Samsung is rapidly increasing its patent filings so that it's able to effectively combat legal challenges as and when they arise. The company revealed today that its patent holdings in the United States have increased fifteen-fold over the past nine years. In 2007, Samsung only had 2,457 registered patents at the USPTO and by last year, this number had swelled up to 38,809.
In 2015, Samsung obtained 5,072 patents in the United States and it came second only to IBM. In fact, after IBM, Samsung has been the second most frequent patent filer in the United States. “Samsung has been holding the most number of patents in the U.S. compared to other regions to effectively respond to possible patent conflicts there,” it said. Samsung's patents in the United States account for 35 percent of its total patent holdings across the globe which now stands at 110,145. Most of the company's patents protect technologies it has developed for its smartphones, memory chips, non-memory chips, System LSI and smart TVs. It has also been increasingly filing design patents for smartphones and smart TVs.
Samsung is no stranger to patent infringement lawsuits. It has been fighting a tough battle with Apple in the United States for the past few years with lawsuits and counter-suits flying in both directions. Earlier this week Huawei announced that it's filing patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung in the United States and China, Samsung has responded by saying that it could file a counter-suit against the Chinese conglomerate.
