The European Patent Office announced that Chinese enterprises submitted 26,500 patent applications to them in 2014.
According to the report, the office received a total of 274,000 patent applications last year, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.1%. Of which, Samsung submitted 2,541 patents, ranking first; while China's Huawei ranked fifth with 1,600 applications. Following Samsung, Philips submitted 1,040 applications; Siemens submitted 2, 133 applications; and LG submitted 1,638 applications. In addition, Qualcomm submitted 1,459 patent applications in Europe; Intel submitted 1,054 applications; Nokia submitted 1,040 applications; Microsoft submitted 734 applications; Google submitted 518 applications; and Apple submitted 294 applications.
By country, American enterprises submitted the most patent applications in Europe in 2014, reaching 71,700 and accounting for 26% of the total. Japan ranked second with 48,400 applications; Germany ranked third with 31,647 applications; and China ranked fourth with 26,500 applications. Meanwhile, China saw the fastest increase in applications with a 18.2% growth rate year-over-year.
Among Chinese enterprises, Huawei, ZTE and Tencent submitted the most applications, which were 1,600, 476 and 97, respectively. By industry, medical technology was the largest sector and the related applications were 11,000, followed by communications technology with 10,944 applications, and computing technology with 10,018 applications.