The new report shows South Korea's Samsung Electronics has the third highest number of AI-related patents.
It also shows that competition between the world's tech giants over AI patents is getting fiercer.
Yoon Jung-min reports.
South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics holds the third highest number of patents related to artificial intelligence.
According to a German market research firm IPlytics, Samsung owned 11-thousand-243 patents on AI technology as of January this year.
The top patent holder is U.S. software giant Microsoft with 18-thousand-365 patents,... followed by U.S. information technology firm IBM with more than 15-thousand.
Qualcomm and Google were also ranked among the top five.

Out of the top 10 AI-related patent owners, five were U.S. companies, two were Japanese, one German and one Dutch. Samsung was the only South Korean company on the list.
Since last August, Samsung has been pushing for future growth engines, including AI, 5G, and bio-industries,... establishing AI research centers in 7 cities around the world.
The tech giant is focusing on expanding the AI capacity on a wide range of its products from smartphones to home appliances.

The market researcher says in the 10 years since 2008, AI patent applications have increased more than 3-fold to over 78-thousand per year.
In terms of filing applications,... the U.S., China and Europe topped the figures, indicating a higher level of research activity.
Yoon Jung-min, Arirang News.