Last year, a total of 199,275 patent applications were filed with the European Patent Office (EPO), further details of which can be found in a press release issued by the EPO. Of these, a total of 9,410 came from Switzerland. As such, the Alpine nation set a new record value for patent filings with the EPO. In comparison with 2022, Switzerland recorded growth of +2.7 percent in terms of its patent applications filed with the EPO.
In terms of patent applications per million inhabitants, Switzerland retained the global top spot that it has occupied in recent years. In specific terms, 1,085.31 patents per one million inhabitants were filed with the EPO from Switzerland in 2023. In absolute terms, Switzerland occupied seventh place in the overall rankings, behind the USA, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea and France.
In Switzerland, Roche leads the way with a total of 754 patent applications with the EPO, followed by JT International with 706 patent applications. Third place goes to Philip Morris, which registered 527 patent applications in 2023. The list of the top ten Swiss companies is rounded off by ABB, Nestlé, The Swatch Group, Tetra Laval, Inventio AG (as part of the Schindler Group), Sika and TE Connectivity, which registered between 488 and 157 patent applications last year.
“Our latest Patent Index shows that innovation remained vibrant around the world in 2023”, comments António Campinos, President of the EPO, in the press release, adding that in the year under review his organization “was entrusted with examining more applications than ever before”. In the reporting year, the EPO also examined the contribution made by women to innovation for the first time. According to this data, 27 percent of all patent applications listed at least one woman as an inventor.
