A report which cites data collected from the Thomson Reuters' Patent Search Service and World Intellectual Property Service (WIPS) states that Samsung is leading its rivals in the most number of patents filed for wearable devices between 2003 and 2014, the same report puts Philips in second and Panasonic in third place. Korea Electronics Technology Institute issued this report, it's a government-supported research of electronics components, its report found that 64,502 patents were filed between 2003 and 2014 with the top 30 patent holders accounting for 13.2 percent of the findings with 8,539 patents.
Samsung filed the most number of patents for wearable devices in this period, more than 600 to be precise, while Philips and Panasonic came in second and third respectively with a few hundred patents of their own. LG and Canon came fourth and fifth with close to 400 patents. Sony came eight while Microsoft and Qualcomm were found to be the 19th and 20th largest patent holders. Country-wise the most number of wearable device patents, 17,813, were filed in Japan with the United States coming in second place as 14,519 patents for wearable devices were filed during this time period.
