European Patents Organization (EPO) released a report on Feb. 26, showing that it received altogether 274,000 patent applications in 2014 with a year-on-year increase of 3.1%. Among the total amount, Samsung was the largest applicant and filed for 2,541 applications, and Huawei ranked as the fifth with 1,600 applicants.　

Following Samsung, Phillips (2,317 applications), Siemens (2,133 applications), LG (1,638 applications) and Huawei (1,600 applications) ranked as the second, third, fourth and fifth respectively. In addition, Qualcomm filed for 1,459 patent applications, Intel filed for 1,054 applications, Nokia filed for 1,040 applications, Microsoft filed for 734 applications, Google filed for 518 applications and Apple Inc. filed for only 294 patent applications.

EPO stated that US enterprises filed for the most applications last year and reached the number of 71,700, accounting for 26% of the total amount. Japan ranked as the second with 48,400 patent applications, followed by Germany (31,647 applications) and China (26,500 applications). It was shown in the report that applications filed by Chinese enterprises had the most rapid growth with a year-on-year increase of 18.2%.

Among Chinese enterprises, Huawei (1,600 applications), ZTE (476 applications) and Tencent (97 applications) filed for the most number of patent applications. Seen from industries, medical technology was the largest single class with 11,000 relevant patent applications, followed by digital communication technology (10,944 applications) and computer technology (10,018 applications).

Date: March 4, 2015
From: Sina Technology