For the first time in the history of the European Patent Office (EPO), a Chinese company, Huawei, became the leader in the number of patents applied for in Europe last year 2017: 2,398 in total.
Second place in the ranking went to a European company, Siemens, with 2,220 patents applied for, representing an 18.7% increase. Siemens has moved from sixth to second place in one year.
The third company with the most patents applied for in Europe was another Asian company, the Korean LG, with 2,056 patents requested (11.1% less than the previous year), according to data offered in the EPO's annual report.
Among the ten most active companies in applying for European patents are four European (in addition to Siemens, Royal Philips, Robert Bosch, and Ericsson), three from the United States (Qualcomm, United Technologies, and Intel), two Korean (LG and Samsung), and one Chinese (the aforementioned Huawei).
The following graph shows the top 20 companies in the ranking:
Among the hundred companies with the most patent applications filed throughout 2017, shown in the following interactive table, no Spanish company appears:
The most active Spanish companies or entities in requesting European patents throughout 2017 were the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the Tecnalia Research & Innovation Foundation and the company Laboratorios del Dr. Esteve, as shown in the following graph:
Most active sectors
Medical technology was the most active field in the European patent sector in 2017 with a total of 13,090 applications, 6.2% more than the previous year.
The second most active area was digital communication, where 11,694 applications were registered, 5.7% more than in 2016.
Computer science, the electrical power sector, and transportation were the next three fields with the most activity. The largest relative growth among the top 10 fields occurred in the biotechnology sector, with an increase of 14.5%.
In the specific case of Spain, the largest number of European patent applications occurred in the field of organic fine chemistry (138 in total), as shown in the following graphic prepared by Statista:
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