Switzerland ranked first for patent applications

8 years ago - Published in Finance, Technical Analysis

The European Patent Office (EPO) granted a record number of European patents in 2016, while the US led the charge for applications. According to a report released on Tuesday, the EPO granted 96.000 European patents in 2016, an increase of 40% year-on-year, which is due to “effective measures” to improve the EPO’s productivity.

“The figure is an indicator of the growing demand for patent protection from businesses worldwide,” said the EPO. It also recorded an “unprecedented” level of patent filings in 2016, reaching more than 296.000, an increase of 6.2% compared with 2015.

The five countries of origin with the largest numbers of European patent applications were the US (25%), Germany (16%), Japan (13%), France (7%) and Switzerland (5%). The Helvetic Confederation registered more European patent applications per capita in 2016 than any other country, with 892 per million inhabitants. The Netherlands were in second place with 405 applications, and Sweden in third, with 360 applications. 

Patent applications from the US had an “unusual surge” in 2015 because of the one-off effect of a change in US patent law (America Invents Act of 2013), the EPO said. Now, the results have normalised—down 5.9% on 2015 at 40,076, which is still 9.3% up on 2014 (36,668).

Nearly half of the overall patent filings originated from the EPO’s 38 member states, and there was also strong growth again in applications from China (+24.8%) and Korea (+6.5%). Chinese applications exceeded ones from Korea for the first time, while applications from Japan declined slightly (-1.9%), continuing the trend of the past few years.

Within Switzerland, the cantons of Zurich and Vaud were the top European regions for patent applications, with Zurich seeing a growth of 13.8% on the previous year. The two regions are home to numerous multinationals as well as the country’s two world-leading technology institutions, the EHT Zurich and EPFL in Lausanne, which made 71 and 80 patent applications respectively in 2016. 
 
Among Swiss companies, pharmaceutical multinational Hoffmann-La Roche made the most patent applications (644), followed by tech leader ABB (553), food giant Nestle (442) and pharma company Novartis (316).

Benoît Battistelli, EPO president, said: “The 2016 results confirm Europe’s attractiveness as a leading global marketplace for innovation.” He added: “In a rapidly changing political and economic landscape, companies from around the world have kept up their demand for patent protection in Europe.” Battistelli said that the EPO has responded to this “sustained strong demand” for patents by significantly increasing its performance and maintaining quality standards.

“These results clearly show that the reforms introduced at the EPO in the past five years are effective and reflect the needs of the European economy,” he said. Over Brexit, he added the EU can find a way to keep the UK in the unitary patent after Brexit, even though it will require the country to continue accepting the supremacy of EU law. “I’m convinced we’ll find a solution even if there is a hard Brexit and the UK leaves the single market."