The number of European patent applications continues to increase, but the EPO is granting fewer patents, according to statistics published on April 1.

Last year, the EPO received a record total of 218 200 patent filings, compared to 210 600 the previous year. At the same time, the 54 700 European patents granted in 2007 represented a decrease of 12.9% over the previous year (62 800 granted patents).

EPO President Alison Brimelow believes priority has to be given to patent quality. "The purpose of patents is to support the generation of economic benefits for society. However, large patent numbers are not necessarily indicative of growing R&D activity," she said. "What we therefore need is not more patents, but more good patents."

"The EPO aims to make sure that the patents it grants are relevant. The lower number of patents published in 2007 reflects this priority and is a step in the right direction. Putting the emphasis on quality over quantity in the granting of European patents is a key strategy for safeguarding the proper functioning of the European patent system. At the same time, it allows the EPO to continue to set the global benchmark in patenting."

Top filers at the EPO

The proportion of applications originating from the 32 member states of the European Patent Organisation remained almost stable at 48.5%, following a decrease of 1% to 48.6% in 2006. Germany once again topped the table with 17.9% of the total (25 176 applications), followed by France with 5.9% (8 328) and the Netherlands with 5% (6 999).

Among the non-European countries, the USA and Japan maintained their dominant share of the total number of European patent applications in 2007, amounting to 25.3% (2006: 25.8%) and 16.3% (16.4%) respectively, whilst South Korea accounted for 3.5% (3.4%).

US companies filed 35 590 European patent applications (2006: 34 790,  +2%), Japanese companies 22 890 (22 140, +3.4%) and South Korean companies 4 930 (4 590, +7.3%). With a total of 1 145 European filings, China sharply increased its number of applications by 59% and now ranks among the five most active non-European applicant countries.

Filings growth in a wide range of sectors

Filing activity was particularly strong in the fields of medical technology (12% of the total number of applications), electrical communications (10.2%) and computing (6.4%).

The strongest growth rates were noted in the fields of engineering elements (+7.9% compared with 2006), electrical communications (+6.7%), medical technology (+6.3%) and organic chemistry (+6.2%).

This contrasts with slower growth in vehicle technology (+0.3%) and fewer applications in computing (-0.8%) and information storage (-18.0%).

(www.epo.org)