Philips filed the most patent applications at the EPO in 2016, the second year in a row. Huawei moved into second place, followed by Samsung, LG and United Technologies. The top 10 was made up of four companies from Europe, three from the US, two from South Korea and one from China. A ranking of companies based on granted patents is also available in our statistics section.
A breakdown by category of applicants requesting services from the EPO shows that 66% of them were large companies, 28% were SMEs and individual inventors, and 6% were universities and public research institutes. This shows that a significant proportion of applicants at the EPO are smaller entities.
2016 | 2015 | |
---|---|---|
Large enterprises | 66% | 69% |
SMEs², individual inventors | 28% | 26% |
Universities and public research | 6% | 5% |