Top EPO Applicants for 2005

According to a press release from the European Commission, the top 25 applicants represent about 18% of the patent applications filed with the EPO. On average, 69% of the applicants at the EPO are granted one patent per year (US: 63%, Japan: 66%). 1% of the applicants receive more than 50 patent grants per year (US: 1%, Japan 2%). In absolute numbers Germany has by far the highest number of patent applications with over 23 000 in 2005. France follows with 8 034 and The Netherlands with nearly 7 800, while the UK only put in 4 649 applications in 2005. Among their conclusions:

There is a very close link between IPR and the competitiveness of the EU
economy. A proper, affordable IPR system is important to foster innovation. The
European Inventor of the Year event offers an opportunity to highlight the
achievements of European inventors. Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights
(IPR) are core elements of the revised growth and jobs initative. On this
occasion the following ongoing key Commission policies regarding IPR should be
highlighted.

The European Innovation Scoreboard 2005 provides empirical evidence that a lower level of patenting to a large extent accounts for the difference in innovation performance between EU countries and to the innovation gap between Europe, the US and Japan. However, leading Member States have a patenting activity similar to US one; they register twice as much EPO patents as the US, and the US registers twice as much USPTO patents as them. The available data clearly shows that patent indicators are highly correlated to countries global innovation performance. Countries doing well in terms of innovation performance also score high in patenting.