Taiwan-based and foreign applicants applied for 35,534 patents during first-half 2019, increasing 0.68% on year, according to Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
Taiwan-based applicants consisted of enterprises, research organizations and universities, and there are three types of patents: Invention, utility model and design, IPO said.
For invention patents, TSMC led Taiwan-based applicants in the number of applications, while China-based Alibaba Group was first among foreign applicants. Japan-based applicants applied for 6,707 invention patents in the period, followed by US-based ones (3,047), China-based ones (1,156), Korea-based ones (697) and Hong Kong-based ones (504).
Number of patent applications by type, 1H19 | ||||
Type | Taiwan applicants | Foreign applicants | Total | Y/Y |
Invention | 8,563 | 14,212 | 22,755 | 1.30% |
Utility model | 7,978 | 522 | 8,500 | (4.83%) |
Design | 1,960 | 2,299 | 4,259 | 9.80% |
Source: IPO, compiled by Digitimes, August 2019
Top-10 Taiwanese applicants for invention patents | |
Applicant | Number of applications |
TSMC | 429 |
AUO | 318 |
MediaTek | 163 |
Acer | 162 |
Realtek | 134 |
Foxconn | 104 |
ITRI | 81 |
Wistron | 74 |
CSC | 71 |
Winbond | 65 |
Delta Electronics | 65 |
Source: IPO, compiled by Digitimes, August 2019
Top-10 foreign applicants for invention patents | |
Applicant | Number of applications |
Alibaba | 408 |
Applied Materials | 291 |
Qualcomm | 267 |
Tokyo Electron | 256 |
Nitto Denko | 185 |
Toshiba Memory | 161 |
Corning | 161 |
Fujifilm | 143 |
Samsung | 142 |
Disco | 131 |
Source: IPO, compiled by Digitimes, August 2019
