Last year, Catalonia led patent applications in Spain. It offered up to 604 requests in the last fiscal year, 31.4% of the total in Spain, according to figures published this Tuesday by the European Patent Office (EPO). Although Catalonia continues to be ahead in the Spanish state, the number of applications issued this 2022 decreased by 7.4% compared to last year, a fact that the organization attributes to a drop in the number of procedures in the automotive sector, an activity with a particularly relevant weight within the industry. According to ACN, in Catalonia, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the University of Barcelona (UB) were the two institutions that issued the most applications, with 15 and 12, respectively.
One more year, the sectors linked to the field of science and health were presented as the most active. Throughout 2022, the medical technology sector requested 66 patents in Catalonia. Next appears the pharmaceutical sector, with 63 applications, while biotechnology added 57. In fourth position is the chemical sector, with a total of 39 open files, while the electronic machinery and transport sectors issued between 34 and 30 patent applications.
For the director of communication and spokesperson for the European Patent Office, Luis Berenguer, the figures highlight Catalonia's tradition as an ''industrialized'' region and its ability to attract a large part of the pharmaceutical industry in Spain. ''The pharmaceutical sector leads applications in Spain, and this is essentially located in Catalonia,'' he indicates.
Catalonia, moreover, maintains a significant distance from the other communities. Madrid is the second territory that processed the most applications, with a total of 410. On the other hand, the Basque Country occupies the third position with a total of 255 patents. Valencia and Navarra close the ranking of the top 5, with 144 and 112 applications.
A year of consolidation in the State
In relation to the State as a whole, Spanish companies and inventors filed 1,925 applications with the EPO throughout 2022, which would represent the second highest figure in history. The record was held last year, when the number of applications totaled 1,945. In this sense, the spokesperson for the European Patent Office defines 2022 as a year of "consolidation" despite the instability marked by the war in Ukraine and previously Covid-19. "The figures show that innovation is a more necessary sector than ever, even in times of crisis," he points out.
In the same way as in Catalonia, the pharmaceutical sector led with 181 applications in the State, 9.5% of the total. In second position appears medical technology with 161 procedures. Biotechnology closes the podium with 153 and electronic machinery and transport continue to occupy the fourth and fifth positions, with 146 and 101 applications, respectively.
Although still far from the top positions, the figures also show that the number of patent applications in the environmental technologies sector increased by 82.1%, more than in any other field. Although Berenguer believes it is still too early to establish a link between this evolution and the position that Spain has adopted to become one of the great references in the energy transition.
In relation to the most common applicants, the EPO report places the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) ahead, with 90 patents in 2022. The second position in this category is the company Amadeus, with 39, and the bronze medal goes to the company Autotech Engineering, with 25. The UAB, with 16, is the sixth institution that issued the most applications, and the UB, with twelve, the ninth.
Spain and the rest of the world
When it comes to establishing comparisons between Spain and the rest of the world, the State occupies the tenth position among EU countries and 17th globally. However, it drops to 25th position in the ranking of patents per number of inhabitants, 41 per million. ''There is a clear discrepancy between the ranking and Spain's position as an economic power; the Spanish economy has a very powerful services sector, an area where patents are not as relevant,'' says Berenguer. The EPO spokesperson regrets this situation and believes that the State, in this sense, should allocate more resources to research.
Globally, in 2022, 193,460 patent applications were registered, 2.5% more than last year. The United States dominated the sector, accounting for a quarter of all processes, followed by Germany (12.8%), Japan (11.2%), China (9.8%), and France (5.6%).
When analyzing per capita data, however, Switzerland leads the ranking, with 1,031 applications per million inhabitants. Also in the top positions are Sweden (482 per million residents), Denmark (453), the Netherlands (387), and Finland (386).
Rejection of the Unitary European Patent
On June 1, 2023, the new Unitary European Patent system will finally come into force, a project resulting from years of work that will allow the same invention to be protected in different European countries by submitting a single application. However, Spain maintains its refusal to join, forcing companies that want to register a patent to duplicate procedures, one for the State and the other for the set of countries adhering to the new system.
The main reason why Spain is not part of the initiative is a linguistic issue, since the proposal only includes English, French, and German as languages for processing applications, leaving out Spanish. The Spanish government has repeatedly expressed its position, defending the use of Spanish for its ''great relevance on a global scale''.
In this case, from the European Patent Office they regret the Spanish position and assure that this will have ''alterations'' in the number of applications for the future. ''It implies that they will be left out of the market like the European one,'' says Berenguer. ''This will translate into a decrease in the number of applications because Spanish researchers will have duplicated the procedures, complicating the entire process,'' he adds. With only a few months to go before the system comes into force, from the EPO they assure that meetings have been held with the Spanish government for a change of stance, but right now they have ''no indication'' that Spain is willing to modify it.
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