List of prolific inventors

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

Inventor		Pats	Fams	Fam %	Pat Yrs	Yrs	Pat /Yr	Inv /Pat	Pat Residence	Majority Assignment
Shunpei Yamazaki	[1]	6766	3003	44.4%	1972—2026	54.5	124	3.6	Japan	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Tao Luo	[2]	4765	4001	84.0%	2006—2026	20.4	234	5.6	USA	Qualcomm
Kia Silverbrook	[3]	4747	1311	27.6%	1994—2014	20	237	1.6	Australia	Silverbrook Research
Junyi Li	[4]	2890	2460	85.1%	2002—2026	23.9	121	5.2	USA	Qualcomm
Kangguo Cheng	[5]	2871	1604	55.9%	2004—2026	21.9	131	3.9	USA	IBM
Frederick E. Shelton IV	[6]	2763	1267	45.9%	2005—2026	21.3	130	4.5	USA	Ethicon
Peter Gaal	[7]	2697	2091	77.5%	2002—2026	24.1	112	5.9	USA	Qualcomm
Wanshi Chen	[8]	2469	1899	76.9%	2009—2026	17.4	142	5.7	USA	Qualcomm
Xiaoxia Zhang	[9]	2383	2031	85.2%	2009—2026	17.7	135	5.5	USA	Qualcomm
Esmael H. Dinan	[10]	2170	942	43.4%	2006—2026	20.3	107	3.6	USA	Ofinno
Lowell L. Wood, Jr.	[11]	2003	1328	66.3%	1971—2026	54.3	37	8.8	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Jing Sun	[12]	1995	1682	84.3%	2012—2026	13.8	145	5.9	USA	Qualcomm
Chen-Hua Yu	[13]	1990	1042	52.4%	1996—2026	30.3	66	4.9	Taiwan	TSMC
Roderick A. Hyde	[14]	1893	1252	66.1%	2001—2023	22.4	85	8.7	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Hanbyul Seo	[15]	1854	1393	75.1%	2012—2026	14.4	129	3.8	South Korea	LG
Shan Liu	[16]	1853	1187	64.1%	2013—2026	13.1	141	3.4	USA	Tencent
Sarbajit K. Rakshit	[17]	1647	1417	86.0%	2013—2026	13.7	120	3.4	India	IBM
Jun Koyama	[18]	1519	619	40.8%	1991—2026	34.9	44	3.1	Japan	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Yunjung Yi	[19]	1472	994	67.5%	2011—2026	15.7	94	3.3	USA	LG
Gurtej Singh Sandhu	[20]	1436	584	40.7%	1991—2024	32.5	44	2.5	USA	Micron
Ruilong Xie	[21]	1432	1155	80.7%	2013—2026	13.7	105	4.2	USA	IBM
Suckchel Yang	[22]	1346	891	66.2%	2013—2026	13.3	101	4.7	South Korea	LG
Alexander Reznicek	[23]	1324	816	61.6%	2006—2026	20.5	65	3.9	USA	IBM
Shou-Shan Fan	[24]	1318	1103	83.7%	2006—2026	20.2	65	4.2	China	Hon Hai
Juan Montojo	[25]	1313	1071	81.6%	2004—2026	22.6	58	6.9	USA	Qualcomm
Satoshi Seo	[26]	1308	630	48.2%	2002—2026	23.8	55	4.1	Japan	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
Paul Lapstun	[27]	1307	247	18.9%	2000—2026	25.2	52	2.5	Australia	Silverbrook Research
Yan Zhou	[28]	1296	1153	89.0%	2012—2026	14.1	92	4.4	USA	Qualcomm
Takahiro Nishi	[29]	1287	408	31.7%	2001—2026	25.1	51	6.3	Japan	Panasonic
Clarence T. Tegreene	[30]	1253	904	72.1%	2000—2025	24.8	51	10.1	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Jason L. Harris	[31]	1231	675	54.8%	2011—2026	15.6	79	6.0	USA	Ethicon
Marta Karczewicz	[32]	1229	1016	82.7%	2000—2026	25.8	48	4.0	USA	Qualcomm
Kijun Kim	[33]	1195	834	69.8%	2013—2026	12.8	93	4.6	South Korea	LG
