Holdings
George Albert Lyon [48] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0 Canada Lyon George Albert
Jordin T. Kare [49] 993 640 64.5% 1992—2023 30.5 33 9.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Kyungmin Park [50] 989 470 47.5% 2014—2026 12.3 80 5.2 USA Ofinno
Jay S. Walker [51] 981 422 43.0% 1998—2024 26.3 37 5.2 USA Walker Digital
Hua Zhou [52] 974 519 53.3% 2012—2026 14.5 67 5.5 USA Ofinno
William H. Eby [53] 972 968 99.6% 1994—2026 32.3 30 1.2 USA Monsanto
Hajime Kimura [54] 964 312 32.4% 2002—2026 23.8 41 2.6 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
John F. O'Connor [55] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA USA William H. Miner
Hongyuan Zhang [56] 928 508 54.7% 2009—2026 17.3 54 3.9 USA Marvell
David R. Hall [57] 927 766 82.6% 1985—2026 40.7 23 3.8 USA Hall Labs
Melvin De Groote [58] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA USA Petrolite
Chih-Chao Yang [59] 918 599 65.3% 2003—2026 22.7 40 3.4 USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [60] 918 861 93.8% 2009—2026 16.7 55 4.8 USA Ford
Nathan Myhrvold [61] 910 614 67.5% 1994—2025 31 29 11.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Francis H. Richards [62] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA USA Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud [63] 886 690 77.9% 1997—2022 25.1 35 7.5 USA Intellectual Ventures
Hsien-Wei Chen [64] 873 404 46.3% 2005—2026 21.4 41 3.5 Taiwan TSMC
Youngdae Lee [65] 871 693 79.6% 2014—2026 12.4 70 3.1 South Korea LG
Robert W. Lord [66] 870 683 78.5% 2003—2025 21.6 40 7.6 USA Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien [67] 855 666 77.9% 1997—2020 23.4 37 6.8 USA Intellectual Ventures
Lee D. Whetsel [68] 853 128 15.0% 1991—2017 26.4 32 1.1 USA Texas Instruments
SungDuck Chun [69] 843 528 62.6% 2007—2026 18.7 45 3.8 South Korea LG
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [70] 840 560 66.7% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind [71] 837 442 52.8% 2001—2021 20.6 41 2.6 USA IBM
Clifford A. Pickover [72] 837 548 65.5% 1992—2024 32.2 26 3.9 USA IBM
Devendra K. Sadana [73] 830 472 56.9% 1983—2026 43.5 19 4.3 USA IBM
Xue Dong [74] 820 791 96.5% 2010—2026 15.6 53 7.4 China BOE
Hyoungsuk Jeon [75] 811 399 49.2% 2009—2026 16.7 49 5.6 USA Ofinno
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [76] 798 654 82.0% 2006—2026 20.3 39 2.6 France Cisco Systems
Frederick A. Ware [77] 795 232 29.2% 1981—2025 43.9 18 2.8 USA Rambus
Salman A. Akram [78] 789 294 37.3% 1995—2026 30.7 26 2.9 USA Micron
Toshiyasu Sugio [79] 784 288 36.7% 2009—2026 16.9 46 4.9 Japan Panasonic
James A. Jorasch [80] 776 309 39.8% 1994—2023 29 27 3.9 USA Walker Digital
Warren M. Farnworth [81] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2014 24.4 32 2.8 USA Micron
Shougo Sato [82] 773 295 38.2% 1992—2026 33.9 23 1.8 Japan Brother
Bruce B. Doris [83] 768 435 56.6% 1995—2025 30.3 25 4.2 USA IBM
Chung-Shi Liu [84] 761 401 52.7% 2000—2026 26.5 29 6.1 Taiwan TSMC
Ali Khakifirooz [85] 760 415 54.6% 2011—2026 14.4 53 4.2 USA IBM
Jeyhan Karaoguz [86] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2020 23.8 32 4.6 USA Broadcom
Carleton Ellis [87] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA USA Ellis Foster Co
Jonghyun Park [88] 752 536 71.3% 2013—2026 13.6 55 3.8 USA LG
John M. Santosuosso [89] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2022 20.7 36 3.9 USA IBM
Hideo Ando [90] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1 Japan Toshiba
Woosuk Ko [91] 729 326 44.7% 2015—2026 11.3 65 3.4 South Korea LG
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [92] 727 530 72.9% 2009—2026 17.1 43 2.7 USA IBM
Gregory J. Boss [93] 725 501 69.1% 2008—2026 18.5 39 4.2 USA IBM
George Spector [94] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1 USA George Spector
Moon-il Lee [95] 721 396 54.9% 2010—2026 15.7 46 5.3 USA LG
Austin L. Gurney [96] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9 USA Genentech
Xiaochuan Chen [97] 718 695 96.8% 2014—2026 12.1 59 7.0 China BOE
Aleksandar Damnjanovic [98] 711 523 73.6% 2003—2026 23 31 4.4 USA Qualcomm
Lawrence A. Clevenger [99] 705 460 65.2% 1996—2026 30.3 23 5.1 USA IBM
Tetsujiro Kondo [100] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8 Japan Sony

