February 12, 2009 by Jack Fox
In a striking testament to exactly how many innovations Microsoft has made in its 34 year history, the company has this month received its 10,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark office. The patent concerns the company’s surface computing technology, partly masterminded by long-time employee, Curtis Wong, the same researcher behind the company’s 5,000th patent.
Whilst the Curtis Wong aspect of the story is a bit too good to be true and just may have been massaged by the Microsoft PR department, the milestone is a real achievement for one of the major innovators in the history of world business.
Microsoft is keen to point out that it is not slowing down in its quest for the next new thing – another suspiciously convenient factor in this story is the fact that last week Steve Bullmer announced that the company would be spending $9 billion dollars a year on research and development.
This whole thing may be a bit stage-managed though the fact remains that 9 billion a year in a rapidly slowing economy that shows a real commitment to innovation from a company already performing very well in that respect – Microsoft received 2,000 patents in 2008 alone.
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