View of the Huawei Germany headquarters. (picture alliance / dpa)
In 2019, the Chinese telecommunications equipment supplier Huawei was the leader when it came to patent applications in Europe, ahead of the Korean electronics groups Samsung and LG. The European Patent Office (EPO) announced on Thursday in Munich that applications from China rose by 29 percent last year, while those from South Korea increased by 14 percent and those from the United States by 6 percent.
"The rapid rise of digital technologies is the most striking trend from our 2019 index," said EPO President António Campinos. Digital communication has overtaken medical technology as the field with the most innovations. Europe, China and the U.S. are now on a par in this field, each accounting for around a quarter of all patent applications filed with the EPO.
Overall, most applications came from the U.S., followed by Germany, Japan, China and France. The EPO reached a new all-time high of just over 181,000 patent applications. The company ranking reflects the rapidly growing importance of digital technologies: Huawei was at the top of the list for the second time with around 3,500 patent applications. Siemens was in fifth place, Robert Bosch was tenth.
In a comparison of European regions, German regions performed strongly: with almost 8,000 patent applications, Bavaria was far ahead of the Paris region, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant and Stockholm. Berlin came in the 24th place.
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