Samsung overtakes Huawei as leading patent applicant in Europe

In 2024, companies and inventors worldwide submitted 199,264 patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO), closely mirroring the previous year's filings. The Patent Index 2024, released by the Industrial Property Organization, highlights that the rate of patent application submissions has stabilized after three consecutive years of significant growth. The EPO's findings emphasize the need for Europe to bolster its innovation ecosystem, particularly in critical sectors like green technology, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors, in order to remain competitive on a global scale. Among the patent applications, computer technology, including artificial intelligence fields like machine learning, marked a milestone as it became the leading sector with 16,815 applications. The electrical machinery sector also saw notable growth, particularly due to advancements in clean energy technologies, especially battery innovation, which recorded a significant increase of 24%. Conversely, the digital communication field experienced a decline, reflecting a drop of 6.3%. In Greece, the leading technology categories in patent applications were pharmaceuticals, medical technology, handling technologies, and materials/metallurgy. Small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as individual inventors, played a significant role in the filing process, with a reported 22% of European applications coming from this demographic, along with an additional 7% attributed to universities and public research organizations. The implementation of fee reductions by the EPO for smaller applicants further encourages innovation in these sectors. The United States continued to lead as the primary origin of patent applications, followed by Germany, Japan, China, and South Korea. The percentage of applications featuring female inventors in Europe reached 25%, while Greece recorded an even higher percentage of 30%. The newly introduced Unified Patent system has also gained traction in its second year, representing over 25% of all European patents granted in 2024, with Greece seeing a rate of 34.8%. These trends in patent applications demonstrate the importance of fostering innovation and the evolving landscape of intellectual property in Europe.