China is sprinting, Germany is faltering – the tricky turning point with patents
A large part of the plagiarism comes from China. But Beijing is also getting better and better at inventions
Quelle: Getty Images
Patents are considered an indicator of whether states are at the forefront of technical progress. It is all the more worrying that Germany is showing less and less inventiveness, as the latest figures show. China, on the other hand, is starting to overtake – on an ever broader basis.
ZDouble-digit growth rates for patent applications from China and declining numbers from Germany – this is shown by the application figures for 2022 presented by the European Patent Office (EPO). They underline a trend. After that, the number of applications from China continued to rise sharply with a plus of 15 percent to 19,041, while the number of new applications from Germany shrank by 4.7 percent to 24,684. The USA remains the leader in registrations in Europe with 48,088 (plus 2.9 percent).
When it comes to applications for European patents, Germany is still in second place behind the USA, which is by far the leader with twice as many applications. But that position could be in jeopardy.
As the leading economist Ilja Rudyk from the European Patent Office WELT says, “if the trend continues, China could overtake Germany in the next three years”. The expert refers to the rapid development over several years. In 2013 there were just over 4,000 registrations, “the number has now more than quadrupled”.
The German development looks different. According to this, registrations have been stagnating for around a decade or have even tended to decline over the past four years – to the lowest level in ten years. At the same time, the USA and Asian countries such as China and South Korea grew significantly.
Japan is also showing more or less stagnating numbers, most recently number three in patent applications. So China could make a big leap in the next few years and move up from fourth to second place in the number of applications in Europe.
Patent applications are considered a leading indicator of whether countries are at the forefront of technical progress and whether companies are investing in research and development. With property rights, companies and individual inventors can prevent unwanted copies and thus secure the business from their inventions.
In any case, more and more inventions are legally protected in Europe. Overall, the number of applications to the EPO in 2022 climbed by 2.5 percent to 193,460 – a new record.
As patent expert Rudyk explains, China’s advance is no longer based on a few technology fields. Rather, there are more applications on a broad basis. “There used to be only a few Chinese companies like Huawei in the top 100 applicants, now there are many,” says Rudyk. An example is the now second largest battery technology patent applicant CATL, after South Korea’s LG group.
Source: Infographic WORLD
Apparently, Beijing is pursuing comprehensive protection of its inventions worldwide. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in 2019 Beijing overtook the US as the largest patent applicant internationally for the first time.
The order of the companies as applicants at the European Patent Office is remarkable. The largest applicant in 2022 was again the Chinese company Huawei. The telecommunications giant is suspected of being a spy in the US and Europe. Allegedly, the government in Beijing could get access to data.
Huawei denies the allegations. South Korea’s LG Electronics group is in second place among the top applicants in Europe, and US semiconductor group Qualcomm has advanced to third place.
Only three German companies among the 20 largest patent applicants
In 2022, only three German companies were among the twenty largest applicants to the European Patent Office. Sixth place (still fifth in 2021) is Siemens without the separate Siemens Energy group. In eighth place (2021: eleventh place) was the chemical group BASF and in eleventh place (2021: tenth place) was the Robert Bosch Group.
A mixed picture emerges with regard to registrations by technology field. In US filings, the EPO saw a sharp increase in digital communications and electrical machinery/appliances/power. In contrast, European companies filed fewer patents overall in the segment with the highest number of applications, digital communication.
Germany in particular shows a clear weakness with minus 17.3 percent. Germany only has a patent application share of 3.6 percent in digital communication – the largest application field at the EPO. In the mechanical engineering sector, which is actually a domain of German companies, the negative signs also dominated, such as minus ten percent for machine tools.
EPO patent expert Rudyk also sees the first signs of the phasing out of car combustion engines and the switch to electric motors in the patent applications. “In the case of combustion engines, there is a decline in patent applications and an increase in battery technology and electric drives.”
Rudyk advocates a sober analysis of Germany’s position in patent applications. Germany is still the number two of all patent applications, but there is stagnation or only very weak growth in some future fields.
When it comes to environmentally friendly energy technology, “Germany is and was the leader,” says the EPA expert. “In the meantime, however, other countries have also woken up.” This is shown by an increase in patent applications from China, Korea and the USA.
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