Source: European Patent Office (EPO) Official Website
On March 16, 2021, the European Patent Office (EPO) released Patent Index 2020, in which showed that it received 13, 432 patent applications filed by Chinese applicants, a 9.9% year-on-year growth. At this point, China has reached a new high for the number of patent applications in Europe.
According to the statistics, the number of patent applications filed by most technology-leading regions has decreased compared with that of 2019. The 2020 ranking reflects that the number of China has increased by 9.9%, while US down by 4.1%, EU down by 1.3%, and Japan down by 1.1%. Besides, South Korea also has enjoyed an increase of 9.2%. The TOP 5 countries are US, Germany, Japan, China and France respectively.
The top 3 technology fields of applications filed by Chinese applicants are digital communication, computer technology and electr.machinery, apparatus, energy. China’s applications of digital communication accounted for 26.5% of the total filed by all the countries.
Huawei ranks the second place with 3, 113 patent applications. Samsung tops the table. OPPO, MIUI, BOE and ZTE are in the top 50 applicants.
For COVID-19 pandemic, medical technology returned to top spot (+2.6%), while pharmaceuticals and biotechnology surged, up +10.2% and +6.3% respectively. The transport decreased by 5.5%.
