This Tech Giant Leads The Pack In Self-Driving Patent Filings — It's Not Apple Or Google

All tech majors including, Apple Inc. AAPL and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG, are working on some form of self-driving technology.
What Happened: A survey by Nikkei has turned in a surprise result for the tech company with the most patent filings for next-generation vehicle driving technology. E-commerce giant Amazon Inc. AMZN takes the top spot among the top five U.S. tech companies, going by the moniker GAFAM, in terms of driving technology patent filings, Nikkei said, citing its survey.

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Other companies that complete the list of GAFAMs are Alphabet’s Google, Apple, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. META and Microsoft Corp. MSFT.

Nikkei, along with Tokyo-based research firm Astamuse, reportedly conducted the survey, examining data from 2013.

Amazon’s filings totaled 1,649 patent applications and Alphabet followed with 1,355 applications. Microsoft, Apple and Meta took the third, fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

Eyeing Autonomous Delivery Fleet? Amazon’s acquisition of self-driving technology developer Zoox in 2020 has provided an impetus, Nikkei said. Zoox has accumulated technologies through repeated auto-driving experiments on public roads.

Competitive scores of each patent calculated based on the number of related quotations, the number of countries for which the right is applicable and other factors showed that Amazon scored 40.73 million points for the logistic internet-of-things. The e-commerce company is far ahead of the second-ranked Alphabet, the report said. Amazon also held three of the five patents in connectedness, suggesting the company could be considering the use of autonomous technology for deliveries.

The report also noted that Alphabet, with 40.18 million points, led in self-driving patents, based on company-by-company competitiveness scores.

Electric vehicle pioneer Tesla Inc. TSLA is also eyeing an autonomous driving fleet called robotaxis. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest said it estimates that 60% of the expected value of the Tesla stock of $4,600 by 2026 would come from robotaxis.

Price Action: Amazon closed Monday's session up 0.28%, at $93.76, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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