Brussels, 04/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - 274,000 filings were submitted to the European Patents Office (EPO) in 2014. This is a new absolute record, following the 266,000 filings in 2013. This is the fifth consecutive year this figure has increased, according to an EPO announcement in a press release published on Thursday 26 February.
“Europe continues to strengthen its key role as a global hub of technology and innovation for a growing number of companies from around the world”, explained EPO President Benoit Battistelli, who added that, “The rise in patent filings originating from Europe underlines the importance of patent-intensive industries as a solid base for the European knowledge economy: they foster Europe's competitiveness, economic strength and employment”.
Among these 274,000 filings, 35% of the total filings at the EPO last year came from the 38 EPO member states. 26% came from the US, 18% from Japan, 9% from China and 6% from South Korea, according to the EPO; this distribution between members and non-members is equivalent to the rate in previous years. The organisation explains that Europe is in the lead with regard to the number of filings per capita, an important figure that reflects “European countries' capacity for innovation”.
For Europe, the 1.2% growth in the volume of filings coming from the 38 EPO member states in 2014 was based on varied trends in individual countries. There was major growth in filings from the Netherlands (+9.1%), the UK (+4.8%) and France (+4%), and also some countries with lower filing levels such as Poland (+21.5%), Slovenia (+12.6%), Portugal (+7.6%), Turkey (+6.2%) and Austria (+4.5%). There was a drop in the number of filings from Finland (-9.3%), Switzerland (-3.1%), Spain (-2.1%). In several countries, the number of filings remains stable compared to 2013: Denmark (+2%), Belgium (+1.8%), Italy (+0.5%), Sweden (+0%) and Germany (-0.8%).
Five European companies are in the top 10 of those that made the most filings: Philips (second place), Siemens (third place), BASF (sixth-place), Robert Bosch (eighth place) and Ericsson (ninth place). The first place was occupied by the Korean company, Samsung.
The EPO underlines the “ambitious” modernisation programme to tackle this increase in filings. It focuses on human resources policy, cooperation with the member states and the use of information technology networks. (Jean Comte)