List of prolific inventors

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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

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Inventor Pats Fams Fam % Pat Yrs Yrs Pat /Yr Inv /Pat Pat Residence Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki [1] 6582 2892 43.9% 1972—2025 53.3 123 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] 4103 3415 83.2% 2006—2025 19.2 214 5.6 USA Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng [4] 2804 1549 55.2% 2004—2025 20.7 135 3.9 USA IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV [5] 2584 1196 46.3% 2005—2025 20.1 129 4.5 USA Ethicon
Junyi Li [6] 2572 2166 84.2% 2002—2025 22.7 113 5.2 USA Qualcomm
Peter Gaal [7] 2434 1876 77.1% 2002—2025 22.9 106 5.9 USA Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen [8] 2251 1737 77.2% 2009—2025 16.2 139 5.7 USA Qualcomm
Lowell L. Wood, Jr. [9] 1998 1326 66.4% 1971—2025 53.4 37 8.8 USA Intellectual Ventures
Xiaoxia Zhang [10] 1985 1679 84.6% 2009—2025 16.5 120 5.5 USA Qualcomm
Roderick A. Hyde [11] 1892 1252 66.2% 2001—2023 22.4 84 8.7 USA Intellectual Ventures
Chen-Hua Yu [12] 1865 974 52.2% 1996—2025 29.1 64 4.9 Taiwan TSMC
Esmael H. Dinan [13] 1833 745 40.6% 2006—2025 19.1 96 3.6 USA Ofinno
Hanbyul Seo [14] 1767 1313 74.3% 2012—2025 13.2 134 3.8 South Korea LG
Jing Sun [15] 1648 1373 83.3% 2012—2025 12.6 131 5.9 USA Qualcomm
Jun Koyama [16] 1505 618 41.1% 1991—2022 30.8 49 3.1 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Shan Liu [17] 1449 918 63.4% 2013—2025 11.9 122 3.4 USA Tencent
Gurtej Singh Sandhu [18] 1432 584 40.8% 1991—2024 32.5 44 2.5 USA Micron
Sarbajit K. Rakshit [19] 1431 1206 84.3% 2013—2025 12.5 114 3.4 India IBM
Yunjung Yi [20] 1345 919 68.3% 2011—2025 14.5 93 3.3 USA LG
Shou-Shan Fan [21] 1312 1097 83.6% 2006—2025 19.1 69 4.2 China Hon Hai
Paul Lapstun [22] 1305 246 18.9% 2000—2022 21.4 61 2.5 Australia Silverbrook Research
Alexander Reznicek [23] 1273 768 60.3% 2006—2025 19.2 66 3.9 USA IBM
Clarence T. Tegreene [24] 1250 903 72.2% 2000—2024 23.5 53 10.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Suckchel Yang [25] 1242 802 64.6% 2013—2025 12 104 4.7 South Korea LG
Satoshi Seo [26] 1233 585 47.4% 2002—2025 22.6 55 4.1 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Juan Montojo [27] 1204 978 81.2% 2004—2025 21.4 56 6.9 USA Qualcomm
Kijun Kim [28] 1170 813 69.5% 2013—2025 11.5 102 4.6 South Korea LG
Joonkui Ahn [29] 1160 756 65.2% 2013—2025 12 97 4.7 South Korea LG
Takahiro Nishi [30] 1144 383 33.5% 2001—2025 23.9 48 6.3 Japan Panasonic
Jason L. Harris [31] 1139 644 56.5% 2011—2025 14.5 79 6.0 USA Ethicon
Marta Karczewicz [32] 1117 916 82.0% 2000—2025 24.6 45 4.0 USA Qualcomm
Edward K. Y. Jung [33] 1111 794 71.5% 1996—2022 26.1 43 8.0 USA Intellectual Ventures
Leonard Forbes [34] 1109 411 37.1% 1975—2019 43.3 26 2.6 USA Micron
Ruilong Xie [35] 1101 834 75.7% 2013—2025 12.5 88 4.2 USA IBM
Thomas Edison [36] 1084 NA NA 1869—1933 63.9 17 1.0 USA Thomas Edison
Tingfang Ji [37] 1076 797 74.1% 2006—2025 19 57 6.9 USA Qualcomm
Rick Allen Hamilton II [38] 1063 714 67.2% 1999—2024 25 43 4.2 USA IBM
Jason K. Resch [39] 1044 514 49.2% 2009—2025 15.9 66 4.2 USA IBM
Seungmin Lee [40] 1039 775 74.6% 2014—2025 10.7 97 3.5 South Korea LG
Donald E. Weder [41] 1000 395 39.5% 1978—2015 37.1 27 1.1 USA Weder Family Trust
Michael J. Sullivan [42] 997 534 53.6% 1989—2024 34.5 29 3.8 USA Acushnet Holdings
George Albert Lyon [43] 993 NA NA 1901—1965 64.5 15 1.0 Canada Lyon George Albert
Jordin T. Kare [44] 991 640 64.6% 1992—2023 30.5 32 9.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Ahmadreza Rofougaran [45] 984 473 48.1% 2002—2025 23.1 43 6.4 USA Broadcom
Jay S. Walker [46] 980 422 43.1% 1998—2024 26.3 37 5.2 USA Walker Digital
Hao Xu [47] 971 705 72.6% 2005—2025 20.3 48 4.7 China Qualcomm
Yan Zhou [48] 963 845 87.7% 2012—2025 12.9 75 4.4 USA Qualcomm
John F. O'Connor [49] 949 NA NA 1901—1935 33.9 28 NA USA William H. Miner
William H. Eby [50] 928 924 99.6% 1994—2025 31.1 30 1.2 USA Monsanto
Melvin De Groote [51] 925 NA NA 1924—1966 41.8 22 NA USA Petrolite