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of August 25, 2026.

The columns are defined as follows:

  • Inventor: The name of the inventor.
  • Pats: The number of utility patents that have been issued. Only utility patents (or the international equivalent) are listed, as a utility patent is a patent for an invention. Not all patents are for inventions. Other patent types include: design patents for the ornamental design of an object; plant patents for plant varieties; and reissue patents, where a correction is made to an already granted patent. This list does not include patent applications (patents pending) as there is no guarantee that a patent application actually describes a novel invention until the patent is granted.
  • Fams: The number of patent families, which in USPTO data includes an original or continuation-in-part patent by itself or with one or more continuation or divisional patents based on the original or continuation-in-part patent. This is different than global patent families that represent a patent filed in more than one jurisdiction. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Fam %: The percentage of original and continuation-in-part patents that are in the inventor's patent portfolio [Fams column divided by Pats column, rounded to first decimal as a percentage]. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Yrs: The first and last year in which an inventor received a patent issuance.
  • Yrs: The number of years from first issuance to most recent issuance, rounded to first decimal based on dates.
  • Pats /Yr: The average number of patents received per year [Pats column divided by Yrs column, rounded].
  • Inv / Pat: The average number of inventors listed on the inventor's most recent 50 patents as of September 7, 2021 or on the date the inventor was added to the table if later. "NA" signifies the inventor was active prior to digital records.
  • Pat Residence: The country of inventor's residence listed in their most recent patent issuance.
  • Majority Assignment: The entity that has the most patents assigned from an inventor's portfolio. This is current and not original assignment. It is usually, but not always an indication of which company the inventor worked at for the majority of their patent activity.

Significance of inventions

This table is a sortable list of the most prolific inventors as measured by utility patents granted. It does not include other types of invention, such as inventions that were never applied for nor granted, for which there is no known source. Nor does the table attempt to measure the significance of an inventor and their inventions. 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.

Various 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 no longer publishes rankings of individual inventors. The last such list was published by the USPTO in 1998.[Info 1] 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.

A more extensive list of prolific inventors with additional information and ability to filter on country, gender, time period, patent type, and Nobel laureate title can be found at idiyas.com/top/inventors. There are some discrepancies with this article due to different inventor queries that attempt to account for data issues such as typos and multiple inventors with the same name.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "USPTO publication: Prolific Inventors Receiving Utility Patents 1988–1997" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2011-07-12.

