According to a recent release by the European Patent Office (the “EPO”), the EPO received in 2012 a total of 258,000 patent applications from all over the world, with an increase of 5.2% over 2011.
With regard to the number of the filings, the top five countries in 2012 were the US (24.6%), Japan (20.1%), Germany (13.3%), China (7.3%), and Korea (5.6%). And the largest growth came from China with an increase of 11.1% as compared with the previous year, showing that China has become No. 1 country in terms of the growth of patent applications at the EPO.
2 Chinese companies are among the top 20 filers, ZTE and HUAWEI. And ZTE is among the top 10, up from the 33rd. In terms of the technical areas, 42% of all applications from China related to digital communication technology.