The number of European patent applications from Chinese companies in 2021 hit a new record of 16,665, the Munich-based European Patent Office (EPO) said, informed The Xinhua News Agency.
In total, EPO recorded 188,600 patent applications from all over the world last year, 4.5% more than in the previous year. Growing at 24%, Chinese companies recorded the highest rate among the 30 leading patent filing countries.
"Over the past 10 years in the European Patent Office, we've seen that the number of patent applications from Chinese companies has increased four times in 2021", – Aidan Kendrick, EPO Chief Business Analyst, told Xinhua.
A visitor tries a 5G industrial helmet at the exhibition area of Huawei during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. Photo by Xinhua/Zheng Huansong.
"What we see in 2021 is continued dynamic growth of applications from China at the European Patent Office. In 2021, the rate of increase with some 24%, which represents an extremely dynamic development", – he added.
In the field of digital communications, which accounted for the most patent applications, Chinese companies were already the biggest patent filer with a share of 29% in 2021. In other fields, such as biotechnology and audio-visual technology, filings by Chinese companies skyrocketed by up to 75%.
With 3,544 filings, Chinese tech giant Huawei filed more patent applications in 2021 than any other company, ahead of Samsung and LG from South Korea, according to the EPO.
For the first time, all top six Chinese companies, including Oppo, ZTE, Baidu, Xiaomi and Tencent, were also listed among the 50 largest European patent applicants.
A visitor interacts with a Xiaomi CyberDog at the exhibition area of Xiaomi during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. Photo by Xinhua/Zheng Huansong.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.