The Austrian Patent Office releases patent application trends and statistics in 2022
In 2022, Austrians applied for 10,816 patents worldwide. Compared with 2021, global applications fell by nearly 2%. The past few years have been weak patent years for almost all European countries. However, some countries such as France, Sweden and Denmark have reversed this trend and recently filed for more patents again. Germany, like Austria, remains at crisis level.
But even so, Austria’s R&D spending still ranks third in Europe. It is also reassuring to see that Austria continues to experience strong growth in the field of future technologies, ranking 8th within the EU.
In 2022, the Austrian Patent Office accepted a total of 2,231 invention applications. In first place is Upper Austria with 470 inventions, followed by Styria in second place with 436 inventions and Vienna in third place with 345 inventions. Vorarlberg ranks first in terms of the number of inventions made by its residents. The applicant with the largest number of patent applications in Austria is the AVL List, with 189 invention patent applications, followed by Julius Blum with 79 inventions, and Engel and Siemens each with 26 invention patent applications.
In June 2023, a unified European patent will become a reality. It heralds that a new era that Europe has been working towards for 50 years is becoming a reality, that is: EU member states are becoming more closely connected and creating a common and unified patent. patent area.
With a unitary patent, applicants only need to submit one application, one fee, and one translation to the European Patent Office to obtain protection in the 17 EU member states. When filing a patent application in Austria, the Austrian Patent Office will provide EPO search services free of charge, which will benefit small and medium-sized enterprises a lot.
In Austria, 53% of domestic patent applicants come from large companies in the country, and this trend continues to rise. Startups performed well among the patent office’s new clients. According to the Austrian SME Office, about a quarter of Austrian start-ups have their own patents and nearly 55% have registered trademarks. Austrian universities or research institutions are particularly eye-catching, with 50% of them holding patents.
The numbers show that Austrians have developed a large number of future technologies in artificial intelligence, 3D printing and robotics. In industrial applications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the number of Austrian patent applications has more than tripled since 2010. In some areas, including energy-saving technology, data management and robotics, patent applications have even increased sixfold since 2010. This shows that the "future production" and "future information and communication technology" projects carried out in Austria in recent years have achieved initial results, and the research work of related COMET centers, such as the Austrian Digital Production Center, the Linz Mechatronics Center, and Pro2Future - Future products and production systems are playing an increasingly important role.
