Another Invisible Chinese Company: Lenovo

Following up on the mind-numbing failure of Thompson-Reuters to include ANY Chinese or Taiwanese company on their list of the 100 Top Global Innovators, let me mention one more that should be there: Lenovo. This Chinese multinational company had 402 US patents granted from 2005 to 2010, well above the numbers obtained by some other companies on the TR list supposedly based on patent activity. They have international scope and are now the world’s 2nd largest maker of personal computers. Annual sales are over $20 billion. This puts them above many of the less-known companies on the TR list. OK, Lenovo inventors listed on patents are more likely to be from the US or Japan than from China, so Lenovo’s IP situation arguably doesn’t speak to innovation in China per se, but based on the stated criteria of TR, one would think that this Chinese company should still merit attention as a global innovator, regardless of which part of the globe their R&D centers are located.