SAN ANTONIO - For Scott Winters, a master inventor, distinguished engineer and director of development at IBM in Austin, inspiration can come from anywhere.
"Wherever I go now I constantly see things that I can do better or different, whether it's going to the supermarket or a football game or driving the car and coming to work," said Winters, 51.
He was sitting in the food court at an Austin mall while his family shopped when he came up with a new system for a cell phone network that he later patented. Winters modeled a directory of cellular services on the way kiosk vendors display their merchandise.
That kind of innovative thinking makes Winters one of the top patent producers at IBM. He received 25 patents last year; during his 18 years with the company, his total is 65 patents and another 40 pending.
For the 14th consecutive year, IBM topped the list of patent recipients, according to IFI Claims Patent Services, which compiles its annual report from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data.
"Electronic technology is a hot area these days and will continue to be," said Darlene Slaughter, general manager of IFI Claims, based in Wilmington, Del.
Some electronic patents have a short lifespan, so companies are continually filing new ones on the latest innovations, she said.
IBM this week announced that it received a record 3,621 patents in 2006. The Austin campus received 640, up from 550 a year earlier. Fifty were related to Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console, on which IBM worked with Sony and Toshiba.
At IBM, patents are rarely issued to a single person; usually three or four people share in the development of one, said Winters, who develops mentoring groups with people at different stages of their careers.
The patents awarded to Winters last year focus primarily on cell phone software. This year's submissions to the patent office, he said, all will be based on social networking.
The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13)
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Magnolia
NewsVine
Furl
Google
Yahoo