Mumbai: IBM received 3,415 US patents in 2003, breaking the record for patents received in a single year making it the world''s most innovative company for 11 consecutive years, surpassing its nearest rival by 1,400 patents.

IBM has also emerged as the only company to receive 3,000 patents from the U S Patents and Trademark Office in a single year. In the last three years, the company has been improving on its own record of successful innovations.

During the past 11 years, IBM innovations have generated more than 25,000 U.S. patents — nearly triple the total of any American IT company and surpassing the combined total of Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Intel, Apple, EMC, Accenture and EDS.

"IBM''s commitment to research and development has driven more than a decade''s worth of patent leadership and is a major factor in our emergence as the world''s leading IT, services and consulting company" says Nick Donofrio, senior vice president, technology and manufacturing at IBM. "That said, we consider patents a starting point on the path to true innovation. What differentiates IBM from other companies is our ability to rapidly apply these inventions to new products and offerings that solve the most pressing business challenges of our clients." IBM is applying thousands of its new patents to accelerate the adoption of on-demand computing and to extend its leadership in IT services and consulting.

Self-healing computer system — An advancement in self-healing computer technology available in IBM eServer xSeries systems, this patent describes a system to detect and correct faults or trends that would result in unacceptable performance or function.

Automated business continuity and recovery — This innovation enables high-speed recovery and relocation of computer workloads in response to an unanticipated system failure or disaster. It is available as a business continuity and recovery services solution for IBM eServer zSeries customers, providing seamless access to backup data in the event that their system fails

Accessing page bundles on portable devices — This patent uses statistical analysis of Internet surfing patterns to predict which Web pages a user will want to see and then automatically pulls them together into one bundle, delivering information more speedily and easily, regardless of hardware, bandwidth or the reliability of connectivity.

Manufacturing plant optimization — This breakthrough from IBM Business Consulting Services describes a system for generating an optimized production sequence to control the resources and increase productivity within a manufacturing facility.

Preventing unauthorized credit card use and identity fraud — This new credit card design, featuring embedded electronics and a keypad, requires a PIN number to activate the card for a purchase. Each time the PIN is entered, a unique code is generated that allows a transaction to be completed. Without the secret PIN, the card is useless if lost or stolen, protecting the public against credit card fraud and identity theft.

An improved silicon-on-insulator (SOI) chip-making process and a fundamental nanotechnology

The 2003 patent results were reported in January 2004 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.