Health care drives EU patent applications

The European Patent Office (EPO) said Tuesday that a total of 180,250 applications for patents were filed with the EU's main patents registration body in 2020, which was close to the record number of 181,532 patents in 2019.

Publishing its 2020 Patent Index report, Munich, Germany-based EPO described patenting activity as "robust" despite the global coronavirus pandemic. However, while the data for 2020 was conclusive, EPO President Antonio Campinos said "it is far from presenting a complete picture" of the longer-term effects of the pandemic. "Those, I'm sure, are yet to be seen," he added in a statement. 

Medical technology drives patents in pandemic year

As the coronavirus is keeping the world in a tight grip, there's only little surprise that creative minds are increasingly focusing on public health care, including vaccines and treatments against COVID-19, for innovations.

EPO's report shows medical technology was the leading field of inventions in terms of volume last year, with pharmaceuticals and biotechnology becoming the fastest-growing single areas. Patent filings in the two sectors grew 10.2% and 6.3%, respectively, seeing the medical sector surpass digital communication as the previous growth champion.

Nevertheless, digital and computer technologies, such as 5G communications networks and artificial intelligence applications, continued to show strong patent filings last year. What suffered, though, was innovation in transport technology, especially in areas like aviation and aerospace, and to a lesser extent in the automotive sector.

China and South Korea catching up

The list of countries from were the EPO in Munich received the most applications was last year again topped by the United States, unchanged from its position in 2019. Germany followed up, ahead of Japan, China and France.

The pace at which some of those countries grew their innovations, however, changed over the year. Among the top 10 most innovative countries, China recorded the biggest increase in patent filings, up 9.9%, maintaining its record growth of 2019.

South Korean inventors also made big strides boosting their filings with the EPO by 9.2%. While Chinese firms were particularly active in biotechnology, electrical machinery and clean energy innovations, South Korean companies mainly filed for patent protection related to inventions in telecommunications, semiconductors and computer technology.

By contrast, US patent applicants, who accounted for a quarter of all 2020 applications, sought 4.1% fewer patents last year, with numbers dropping significantly in areas such as transport, electrical machinery, energy and organic fine chemicals.

Finland, France and Italy buck EU's downward trend

The European Patent Office in Munich is the executive body of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), which also includes the Administrative Council as a supervisory board. There are 38 members in the EPOrg — primarily all EU member states plus a couple of other European states, who have signed up to the European Patent Convention.

From those 38 so-called contracting states, a total of 81,000 applications for patents were filed in 2020, which was 1.3% fewer than in the previous year. Last year, inventors in Germany (-3%), the Netherlands (-8.2%) and the UK (-6.8%) were especially unproductive.

Perhaps it's some consolation for European leaders that France (+3.1%) and Italy (+2.9%) did considerably better than in the previous year. After all, among the top 10 companies seeking the most patents for their new inventions, the majority still comes from Europe.