Global Patent Trends

The European Patent Office (EPO), revealed the statistics for the global company that has filed patents in Europe. EPO says that Philips filed the third largest number of patent applications in 2013 with 59% increase compare to last year. The company has 64,000 patent rights, 93,000 design rights, 46,000 trademarks and 4,700 domain names. Other companies that appear in the top 25 include General Electric, Samsung and LG.

Meanwhile, patent filing at the Indian Patent Office (IPO) is increased by 23.97%. Out of 43,663 applications filed in 2012-2013, majority were international applications.

“According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO-2012) report, while China’s contribution to the rise in patent applications globally has increased from 37.2 per cent between 1995-2009 to 72.1% from 2009-11, India’s contribution decreased from 3.5 % between 1995-2009 to 2.7 % between 2009-2011.

The report shows that while China topped the global list by filing 503,582 patent applications, India was ranked seventh with 42,291 applications,” said Rakesh Kumar, deputy controller of patents and designs and head of Mumbai office.

Patent office reported that, maximum applications in 2012-13 were filed in mechanical (around 9,000), followed by chemical (7,000). While computer-related applications accounted for 4,500, about 4,300 were filed in the field of drugs, followed by 2,500 in electrical and close to 900 in biotech.

By Akshatha Karthik

Image Courtesy of  Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net