The Number of Patents in Taiwan Raised 50% the Last 10 Years.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs completed an analytical statistics of patents the other day.  The number of patent applications has shown an elevating trend during the last 10 years, from the 42,412 cases in 1994 to the 65,742 cases in 2003, it has increased 50%.  In recent years, the growth of invention patents was the most remarkable and followed by utility model patents while as design patents have lessened gradually throughout the years.  In 2003, among the applications by our countrymen, applications of utility model patent conceived the largest proportion; design patent was a runner-up and utility model patent remained the last.

 

Among the patent applications filed by the corporations in our country, there was a relatively large growth from 1999 to 2003.  However, there were less patent applications in 2000 and 2002, while 2001 and 2003 carried a rising course.  The number of applications by corporations and research institutes has also progressed in the last 5 years.  All in all, the top 10 applicators were all electronic digital industries.  The number of applications by Opto-electronics industries has increased gradually as well.

 

In terms of patent approval, the number of our patent approval cases in the past 10 years has also followed the path of positive growth.  From the 19,032 cases in 1994 to the 53,034 cases in 2003, the increase nearly doubled.  Utility model patents were the cases that have been approved the most.  However, the number of approval for invention patents has developed rapidly, and the development of utility model patents has slowed down.  The number of invention patents was the greatest among the approved cases applied by foreigners.

 

Ranking of approved patent cases of the top 5 corporations in our country
Year    Ranking	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
1	UMC	UMC	UMC	TSMC	Hon Hai
2	TSMC	TSMC	TSMC	Hon Hai	ITRIT
3	ITRIT	Hon Hai	Hon Hai	UMC	TSMC
4	Hon Hai	ITRIT	ITRIT	ITRIT	UMAX
5	NSC	IC	VIS	Macronix	Macronix

 

UMC – United Microeletronics Corp.

TSMC – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd.

Hon Hai – Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

ITRIT – Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan

NSC – National Science Council

IC – Inventec Corp.

VIS – Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. (2004.10)

CYJ/CHT