Catalonia has once again led the number of patent applications in Spain and has achieved a new record in 2023. According to data presented by the European Patent Office (EPO), the autonomous community issued 731 applications, 13.2% more than last year and a figure that represents a share of 34.6% compared to the rest of the country. The EPO attributes this trend to the "solidity" of the pharmaceutical sector and the recovery of the automotive industry, which in 2022 registered a significant drop in the number of procedures, still marked by the effects of covid-19.
Following the trend of recent years, the healthcare sector continues to lead the number of permits. According to the ACN, in Spain as a whole, the field of health technology accounted for one in four applications. In Catalonia specifically, the pharmaceutical sector registered 75 patent applications in 2023, followed by technology for medical applications (59), the chemical sector (54) and biotechnology (54). For the director of communication and spokesperson for the European Patent Office, Luis Berenguer, the figures for the health sector consolidate Catalonia as "the engine of growth in Spain." "When we talk about Spain, we are not exclusively talking about Catalonia, but we are largely talking about the cluster that exists there; one thing goes with the other," he points out.
However, in Catalonia, other fields also stood out in 2023, such as engines, batteries and turbines (41 applications), machinery (40), energy (39) or transport (27), all directly or indirectly linked to the automotive industry. After a 2022 in which the number of requests decreased due to the persistent effects of covid-19 on the industry, this year has experienced growth. "We observe precisely how sectors such as batteries are also growing; with this, we interpret that the automotive industry remains strong and is moving towards the green sector," Berenguer specifies.
In Catalonia, the University of Barcelona (UB) was the institution that issued the most patent applications in 2023, with a total of 16, four more than last year. Next appear Eurecat, with 14; the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), with 14, and the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), with 13.
Although Catalonia was the community that issued the most requests in the country, none of its entities are among the five largest Spanish applicants. This list includes the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) with 80, the company Amadeus with 47, Multiverse Computing with 24, the Tecnalia Research & Innovation Foundation with 17, and Telefónica also with 17. From the EPO, they point out that this denotes a broad participation of the private sector in Catalonia in the field of innovation, with "many companies spread across a structure similar to that of countries experiencing great growth" such as Germany or northern Italy, where the number of applications is very high but at the same time very diversified.
One of the novelties presented by this year's patent index is the analysis of women's contribution to innovation. In Spain, in this regard, 46% of the applications submitted in 2023 had at least one woman on the research team. This places Spain at the top of the list of countries that submitted the most applications and well above the average of 27% for Europe as a whole. Despite everything, there are sectors such as mechanical engineering where female presence barely represents 14%. Furthermore, Berenguer emphasizes that, despite advances in reducing the gender gap, there is a lack of women leading teams: "Women are part of a team, but they don't lead it."