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25 August 2014
Statistics released by TIPO show an 8.14% drop in overall patenting activities, brought down mainly by decrease in both domestic and foreign invention patent applications. Hon Hai Precision Industry, the all-time leader in domestic invention filing, saw a 73.03% plunge. The number of pending invention applications, on the other hand, was down for the first time to less than 120,000. In trademark, applications grew by 8.81%. China, of all the major trademark filing countries, came out on top for the first time with 926 applications.
The number of overall patent applications (18,618) in Q2 2014 was 8.14% less than in Q2 2013. This is because of a 10.81% decrease in invention applications (10,462), the greatest drop since Q3 2009. Domestic filings (4,435; -16.43%) were down mainly by a 23.74% slump in corporate applications (3,006); an increase in applications filed by non-corporate nationals (772; +16.27%), however, did little to break this downward spiral. Likewise, decrease in the number of foreign corporate applications (5,814; -5.91%) also brought down overall foreign applications (6,027; -6.17%). Breakdown by countries of origin, the top five invention filing countries are Japan (2,661), the US (1,445), South Korea (505), Germany (304), and mainland China (269).
As mentioned, Hon Hai Precision Industry experienced a 73.03% drop (229) in invention patent applications from Q2 2013 (849), bringing down the total number and growth rate of domestic applications. This may be due to a shift in the company’s application strategies where quality now outweighs quantity.
In addition, display industry took up three top-ten spots in domestic corporate invention applications, with AU Optronics (104) ranked at second and Wintek (37) and Innolux (37) both placed at eighth. Of the three, AU Optronics and Innolux focus their applications on display devices and manufacturing procedures while Wintek places emphasis on touch technologies.
Tenth-placed China Steel Corporation (36), the only traditional industry among the top 10, is seeing a steady climb for the past three years and has been devoted to filing invention applications for their high-quality and value-added steel products.
Among top-ten invention filing foreign corporations, the display industry again took up four spots, with three major suppliers of display materials, Nitto Denko (106), LG Chem. (95), and Fujifilm (68), respectively ranked first, third, and eighth. The increase in the number of applications for OLED-related inventions filed by Samsung Display (99), which came out second, may be due to improvements in the company’s manufacturing procedures and introduction of new materials.
Portable device industry, on the contrary, experienced an overall decline in invention applications, with Apple Inc. (76; #4), Samsung Electronics (20; #48), and HTC (22; #23), respectively seeing a slump of 46.48%, 62.26%, and 47.62%.
Thanks to TIPO’s continuous efforts in implementing measures to expedite examination, the number of pending invention applications was down to 114,286, and is expected to be less than 110,000 by Q3 this year. The average time for disposal (34.18 months) in June 2014 was 8.14 months shorter than in the same period last year; pendency for first office action averaged 24.95 months, down 7.95 months than in June 2013.
In trademark, applications (19,738) were 8.81% more than in Q2 2013. Of these, domestic (14,698) and foreign applications (5,040) saw a 6.65% and 15.62% increase, respectively, For the first time, China topped the list with 926 (+46.06%) applications, followed by the US (900), Japan (889), Hong Kong (256), and South Korea (253).
