Online marketplace Amazon Inc. made its debut on the 2015 Thomson Reuters Top 100 global innovators list, leaving International Business Machines Corp, the world’s largest technology services company, out of the list. Amazon joins the innovators list for the first time for innovations in data centers, devices, electronic methods and systems, according to its latest report. The Thomson Reuters Top 100 global innovators program identifies innovators annually through an in-depth analysis based on a series of patent-related metrics that analyze what it means to be truly innovative. There are 27 companies that are dropped from the list this year, including AT&T, IBM, Siemens and Xerox. “For IBM, although they regularly top the list of US patentees by volume of patents each year, the Top 100 Global Innovators listing evaluates not just volume, but also success, globalization and impact,” said Bob Stembridge, analyst with Thomson Reuters IP & Science. Japan and the United States are innovation hotspots and chemical, semiconductor and electronic components and autos are the top innovative industries, according to the report.