Hajime Kimura [52] 925 293 31.7% 2002—2025 22.6 41 2.6 Japan Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
David R. Hall [53] 922 763 82.8% 1985—2025 40 23 3.8 USA Hall Labs
Nathan Myhrvold [54] 907 613 67.6% 1994—2024 29.7 31 11.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Hongyuan Zhang [55] 900 486 54.0% 2009—2025 16.2 56 3.9 USA Marvell
Francis H. Richards [56] 894 NA NA 1899—1930 30.8 29 NA USA Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud [57] 886 690 77.9% 1997—2022 25.1 35 7.5 USA Intellectual Ventures
Justin T. Mason [58] 879 875 99.5% 2008—2025 16.6 53 1.0 USA MS Technologies
Robert W. Lord [59] 868 682 78.6% 2003—2024 20.4 43 7.6 USA Intellectual Ventures
Kyungmin Park [60] 861 421 48.9% 2014—2025 11.2 77 5.2 USA Ofinno
Satoshi Nagata [61] 860 823 95.7% 2011—2025 13.8 62 4.0 Japan NTT
Chih-Chao Yang [62] 859 542 63.1% 2003—2025 21.6 40 3.4 USA IBM
Stuart C. Salter [63] 857 804 93.8% 2009—2025 15.6 55 4.8 USA Ford
Royce A. Levien [64] 855 666 77.9% 1997—2020 23.4 37 6.8 USA Intellectual Ventures
Lee D. Whetsel [65] 845 128 15.1% 1991—2017 26.4 32 1.1 USA Texas Instruments
Muriel Y. Ishikawa [66] 840 560 66.7% 2002—2023 21.2 40 11.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Hsien-Wei Chen [67] 838 389 46.4% 2005—2025 20.4 41 3.5 Taiwan TSMC
Michael K. Gschwind [68] 836 442 52.9% 2001—2021 20.6 41 2.6 USA IBM
Clifford A. Pickover [69] 836 548 65.6% 1992—2024 32.2 26 3.9 USA IBM
Youngdae Lee [70] 826 649 78.6% 2014—2025 11.3 73 3.1 South Korea LG
Devendra K. Sadana [71] 825 468 56.7% 1983—2025 42.4 19 4.3 USA IBM
SungDuck Chun [72] 817 506 61.9% 2007—2025 17.6 46 3.8 South Korea LG
Hua Zhou [73] 808 428 53.0% 2012—2025 13.4 60 5.5 USA Ofinno
Salman Akram [74] 786 291 37.0% 1995—2024 29.4 27 2.9 USA Micron
Xue Dong [75] 784 758 96.7% 2010—2025 14.5 54 7.4 China BOE
Warren M. Farnworth [76] 774 289 37.3% 1990—2014 24.4 32 2.8 USA Micron
James A. Jorasch [77] 773 309 40.0% 1994—2023 29 27 3.9 USA Walker Digital
Bruce B. Doris [78] 766 435 56.8% 1995—2025 30.3 25 4.2 USA IBM
Frederick A. Ware [79] 766 229 29.9% 1981—2025 43.4 18 2.8 USA Rambus
Jeyhan Karaoguz [80] 757 371 49.0% 1996—2020 23.8 32 4.6 USA Broadcom
Ali Khakifirooz [81] 757 413 54.6% 2011—2025 13.9 54 4.2 USA IBM
Shougo Sato [82] 756 289 38.2% 1992—2025 32.7 23 1.8 Japan Brother
Carleton Ellis [83] 753 NA NA 1902—1946 43.1 17 NA USA Ellis Foster Co
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur [84] 740 599 80.9% 2006—2025 19.2 39 2.6 France Cisco Systems
John M. Santosuosso [85] 738 466 63.1% 2001—2022 20.7 36 3.9 USA IBM
Hideo Ando [86] 733 123 16.8% 1983—2020 36.7 20 3.1 Japan Toshiba
Chung-Shi Liu [87] 731 389 53.2% 2000—2025 25.5 29 6.1 Taiwan TSMC
Toshiyasu Sugio [88] 724 264 36.5% 2009—2025 15.8 46 4.9 Japan Panasonic
George Spector [89] 723 723 100% 1974—1998 24.6 29 2.1 USA George Spector
Lisa Seacat DeLuca [90] 720 524 72.8% 2009—2025 16.4 44 2.7 USA IBM
Austin L. Gurney [91] 718 182 25.3% 1999—2021 21.6 33 2.9 USA Genentech
Gregory J. Boss [92] 716 493 68.9% 2008—2025 17.3 41 4.2 USA IBM
Jonghyun Park [93] 712 511 71.8% 2013—2025 12.5 57 3.8 USA LG
Woosuk Ko [94] 703 300 42.7% 2015—2025 10.2 69 3.4 South Korea LG
Tetsujiro Kondo [95] 700 528 75.4% 1987—2021 34 21 3.8 Japan Sony
Elihu Thomson [96] 696 NA NA 1899—1935 35.9 19 NA USA GE
Xiaochuan Chen [97] 686 664 96.8% 2014—2025 10.9 63 7.0 China BOE
Eric C. Leuthardt [98] 685 462 67.4% 2006—2025 18.8 36 9.1 USA Intellectual Ventures
Irwin Gerszberg [99] 682 312 45.7% 1994—2023 29.2 23 6.8 USA AT&T
Aleksandar Damnjanovic [100] 676 493 72.9% 2003—2025 22 31 4.4 USA Qualcomm

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of July 29, 2025.

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

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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

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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

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References

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  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

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