China Ranks 4th in Patent Filings to European Office

Patent applications from China now rank fourth among all filings with the European Patent Office, a sign of rapid progress in the country's intellectual property sphere, said EPO President Benoit Battistelli.


The annual filings from China increased tenfold at EPO over the past decade and maintain robust growth momentum, Battistelli told a Sino-European patent cooperation forum in Lyon, France, on October 9.


In 2014 alone, Chinese filers contributed 9 percent of some 270,000 applications filed with EPO. In the same year, China's State Intellectual Property Office received nearly 1 million invention patent applications, including some 127,000 from abroad. Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE are among the top 10 filers in Europe.


The European Union was the second-largest overseas filer in China, with 28 percent of foreign filings with SIPO from EU member states.


The cooperation between EPO and its Chinese peer, SIPO, over the past 30 years has brought win-win results to both sides, he said. Many similarities in the IP systems of China and Europe have facilitated bilateral trade and exchanges in research, thus helping both reinforce their positions as innovation hubs, the EPO president said. A complete, improved IP system built in China also benefits Europe because of close ties in patents and property between the two sides, he said.


European companies that intend to expand in China need to become familiar with the patent system in the country for better protection of their innovations and creations. It is the same case with Chinese companies that are interested in access to the European market, Battistelli said.


With a growing demand for patent protection worldwide, the China-Europe collaboration has become a key pillar in the global patent system, he said.


The forum, which was held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the bilateral cooperation in patent work, attracted more than 140 corporate executives, government officials and patent experts from China and Europe.