IBM earns patents yearly. Innovation is really at the heart of this brand. But sometimes, ok, most of the time, these patents aren’t all that easy to understand nor to visually digest, they’re often lengthy documents that wouldn’t necessarily stop you on your tracks.

So we gathered 20 of the best IBM patents from the last two decades, and after squeezing them down to its most elemental meaning, we briefed artists around the globe on visual concepts that would then be part of the THINK 20 poster campaign, science made visually striking and easier to connect with, by anyone. 

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Patent No. 8103956. 2012.   

Sightless multimedia browsing.  

The visually impaired browse Web pages with software that reads text aloud. But these systems were unable to detect what content had been recently updated until this patented innovation came along. Now the blind can keep up with their friends’ random social media posts just as easily as the rest of us can. 

Patent No.8275803. 2012.

Deep QA.

What if you could sift through a million books per second, funneling down huge stacks of information to find the precise answer to a problem? This patented cognitive computing system acts like the world’s most advanced computer: the human brain. Making sense of wordplay, slang, quips and puns, it translates natural language into insights and solutions.

Patent No. 8247261. 2012.

Flex circuits.

This flexible circuit innovation can be twisted and folded to power tiny medical implants, wearable computers, even superflexible, nearly weightless electronic devices. So one day diabetics could wear a shirt that monitors their blood sugar and is connected to a tiny implant that dispenses insulin. And it could all be tracked on a device folded up in their back pocket. 

This poster campaign, besides being featured in Shots magazine, also won at some of the most renowned ad festivals like Cannes Lions and London International Awards :)

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