A blog post on Car and Driver’s website outlines who files the most amount of patents in the automobile industry. I was surprised to see that Toyota and General Motors were more aggressive in filing patents around autonomous driving. I wonder if Google will have to deal with these patents in the future? Will these automobile giants start to use patent portfolios to squeeze concessions from their Silicon Valley partners in the future?

• The number of patents being filed by auto-sector has gone up sharply — from less than 18,000 in 2009 to over 40,000 in 2013.
• Toyota is the largest patent filer amongst all automakers.
• German auto component makers are leading the charge development of driver assists such as pedestrian detection. Bosch, Daimler, and Continental are top three patent filers.
• Hyundai, Ford, Toyota, and Honda are top filers of fuel-economy-tech patents.
• Toyota and General Motors, not Google are leaders when it comes to filling patents about autonomous driving.

PS: Checkout this blog post from Reilly Brennan.