"Patents are an imperfect measure of prowess in research, development, innovation and ultimately business success. For one thing, it takes a mammoth staff and a lot of intellectual-property lawyers to rank high on the list, so startups won't make it up the list no matter how successful. For another, many patent ideas never see the light of day, or worse, emerge in a patent troll's sketchy legal action trying to extract licensing fees from big companies.
Nevertheless, patents remain an important reflection of how much a company is investing today into the technology of tomorrow. It's notable that IBM topped the list for the 24th year in a row."
