On 16 March 2021, the European Patent Office published its annual Patent Index. According to the latest results, in 2020, the EPO received 180 250 patent applications, a small decline of 0.7% in comparison with 2019, showing a limited impact of the pandemic in patent activity.

The EU-27 Member States were the largest applicant with a share of 37% patent applications or 65 854 patent applications; while the EPO States, which include 38 countries, accounted for about half of the total patent applications in 2020. By individual countries, the United States were the largest applicant with a share of 25%, followed by Germany with 14%, Japan with 12% and China with 7%. The top 10 is completed with France (6%), South Korea (5%), Switzerland (5%), Netherlands (4%), United Kingdom (3%) and Italy (3%).

In comparison with 2019, EU-27 patent applications in 2020 decreased slightly by 1%. However, there is strong variation among the Member States, ranging from -8.5% in Portugal to +72% in Lithuania. Only 9 EU Members States recorded a decline. Of the EU countries with a number of patent applications above 1000, Finland was the best performing country with a rise of 11%, while Netherlands was the worst country with a decline of 8%. Important to mention that the initial number of patents impacts the percentage change, for instance in the countries with small number of patents,  small variations in the absolute number have a significant impact on the overall increase.

By technology field, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology recorded the highest growth with 10.2% and 6.3%, respectively. On the other hand, transport saw the biggest decline with -5.5%. The field with the highest number of patents in 2020 was medical technology with 14295 patent applications (+2.6% growth), followed by digital communication (14122 patents and 1% growth) and computer technology (13097 patents and 1.9% growth). By applicant, Samsung, followed by Huawei and LG made the top 3 applicants in the EPO in 2020. The first European company, Ericsson, comes fourth.

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