A few days ago, according to authoritative media reports at home and abroad, according to the "2021 Patent Index" report released by the European Patent Office (EPO) on the 5th local time, 16,665 patent applications were received from China in 2021, once again setting a new high for the number of patent applications filed by China at the European Patent Office, an increase of 24% year-on-year, and the highest increase in the 30 major patent application countries. Overall, in the past decade, China's patent filings in Europe have increased fourfold. Among them, the number of Huawei applications is breaking records, pressing competitors to rank first, and OPPO applications have surpassed ZTE and Baidu in 13th place.
According to the official website of the European Patent Office, the European Patent Office received a total of 188,600 patent applications in 2021, an increase of 4.5% year-on-year. The top five patent applicants are the United States, Germany, Japan, China and France. Among them, the increase in new patents in the three major fields of computer technology, digital communications and pharmaceuticals ranked in the top three. The growth in the number of patent applications at the European Patent Office in 2021 was mainly driven by the number of patent applications from China and the United States. The United States once again became the country with the largest number of EPO patent applications, with the same number as the second place Germany and the third place Japan combined. China became the strongest growing major innovator, with 16,665 patent applications, once again setting a new record for the number of patent applications filed at the European Patent Office, up 24% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that Asian companies are more active. The companies that filed the most applications in Europe are all from Asia, starting with Huawei, which filed 3,544 patent applications throughout the year, becoming the company with the largest number of patents filed with the EPO last year. Samsung and LG from South Korea ranked second and third with 3439 and 2422 respectively. In 2020, Samsung Electronics topped the list with 3276 patent applications, but it was surpassed by Huawei in only one year. LG, on the other hand, remains unchanged for 2020. In addition, OPPO ranked 13th with a total of 1,087 patent applications. In the Top25 list, Huawei, OPPO, ZTE, Baidu four Chinese companies on the list.
According to Huawei's 2021 annual report released recently, although Huawei's terminal business is still affected by sanctions, its investment in technology research and development as a proportion of revenue still hit a new high. In 2021, Huawei's R&D investment reached 142.7 billion yuan, accounting for 22.4% of the annual revenue, and the cumulative R&D expenditure invested in 10 years exceeded 845 billion yuan. In addition, following Meituan Payment, Didi Payment, Duoduo Payment, and Byte Payment, Huawei Payment has also come now. Recently, Huawei Pay appeared on the Huawei Wallet App and launched the first binding and random marketing activities. From the functional point of view, it can provide individual users with balance and bank card payment, red envelopes, recharge, withdrawal and other services, and provide enterprise users with fund settlement, automatic accounting, etc.
In the field of digital communications, OPPO ranked fifth with 688 patent applications, second only to Huawei, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Samsung. At the same time, communication is also a key technical field of OPPO. At present, OPPO has obtained 5G communication standard patents in more than 30 countries and regions around the world, completed a total of 4600+ global patent applications, and declared 2000+ families 5G standard patents at ETSI. According to the 2021 Global 5G Standard Essential Patent Claims Report released by IPlytics, a leading German research institute, OPPO ranks 9th in the world. OPPO has submitted more than 5,000 standard manuscripts in the 3GPP. In addition to the field of communications/5G, OPPO has also accumulated a wealth of high-quality patents in the fields of AI, imaging, and fast charging.
It is reported that as of the end of the first quarter of this year, OPPO's global patent applications exceeded 77,000, and the number of global authorizations exceeded 38,000. Among them, the number of invention patent applications exceeded 69,000, and invention patent applications accounted for 90% of all patent applications. Oppo ranks 6th globally according to the 2021 International Patent Treaty (PCT) Applications Ranking published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). OPPO has laid out patents in more than 40 countries and regions around the world. Continuous R&D investment and technological innovation not only precipitate a wealth of intellectual property assets for OPPO, but also drive OPPO to continue to bring innovative products and services to global users.
The European Patent Office said the rapid growth in patent filings in the fields of digital communications and computer technology in 2021 shows that digital transformation is taking place in various industries, and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology continue to flourish, highlighting the high level of innovation in vaccines and other healthcare areas. Aidan Kendrick, chief business analyst at the European Patent Office, said that the number of patent applications received by the European Patent Office from China has increased by fourfold in the past decade; Data from 2021 shows that the number of patent applications in China shows a "very dynamic development trend".