EPO Patent Index 2020 Underscores Sharp Rise of China as International Tech Large

On March 16, the European Patent Office (EPO) released the Patent Index 2020, which gives the public a snapshot look at of the filing pursuits heading on at the EU’s patent granting company through the past calendar year. Total patent software filings declined only a bit through 2020 to just around 180,000 patent apps, a reduction of .7% in contrast to the EPO’s 2019 patent submitting totals. Despite a 4.1% reduce in patent application filings at the EPO, the United States however held the top rated spot amid specific international locations with 44,293 EPO patent filings. Patent software filing totals also dropped in Germany (down 3% to 25,954 filings) and Japan (down 1.1% to 21,841). The United States, Germany and Japan had been ranked 1st, second and third, respectively, in the EPO Patent Index 2020.

Even though it nevertheless has some ground to acquire, China appears to be building great on its initiatives to achieve and retain a position as a world-wide tech large. The state built significant strides on the EPO’s Patent Index 2020, with a 9.9% enhance in filings over 2019’s totals, the biggest improve of the prime 10 nations around the world in the 2020 index. Though China’s 13,432 patent software filings at the EPO trails Japan’s totals by a sizable amount, it ranks in fourth place ahead of France, which contributed 10,554 patent software filings to the EPO in 2020, a 3% boost around the past year’s totals. The second-biggest proportion raise was seen in South Korea, which accounted for 9,106 patent application filings to the EPO in 2020, a 9.2% increase about 2019.

Are Chinese Patent Regulation Reforms Democratizing Innovation in a Communist Region?

1 of the biggest motives for China’s increase in position in a variety of global patent rankings is thanks to the patent submitting activity of that country’s main telecom company Huawei, which rated next in the Patent Index amid all entities submitting for patents at the EPO, with 3,113 patent apps filed during 2020, almost a single-quarter of all Chinese filings at the EPO previous 12 months. Huawei is a important player in the industry of 5G wi-fi know-how and its patent portfolio in this space is proving to be significantly useful. As of mid-March, Huawei has declared 3,007 patent people to specifications location companies (SSOs) creating specialized benchmarks for 5G wi-fi devices, and investigation indicates that just about 20% of those people patent property are at this time in use. Both equally of people totals have eclipsed the 5G patent action of all other competitors in this place.

Still China’s sturdy demonstrating in the EPO Patent Index 2020 must also be attributed to the attempts undertaken by China’s communist federal government to democratize mental property rights and protections. Huawei basically ranked initially between all businesses filing for patent purposes at the EPO in the 2019 patent index, with 3,524 filings that year, so Huawei’s 2020 filings truly lessened at a greater fee than the total index decline. China had presently been increasing patentability in parts like program and business method patents, sectors which have been below excellent attack by the U.S. patent technique in latest years. Very last October, China’s top rated legislature handed the Fourth Amendment to Chinese Patent Law which, when it goes into outcome this June, will introduce punitive damages for willful patent infringement, set up a patent linkage regime for pharmaceutical patents and fortify protections for style and design patents. China’s significant percentage advancement in the EPO’s Patent Index 2020, coupled with Huawei’s sizable drop in filings, signifies that the country’s patent process reforms in recent yrs could pretty effectively be a climbing tide lifting quite a few boats—notwithstanding the status of numerous boats as condition-owned entities.

Of program, a lot of observers of China’s increasing patent system have famous that a lot of that expansion has been spurred on by several varieties of federal government intervention. This January, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office environment issued a report exhibiting that increased stages of Chinese patent and trademark filings have been supported by non-sector variables these types of as authorities subsidies to patent and trademark candidates for their filing pursuits. Definitely these non-current market point out-sponsored aspects have led to a lot of fraudulent and reduced-excellent filings in both the patent and trademark area. Nonetheless, in contrast to the U.S., where by Area 101 reform just can’t get passed in Congress despite prevalent acknowledgment that judicial exceptions to patent eligibility are choking off crucial sectors of innovation, the Chinese federal government proceeds to present alone as staying responsive to properly-started criticism, saying in late January strategies to eliminate all patent filing subsidy systems place in position by Chinese provincial governments by the calendar year 2025.

Health care Engineering, Digital Communications Continue being the Best Innovation Sectors in 2020

Amid the speediest-increasing tech sectors in phrases of EPO patent filings, the Patent Index 2020 demonstrates pretty very little modify in which sectors are responsible for the largest number of patent software filings. Clinical technology (14,295 patent filings) overtook digital conversation (14,122 patent filings) to get the prime spot among the all tech sectors, but aside from some insignificant shifts in position, the best 10 technical fields in 2020 mirror the prime 10 complex fields in the EPO’s Patent Index 2019. Interestingly, the EPO Patent Index 2020 characteristics most of the raise of patent filings in the professional medical technologies, pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in spurring innovation, whilst other 2020 patent rankings produced this year reveal that it is too early to gauge the impression of the world-wide pandemic on patent submitting activities just nonetheless.

The EPO Patent Index 2020 also contains a snapshot into digital technologies patent filings, which are expanding thanks in massive part to knowledge-pushed innovation underpinning the Fourth Industrial Revolution as perfectly as the arrival of 5G mobile networking. Equally electronic conversation and laptop or computer technology (3rd-put, 13,097 patent filings) together accounted for 15% of all 2020 patent software filings at the EPO. Huawei was the major applicant in 2020 for digital communications with 1,868 patent filings in that sector at the EPO past 12 months, and the Chinese telecom giant ranked fifth in laptop engineering with 409 patent apps past yr. While Ericsson and Qualcomm rank higher in digital communication filings, and top rated personal computer technological innovation candidates include things like American tech giants Microsoft, Intel and Alphabet, significantly of the growth in these sectors is once again getting pushed by companies from Asia, which includes firms like Samsung, Oppo, ZTE, Sony and Fujitsu.

Steve Brachmann

is a freelance journalist situated in Buffalo, New York. He has worked professionally as a freelancer for a lot more than a decade. He writes about know-how and innovation. His perform has been printed by The Buffalo Information, The Hamburg Sun, USAToday.com, Chron.com, Motley Fool and OpenLettersMonthly.com. Steve also gives website duplicate and files for many small business consumers and is offered for investigate jobs and freelance perform.