With more than 8,000 inventors in some one hundred countries worldwide, IBM is again number one among patent holders in the United States for the 21st consecutive year, with no less than 6,809 titles, a historic record for Big Blue. The figure representing patents held in the United States alone, it is no surprise that, in this ranking provided by American consulting firm IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, Europe pales in comparison. Of all foreign countries, only Germany with Siemens and Bosch appears among the top 50. By comparison, the number of IBM’s patents exceeds the total number of patents granted to Amazon, Google, EMC, HP, Intel, Oracle/SUN, and Symantec combined. For the first time, Google and Apple, the superstars of Silicon Valley, rank in the top 20, at 11th and 13th place, respectively.