IBM topped the world's patent league in 2011 for the 19th year in a row with 6,180 patents, according to IFI Claims Patent Services, with Samsung in second place on 4,894.
The next three top patent gatherers were Japanese - Canon on 2,821, Panasonic on 2,559 and Toshiba on 2,483.
Three other Japanese companies were in the top ten: Sony in seventh place on 2,286, Seiko Epson in eighth place on 1,533 and Hitachi in tenth spot with 1,465.
The other two companies in the top ten were Microsoft at No.6 with 2,311 and Hon Hai Precison in 9th spot with 1,514.
IBM's annual R&D budget is $6bn and it makes licensing fees of about $1bn a year.
Samsung is catching up. It has filed more patent applications than IBM for the past two years.