References of Inventors' Patents

  1. ↑ Shunpei Yamazaki
  2. ↑ Kia Silverbrook
  3. ↑ Tao Luo
  4. ↑ Kangguo Cheng
  5. ↑ Junyi Li
  6. ↑ Frederick E. Shelton IV
  7. ↑ Peter Gaal
  8. ↑ Wanshi Chen
  9. ↑ Xiaoxia Zhang
  10. ↑ Esmael H. Dinan
  11. ↑ Lowell L. Wood, Jr.
  12. ↑ Chen-Hua Yu
  13. ↑ Jing Sun
  14. ↑ Roderick A. Hyde
  15. ↑ Hanbyul Seo
  16. ↑ Shan Liu
  17. ↑ Sarbajit K. Rakshit
  18. ↑ Jun Koyama
  19. ↑ Yunjung Yi
  20. ↑ Gurtej Singh Sandhu
  21. ↑ Ruilong Xie
  22. ↑ Suckchel Yang
  23. ↑ Shou-Shan Fan
  24. ↑ Alexander Reznicek
  25. ↑ Paul Lapstun
  26. ↑ Juan Montojo
  27. ↑ Satoshi Seo
  28. ↑ Yan Zhou
  29. ↑ Takahiro Nishi
  30. ↑ Clarence T. Tegreene
  31. ↑ Jason L. Harris
  32. ↑ Marta Karczewicz
  33. ↑ Kijun Kim
  34. ↑ Joonkui Ahn
  35. ↑ Tingfang Ji
  36. ↑ Seungmin Lee
  37. ↑ Edward K. Y. Jung
  38. ↑ Hao Xu
  39. ↑ Leonard Forbes
  40. ↑ Thomas Edison
  41. ↑ Jason K. Resch
  42. ↑ Rick Allen Hamilton II
  43. ↑ Justin T. Mason
  44. ↑ Satoshi Nagata
  45. ↑ Ahmadreza Rofougaran
  46. ↑ Donald E. Weder
  47. ↑ Michael J. Sullivan
  48. ↑ George Albert Lyon
  49. ↑ Jordin T. Kare
  50. ↑ Kyungmin Park
  51. ↑ Jay S. Walker
  52. ↑ Hua Zhou
  53. ↑ William H. Eby
  54. ↑ Hajime Kimura
  55. ↑ John F. O'Connor
  56. ↑ Hongyuan Zhang
  57. ↑ David R. Hall
  58. ↑ Melvin De Groote
  59. ↑ Chih-Chao Yang
  60. ↑ Stuart C. Salter
  61. ↑ Nathan Myhrvold
  62. ↑ Francis H. Richards
  63. ↑ Mark Malamud
  64. ↑ Hsien-Wei Chen
  65. ↑ Youngdae Lee
  66. ↑ Robert W. Lord
  67. ↑ Royce A. Levien
  68. ↑ Lee D. Whetsel
  69. ↑ SungDuck Chun
  70. ↑ Muriel Y. Ishikawa
  71. ↑ Michael K. Gschwind
  72. ↑ Clifford A. Pickover
  73. ↑ Devendra K. Sadana
  74. ↑ Xue Dong
  75. ↑ Hyoungsuk Jeon
  76. ↑ Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur
  77. ↑ Frederick A. Ware
  78. ↑ Salman A. Akram
  79. ↑ Toshiyasu Sugio
  80. ↑ James A. Jorasch
  81. ↑ Warren M. Farnworth
  82. ↑ Shougo Sato
  83. ↑ Bruce B. Doris
  84. ↑ Chung-Shi Liu
  85. ↑ Ali Khakifirooz
  86. ↑ Jeyhan Karaoguz
  87. ↑ Carleton Ellis
  88. ↑ Jonghyun Park
  89. ↑ John M. Santosuosso
  90. ↑ Hideo Ando
  91. ↑ Woosuk Ko
  92. ↑ Lisa Seacat DeLuca
  93. ↑ Gregory J. Boss
  94. ↑ George Spector
  95. ↑ Moon-il Lee
  96. ↑ Austin L. Gurney
  97. ↑ Xiaochuan Chen
  98. ↑ Aleksandar Damnjanovic
  99. ↑ Lawrence A. Clevenger
  100. ↑ Tetsujiro Kondo
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