Innovation that matters
IBM inventors received a record 9,100 patents in 2018, marking the company’s 26th consecutive year of U.S. patent leadership and crossing the 110,000-patent milestone. Nearly half of the patents granted to IBM in 2018 are pioneering advancements in AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, blockchain and quantum computing.
Advancing key technologies
Cloud
IBM inventors received more than 2,000 cloud computing patents in 2018, including a patent on a specialized monitor for unikernel-based virtual machines that takes a lightweight approach to improving isolation and security between a cloud application and its host, while also reducing provisioning times and improving performance. The approach is related to IBM’s research in container security and could enable organizations to more easily move data and applications securely across cloud and on-premises environments.
Artificial Intelligence
Project Debater is a first-of-a-kind AI system from IBM Research that can debate humans on complex topics. IBM inventors patented an approach to use machine learning to identify evidence, such as relevant text segments in unstructured text data, which supports or opposes a claim or topic under consideration. This could help provide advancements in how machines and humans interact in conversation.
Blockchain
IBM inventors continue to break ground in the development of blockchain and its rapid pace of global adoption. IBM was granted a patent on an approach for encrypting data stored in a blockchain, where transactions are encrypted using an encryption key. IBM clients can put data on a blockchain that they would like to share with other blockchain participants. However, instead of storing the data openly for any of the blockchain participants to see, clients can encrypt their data beforehand and only other clients that have been given a decryption key can read the data from the blockchain.
Security
"Phishing" occurs when a person or computer system tries to obtain sensitive information from unknowing victims. Most recently, phishers have turned to voice phishing, or "vishing," in which unsuspecting victims are called directly and “vishers” use a voice over IP (VoIP) system to mask their identity. IBM patented an AI system that could, with permission from the primary user, analyze conversation patterns between two parties in order to identify attempts by one of the parties to deceive the other. The system could send an alert message in real-time to warn a potential vishing victim, and help company IT experts better prevent and manage computer and mobile security threats.
Quantum Computing
Quantum computers could one day provide breakthroughs in many disciplines, including materials and drug discovery, the optimization of complex systems, and artificial intelligence. IBM researchers patented significant inventions in quantum computing, including a new way of miniaturizing components to improve the performance of quantum computers.
IBM's 2018 patents by the numbers
9,100
patents granted in 2018
8,500+
IBM researchers, engineers, scientists and designers granted patents
48
countries represented by teams granted patents
1,600+
AI patents
2,000+
cloud computing patents
1,400+
cybersecurity patents
IBM patents through the years
This year’s milestone builds on more than 110,000 U.S. patents granted to IBM from 1993 to 2018. IBM inventors have received patents for such transformative ideas as secure credit card transactions, guiding the visually-impaired using RFID, the world’s fastest supercomputers and earthquake detectors