The European Patent Office (EPO) has recently published Patent Index for 2023, which represents the survey of the filed patent applications for the protection of inventions by European patent and survey of the granted European patents by the European Patent Office.
A total increase of 2.9% applications for the protection of inventions by the European patent has been noticed, primarily due to the increase of the number of patent applications originating from China, that has almost equal number of applications with those originating from Japan, and a considerable increase of applications has been noticed from applicants originating from the Republic of Korea.
Somewhat lesser increase has been noticed with the applications filed by the entities from Europe (1.8%), and considerably lesser from the USA. In the absolute numbers, a total of the 199,275.00 applications for the protection of inventions by the European patent was filed, which represents a record.
The increase in the number of applications by companies, startups, universities and R&D organizations from European countries is positive, but it is considerably different from one state to another. The greatest increase in this category of entities has been noticed among the applicants from Finland (+9.2%), then Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In 2023, the EPO increased efficiency of examination, which resulted in over 104,600.00 granted European patents. From that number, for 17.5% of granted European patents, the holders requested the Unitary effect through Unitary patent, that entered into force since June 1, 2023. Through European patent with Unitary effect, that can be requested one month after the grant of the European Patent, the expenses for validation are decreased, for now, in 17 member states of the EU by filing just one request. Entities from Europe, to whom patent has been granted in 2023, constitute even two thirds of the holders that requested Unitary effect through Unitary patent.
As could be expected, patent activities in the domain of digital technologies are again at the top, with the absolute number of applications in this field of over 17,700.00 applications (+8.6%), and the greatest number of applications, thanks partly to the number of innovations in the field of batteries, has been noticed in the field of electronic devices and energy, with the increase of 12.2% and with over 15,300.00 applications of European patents.
The field of biotechnology, with the implementation in medicine or agriculture, had the increase of 5.9% which keeps on being for sometime, the field with the greatest trend of growth in the domain of health and chemistry.
More about statistical data and trends for applications and granted European patents in 2023 can be seen on the Internet presentation of the European Patent Organization at the following link.
