MUNICH - The European Patent Office - EPO’s Patent Index 2023, published, shows that innovation remained robust, with companies and inventors filing a record number of European patent applications last year, according to the official website of EPO.
Companies and inventors filed 199,275 patent applications at the EPO last year, an increase of 2.9% on the previous year and the highest number to date, according to the latest Patent Index 2023 published today. This follows growth of 2.6% in 2022 and 4.7% in 2021.
“Our latest Patent Index shows that innovation remained vibrant around the world in 2023,” said EPO President António Campinos. “The EPO was entrusted with examining more applications than ever before, attesting to both the attractiveness of the European technology market and the high quality of our products and services. Europe’s small and medium-sized enterprises are making ever-increasing use of patents, with the share of applications from SMEs at its highest level yet last year. These businesses can also now benefit from the new Unitary Patent, which significantly improves the environment for innovation in Europe, providing a simpler and more cost-effective option for innovators to protect their inventions and bring them to the vast EU market.”
Digital communication and energy technologies on the rise
The leading technical fields for patent applications at the EPO last year were digital communication (which covers technologies related to mobile networks), medical technology and computer technology. The strongest growth among all technology fields in 2023, however, was in electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (+12.2% over 2022), which covers inventions related to clean-energy technologies, including batteries (+28%). Patent activity in biotechnology (+5.9%) also continued to rise further.
Global and European trends
The top five countries of origin for European patent applications in 2023 were the United States, Germany, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea. Some 43% of the total applications came from companies and inventors from the EPO’s 39 member states, while 57% originated from outside Europe.
The number of patent applications originating from the EPO’s 39 member states increased again in 2023 (85,748 applications, +1.8%). European companies posted above-average growth in the fields of digital communication (+10.7%), biotechnology (+6.4%), computer technology (+4.2%) and measurement (+4.0%).
Finland, Spain, the UK and Italy with the strongest growth in Europe
While Germany, Europe’s leading country of origin, was back to growth (+1.4%) last year, French firms filed slightly fewer applications (-1.5%). Patent filings from most other European countries were up.
Among the larger patent filing countries (with over 5,000 applications), the highest growth came from the UK (+4.2%), Italy (+3.8%), the Netherlands (+3.5%), Switzerland (+2.7%) and Sweden (+2.0%). Even stronger increases (among European countries with over 1,000 applications) were posted by Finland (+9.2%) and Spain (+6.9%).
More inventions from China and the Republic of Korea
The overall growth in patent applications at the EPO in 2023 was mainly fueled by steep increases from the Republic of Korea (+21.0%) and the People’s Republic of China (+8.8% compared with 2022). The Republic of Korea entered the top five for the first time, while patent applications from China have more than doubled since 2018.
Huawei tops applicant ranking
Huawei was again the leading applicant at the EPO in 2023, followed by Samsung, LG, Qualcomm and Ericsson. The top ten includes four companies from Europe, two from the Republic of Korea, two from the US and one from each of China and Japan.
Nearly every fourth application from Europe filed by a small company
In 2023, 23% of patent applications to the EPO originating in Europe were filed by an individual inventor or a small or medium-sized enterprise (with fewer than 250 employees). A further 8% came from universities and public research organizations (see graph Breakdown of applicants by category). As part of its ongoing support for smaller entities, the EPO has announced new fee reductions as of 1 April 2024 for micro-enterprises, individuals, non-profits, universities and public research organizations.
Spotlight on women inventors
This year’s Patent Index also looks at the contribution of women to innovation. For all patent applications filed with the EPO last year coming from Europe, 27% named at least one woman as an inventor. Among the larger European patent filing countries (with more than 2,000 applications per year), Spain (46%), France (33%), and Belgium (32%) had the highest share of patent applications naming at least one woman as inventor in 2023. In terms of technology sectors, the proportion ranged from 14% for patent applications in mechanical engineering to 50% in chemistry. This data can help in addressing the gaps that remain to be bridged to harness the full potential of women inventors.
Solid uptake of new Unitary Patent
Since June 1, 2023, innovators can also benefit from the Unitary Patent system – a new way to enjoy simpler and cheaper patent protection in 17 EU member states, in which a European patent has unitary legal effect and can be enforced or litigated before the new Unified Patent Court. The new system has already proven popular with patent owners: unitary protection was requested for 17.5% of all European patents granted in 2023 (more than 18 300 requests filed) and for 22.3% of those granted in the second half of 2023. Patentees from Europe (39 EPO member states) had the highest uptake rate at 25.8%, followed by those from the US and China (both 10.9%), the Republic of Korea (9.7%) and Japan (4.9%). The top Unitary Patent requestors in 2023 were Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, Qualcomm, Samsung and Ericsson. Of the patentees who have transformed their European patents into Unitary Patents, some two-thirds are European.