Apple and Google are revving up their technology for cars. Each tech giant is offering its own vehicle infotainment system — Apple with CarPlay and Google's Android Auto.
While Google continues to test its driverless cars, Apple has recently started doing the same.
Quietly, though, Samsung is beating each of its competitors in the car market, and it's doing it with automobile patents. According to a Forbes report, Samsung has filed more automotive-related patents in the past 10 years than Google, Microsoft and Apple. Since 2005, Samsung has filed 510 automobile-related patents compared with Google's 308, Microsoft's 222 and Apple's 83, as Forbes confirmed with SmartUp Legal.
Forbes' report indicates that a majority of Samsung's auto patents are in battery technology, which makes sense, given the company's sprawling manufacturing process of its own Lithium-ion battery division, Samsung SDI. That division already supplies power cells for BMW's i3 and i8 electric cars.
Although Samsung is currently leading in auto patents among the tech companies, insiders believe Google will overtake it during the next year or two. Google does already lead Samsung and Apple in patents for navigation.
Interestingly enough, by looking at the patent activity of the companies, Mikhail Avady, founder and CMO at SmartUp Legal, doesn't think Apple is interested in building its own car.
"Apple will have hundreds of patents when it wants to go into a market," Avady told Forbes. "It looks more like they'd rather go to the car manufacturers and play nice with them."
It will be interesting to see how soon Google can close the gap with Samsung regarding auto patents.
