What Did The Patent Landscape of Sony Look Like?

Sony Group Corporation, commonly known as Sony, is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It was established on May 7, 1946, by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. The company has since grown into a global powerhouse, with operations in electronics, gaming, entertainment, and financial services, among others

Sony’s market capitalization stands at approximately $134 billion USD, making it one of the largest corporations in the world. United States of America is where Sony has filed the maximum number of patents, followed by Japan and China and it also seems reasonable as the biggest market for Sony is USA & Japan.

Sony has a total of 209920 patents globally. Out of 209920 patents, 9720 patents are active.      

Have a look at some of the most well-known patents held by Sony that we have covered in this article. You can also get information on Sony’s patents, the global patent filing activity country wise, its historical patent filing trends, and many more statistics regarding Sony’s patent portfolio.

Patent-Application Success Trend Year Wise in Sony

This chart shows the number of applications filed and the number of grants from these applications. Grant rate is a good indicator to identify successful applications and the graph helps to understand the progress in the technology area.

Detailed Patent Portfolio Of Sony

Publication Type	Simple Legal Status	Legal State	Count of Publications
APPLICATION	DEAD	EXPIRED	37502
		WITHDRAWN	9515
		NON-PAYMENT	8836
		REJECTED	7739
		LAPSED	2222
		DISCONTINUATION	1944
		ABANDONED	1404
		CEASED	734
		REVOKED	554
	ACTIVE	GRANTED	4964
	PENDING	EXAMINATION	2971
	PENDING	PUBLISHED	554
PATENT	DEAD	NON-PAYMENT	9012
		EXPIRED	4935
		CEASED	1622
		ABANDONED	554
		DISCONTINUATION	554
		REVOKED	554
		WITHDRAWN	554
	ACTIVE	GRANTED	3648
	PENDING	EXAMINATION	554
DESIGN	DEAD	EXPIRED	1536
		CEASED	554
		NON-PAYMENT	554
	ACTIVE	GRANTED	554
UTILITY MODEL	DEAD	NON-PAYMENT	554
		EXPIRED	554
		CEASED	554
	ACTIVE	GRANTED	554
OTHERS	DEAD	NON-PAYMENT	554

Technology Domain-wise Patent Trend in Sony

The chart above distributes patents filed till 2021 in Sony on the basis of the technology protected in patents. This helps to understand the most frequently used concepts and the key focus areas in the technology space.

Top Publications In The Domain With Their Forward Citation Frequency

The table below depicts the patents with most number of forward citations. These patents are likely to be the source of advancement in the domain and can be considered as valuable and core inventions.

Publication Number	Year Wise Break Down					Count of Citing Patents
Publication Number	< 2006	2006-2010	2011-2015	2016-2020	>2020	Count of Citing Patents
US-20100065844-A1	0	61	1459	1897	229	3646
US-6032202-A	138	185	129	716	333	1501
JP-2002342033-A	3	25	400	784	227	1439
US-6778869-B2	9	20	79	775	330	1213
EP-1389853-A1	0	7	5	644	327	983
US-6005565-A	185	217	339	141	14	896
US-5148154-A	150	117	399	181	20	867
US-6998816-B2	0	0	0	496	342	838
US-5596373-A	198	172	251	79	21	721
US-6282713-B1	93	184	263	137	38	715

Who Were The Leading Patent Filers Countries Till 2021 In Sony?

IPC Classification Wise Patent Trend In Sony

The table below represents the top 10 market domains according to their IPC classification where inventors believed it was critical to safeguard certain technical inventions.

IPC Classification	Number of Applications	Number of Granted	% Granted
PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION (H04N)	24511	5880	24
INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER (G11B)	21599	4244	20
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR (H01L)	14130	2432	17
ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (G06F)	11250	2630	23
TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION (H04L)	4623	1162	25
TRANSMISSION (H04B)	4025	994	25
IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL (G06T)	3968	1081	27
OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS, OR APPARATUS (G02B)	3672	772	21
ARRANGEMENTS OR CIRCUITS FOR CONTROL OF INDICATING DEVICES USING STATIC MEANS TO PRESENT VARIABLE INFORMATION (G09G)	3395	778	23
DEVICES OR ARRANGEMENTS, THE OPTICAL OPERATION OF WHICH IS MODIFIED BY CHANGING THE OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF THE MEDIUM OF THE DEVICES OR ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE CONTROL OF THE INTENSITY, COLOUR, PHASE, POLARISATION OR DIRECTION OF LIGHT, e.g. SWITCHING, GATING, MODULATING OR DEMODULATING; TECHNIQUES OR PROCEDURES FOR THE OPERATION THEREOF; FREQUENCY-CHANGING; NON-LINEAR OPTICS; OPTICAL LOGIC ELEMENTS; OPTICAL ANALOGUE/DIGITAL CONVERTERS (G02F)	3112	631	20

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