Joonkui Ahn	[34]	1186	773	65.2%	2013—2026	13.2	90	4.7	South Korea	LG
Tingfang Ji	[35]	1155	859	74.4%	2006—2026	20.2	57	6.9	USA	Qualcomm
Seungmin Lee	[36]	1153	883	76.6%	2014—2026	12	96	3.5	South Korea	LG
Hao Xu	[37]	1138	860	75.6%	2005—2026	21.5	53	4.7	China	Qualcomm
Edward K. Y. Jung	[38]	1112	794	71.4%	1996—2022	26.1	43	8.0	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Leonard Forbes	[39]	1109	411	37.1%	1975—2019	43.3	26	2.6	USA	Micron
Thomas Edison	[40]	1084	NA	NA	1869—1933	63.9	17	1.0	USA	Thomas Edison
Jason K. Resch	[41]	1076	515	47.9%	2009—2026	16.7	64	4.2	USA	IBM
Rick Allen Hamilton II	[42]	1065	716	67.2%	1999—2026	27.3	39	4.2	USA	IBM
Justin T. Mason	[43]	1053	1049	99.6%	2008—2026	17.9	59	1.0	USA	MS Technologies
Satoshi Nagata	[44]	1049	1012	96.5%	2011—2026	15	70	4.0	Japan	NTT
Ahmadreza Rofougaran	[45]	1031	494	47.9%	2002—2026	24.3	42	6.4	USA	Broadcom
Donald E. Weder	[46]	1000	395	39.5%	1978—2015	37.1	27	1.1	USA	Weder Family Trust
Kyungmin Park	[47]	1000	479	47.9%	2014—2026	12.4	81	5.2	USA	Ofinno
Michael J. Sullivan	[48]	997	534	53.6%	1989—2024	34.5	29	3.8	USA	Acushnet Holdings
George Albert Lyon	[49]	993	NA	NA	1901—1965	64.5	15	1.0	Canada	Lyon George Albert
Jordin T. Kare	[50]	993	640	64.5%	1992—2023	30.5	33	9.1	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Hua Zhou	[51]	991	533	53.8%	2012—2026	14.6	68	5.5	USA	Ofinno
Jay S. Walker	[52]	981	422	43.0%	1998—2024	26.3	37	5.2	USA	Walker Digital
William H. Eby	[53]	979	975	99.6%	1994—2026	32.4	30	1.2	USA	Monsanto
Hajime Kimura	[54]	970	314	32.4%	2002—2026	23.9	41	2.6	Japan	Semiconductor Energy Laboratory
John F. O'Connor	[55]	949	NA	NA	1901—1935	33.9	28	NA	USA	William H. Miner
Hongyuan Zhang	[56]	931	511	54.9%	2009—2026	17.3	54	3.9	USA	Marvell
Chih-Chao Yang	[57]	930	611	65.7%	2003—2026	22.8	41	3.4	USA	IBM
David R. Hall	[58]	927	766	82.6%	1985—2026	40.7	23	3.8	USA	Hall Labs
Stuart C. Salter	[59]	926	868	93.7%	2009—2026	16.8	55	4.8	USA	Ford
Melvin De Groote	[60]	925	NA	NA	1924—1966	41.8	22	NA	USA	Petrolite
Nathan Myhrvold	[61]	911	615	67.5%	1994—2026	32	28	11.1	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Francis H. Richards	[62]	894	NA	NA	1899—1930	30.8	29	NA	USA	Francis H. Richards
Mark Malamud	[63]	886	690	77.9%	1997—2022	25.1	35	7.5	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Youngdae Lee	[64]	880	700	79.5%	2014—2026	12.5	70	3.1	South Korea	LG
Hsien-Wei Chen	[65]	878	406	46.2%	2005—2026	21.6	41	3.5	Taiwan	TSMC
Robert W. Lord	[66]	870	683	78.5%	2003—2025	21.6	40	7.6	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Royce A. Levien	[67]	855	666	77.9%	1997—2020	23.4	37	6.8	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Lee D. Whetsel	[68]	854	128	15.0%	1991—2017	26.4	32	1.1	USA	Texas Instruments
