2023 European Patent Index Report Released, EPO Patent Applications Increased by 2.9%

According to the "European Patent Index 2023" released by the EPO, the EPO received a total of 19,275 patent applications in 2023, an increase of 2.9% over 2022, continuing the growth rate of 2.6% in 2022 and 4.7% in 2021.

Digital communications and energy technologies are emerging

• In 2023, the area with the strongest growth among all technical fields of EPO patent applications was electrical machines, instruments and energy, which increased by 12.2% compared to 2022. This included inventions related to clean energy technologies such as batteries, which increased by 28%. Patent applications in the field of biotechnology also continued to grow by around 5.9%.

Global and European trends

• The top five countries of origin of European patent applications in 2023 are the United States, Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. Of all applications, 43% came from the 39 EU member states, while 57% came from other countries outside Europe. The number of patent applications from the 39 EU member states increased again by 1.8% to 85,748, with above-average growth in technical fields such as digital communications, biotechnology, computer technology and measurement.
  

• Among the 39 EU member states, Finland, Spain, the UK and Italy had the strongest growth in Europe. Among the countries with more than 5,000 applications, the UK had the largest increase, up 4.2%, followed by Italy with 3.8%, the Netherlands with 3.5%, Switzerland with 2.7% and Sweden with 2%. Among the European countries with more than 1,000 applications, Finland and Spain had the largest growth, with growth rates of 9.2% and 6.9% respectively.

Outside Europe

• The overall growth in EPO patent applications in 2023 was mainly driven by South Korea and China, with South Korea entering the top five for the first time with a significant increase of 21%, while China's European patent applications have more than doubled since 2018.
• Huawei once again became the main applicant, followed by Samsung, LG, Qualcomm and Ericsson. Among the top 10 applicants, there are 4 companies from Europe, 2 companies from South Korea, 2 companies from the United States, and 1 company each from China and Japan.
• One in four patent applications comes from small companies, while another 8% comes from universities and public research institutions.

Female Inventors

• This year's patent index also looks at women's contribution to innovation. In European patent applications in 2023, 27% of patent applications had at least one female inventor. Among countries with annual applications exceeding 2,000, Spain, France and Belgium were the countries with the highest proportion of patent applications with at least one female inventor in 2023.

Steady development of the European unitary patent

• Since the implementation of the European Unitary Patent in June 2023, 17.5% of patent applications, totaling 18,300 applicants, have chosen the European Unitary Patent, demonstrating the beneficial impact of the European Unitary Patent on patent applicants.
• 25.8% of European patent applicants chose the European unified patent, followed by the United States and China, with a total of 10.9% of patent applicants choosing the unified patent when granted, South Korea with 9.7% and Japan with 4.9%. The main European unified patent applicants in 2023 are: Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, Qualcomm, Samsung and Ericsson.