The US patent office awarded Apple 563 new patents last year, though the Mac maker’s intellectual property gains are dwarfed by the likes of IBM and Microsoft.
Among technologies covered in the Apple filings are multi-touch displays and gestures, lossless encoding,“liquid metal”, solar-power and a “smart bike”. The total is nearly twice as many as the 289 patents awarded to the company in 2009.
Top of the list of patent collectors is IBM, which added 5,896 to its huge portfolio of around 40,000. Microsoft, with 3,094, came third in a list dominated by Asian electronics firms, among them Hon Hai, whose Foxconn subsidiary is Apple’s main manufacturing contractor.
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