2023 European Patent Index Announced: Huawei Tops the Top Category for the Third Consecutive Year with 5,071 Patent Applications!
On March 19, the European Patent Office (EPO) released the "Patent Index 2023", in which companies and inventors filed 199275 patent applications with the EPO in 2023, an increase of 2.9% over the previous year and a record high. The top five countries with the highest number of patent applications were the United States with 48,155 (+0.4%), Germany with 24,966 (+1.4%), Japan with 21,520 (-0.3%), China with 20,735 (+8.8%) and South Korea with 12,575 (21%).
According to the European Patent Office, Chinese enterprises and inventors filed a total of 20,735 applications, an increase of 8.8% from 19,062 applications in 2022 and more than double the number of applications in the past five years. This shows the investment of Chinese companies in R&D and the focus on high-growth technology areas such as digital communications, electrical machinery, medical technology and biotechnology.
In 2023, Huawei filed 5,071 applications with the EPO, accounting for a quarter of all patent applications from China, topping the EPO applicant rankings for the third consecutive year. The top 10 manufacturers were Samsung (4,760), LG (3,498), Qualcomm (3,275), Ericsson (1,969), Siemens (1,889), Raytheon Technologies (1,822), BASF (1,445), Royal Philips (1,299), and Sony (1,213).
If we only look at the ranking of patents filed by Chinese manufacturers at the European Patent Office in 2023, in addition to Huawei, which ranks first, it also includes ZTE (947), CATL (832), OPPO Guangdong Mobile Communications (774) and vivo Mobile Communications (701), Xiaomi (544), Honor (535), Lenovo (386), Tencent (301), Haier (274), etc.
In terms of the fields covered by the 199275 patent applications filed by global companies and inventors with the EPO in 2023, the digital communications sector had the highest number of patent applications, reaching 17,749, up 8.6% year-on-year, followed by medical (15,985, up 1.3% year-on-year), computers (15,746, up 1.2% year-on-year), electrical machinery (15,304, up 12.2% year-on-year), measurement (9,565, up 3.5% year-on-year), transportation (9445 pieces), etc.
In 2023, the top three areas of patent applications filed in China were digital communications (up 9.7% from 2022), electrical machinery and energy (up 27.5%), and computer technology (up 0.3%). In the field of digital communications, China has become the country with the most patent applications. For the first time, China is also the leading country in patent applications in the fields of electrical machinery, instrumentation and energy, including battery technology. In terms of patent applications related to battery technology, three Chinese companies (CATL, ATL New Energy Technology and BYD) are in the top 10 of the European Patent Office. In addition to the digital/ICT sector, Chinese companies are actively filing patents in a range of other areas, including biotechnology (up 23.7% from 2022), medical technology (up 27.7%), and organic fine chemistry (up 38.2%).
Editor: Xinzhixun-Rogue Sword