Semiconductor-related inventions comprise the most invention patent applications in Taiwan in 2019

　In November 2019, the Department of Statistics issued a press release pointing out that the number of invention patent applications filed in Taiwan has been climbing up for three consecutive years, and non-residents’ applications accounted for around 60% of all invention applications filed in 2019, while the other 40% applications were filed by resident applicants.  Japan topped the list of non-resident applicants by filing 28% of total invention applications from January through September 2019, followed by the US at No. 2 that made up about 13% of all invention applications and China at No. 3.  It is noticeable that percentage of the invention patent applications filed by the US applicants saw a declining tendency, while that of the applications filed by Chinese applicants has been going up year by year.  

　Most of the invention patent applications were filed for the fields of semiconductor and computing technology, and those applications filed for the two fields comprised 11.1% and 9.8% of the total applications filed in 2018 in more than 4,000 cases to surpass those filed for the field of electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy that made up 6.5% of the total invention applications to take up the 3^rd place.  Semiconductor, computing technology, and electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy are the fields in which Taiwanese manufacturers have been taking superior positions.  By nationality of the applicants, residents’ applications were filed mainly for the top three fields in the following sequence, computing technology, semiconductor, and electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy.  For the applications filed by non-residents, most of Japanese and South Korea applications were filed for semiconductor, while the US applications, for digital communication and semiconductor, and those sourced from China were filed mostly for computing technology.  

  Moreover, the invention patent applications filed with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) can also reveal the status of every country’s patent deployment and the direction of research development.  In 2018, the top three technology fields in which the invention patent applications were filed are digital communication, computing technology, and electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy, while the field of semiconductor, ranking first in Taiwan, came in at 10th in the applications filed in WIPO, which reveals that worldwide applicants have different patent deployment and strategy in Taiwan and in WIPO.  In addition, by nationality of applicants, U.S.-based inventors filed the greatest number of patent applications in 2018 to account for 22.2% of the total, surpassing applicants from China (21.1%), and Japan (19.6).  Most of the US applications were filed for computing technology, medical technology, and digital communication.  The top three technology fields of Chinese applications were digital communication, computing technology, and electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy, while the top three fields of Japanese applications were electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy, transportation, and computing technology.  The foregoing indicates that the US, China, and Japan have been more active in the patent deployment in computing technology, and China and South Korea focused on digital communication instead.  (November 2019) 

/CCS