SungDuck Chun	[69]	846	531	62.8%	2007—2026	18.8	45	3.8	South Korea	LG
Muriel Y. Ishikawa	[70]	840	560	66.7%	2002—2023	21.2	40	11.1	USA	Intellectual Ventures
Michael K. Gschwind	[71]	837	442	52.8%	2001—2021	20.6	41	2.6	USA	IBM
Clifford A. Pickover	[72]	837	548	65.5%	1992—2024	32.2	26	3.9	USA	IBM
Devendra K. Sadana	[73]	830	472	56.9%	1983—2026	43.5	19	4.3	USA	IBM
Hyoungsuk Jeon	[74]	830	413	49.8%	2009—2026	16.8	49	5.6	USA	Ofinno
Xue Dong	[75]	823	793	96.4%	2010—2026	15.8	52	7.4	China	BOE
Jean-Philippe M. Vasseur	[76]	802	658	82.0%	2006—2026	20.4	39	2.6	France	Cisco Systems
Frederick A. Ware	[77]	797	232	29.1%	1981—2025	43.9	18	2.8	USA	Rambus
Toshiyasu Sugio	[78]	797	292	36.6%	2009—2026	17	47	4.9	Japan	Panasonic
Salman A. Akram	[79]	789	294	37.3%	1995—2026	30.7	26	2.9	USA	Micron
James A. Jorasch	[80]	779	309	39.7%	1994—2023	29	27	3.9	USA	Walker Digital
Warren M. Farnworth	[81]	774	289	37.3%	1990—2014	24.4	32	2.8	USA	Micron
Shougo Sato	[82]	774	294	38.0%	1992—2026	33.7	23	1.8	Japan	Brother
Bruce B. Doris	[83]	768	435	56.6%	1995—2025	30.3	25	4.2	USA	IBM
Chung-Shi Liu	[84]	762	401	52.6%	2000—2026	26.5	29	6.1	Taiwan	TSMC
Ali Khakifirooz	[85]	760	415	54.6%	2011—2026	14.4	53	4.2	USA	IBM
Jeyhan Karaoguz	[86]	757	371	49.0%	1996—2020	23.8	32	4.6	USA	Broadcom
Jonghyun Park	[87]	754	537	71.2%	2013—2026	13.6	55	3.8	USA	LG
Carleton Ellis	[88]	753	NA	NA	1902—1946	43.1	17	NA	USA	Ellis Foster Co
John M. Santosuosso	[89]	738	466	63.1%	2001—2022	20.7	36	3.9	USA	IBM
Woosuk Ko	[90]	738	335	45.4%	2015—2026	11.4	65	3.4	South Korea	LG
Hideo Ando	[91]	733	123	16.8%	1983—2020	36.7	20	3.1	Japan	Toshiba
Moon-il Lee	[92]	730	404	55.3%	2010—2026	15.9	46	5.3	USA	LG
Lisa Seacat DeLuca	[93]	727	530	72.9%	2009—2026	17.1	43	2.7	USA	IBM
Gregory J. Boss	[94]	727	503	69.2%	2008—2026	18.6	39	4.2	USA	IBM
Xiaochuan Chen	[95]	725	700	96.6%	2014—2026	12.2	59	7.0	China	BOE
George Spector	[96]	723	723	100%	1974—1998	24.6	29	2.1	USA	George Spector
Lawrence A. Clevenger	[97]	721	476	66.0%	1996—2026	30.4	24	5.1	USA	IBM
Austin L. Gurney	[98]	718	182	25.3%	1999—2021	21.6	33	2.9	USA	Genentech
Aleksandar Damnjanovic	[99]	716	528	73.7%	2003—2026	23.2	31	4.4	USA	Qualcomm
Eric C. Leuthardt	[100]	701	471	67.2%	2006—2026	19.9	35	9.1	USA	Intellectual Ventures

This table is usually updated every Tuesday, and is current as of October 13,2026 ^[update] .

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 ^[update] 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

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

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

• Timeline of historic inventions
• List of inventors

References

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

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