Eurostat survey highlights Europe's patent potential
Germany, Île de France and Portugal have all made outstanding progress in different areas of patents in the period from 1990 to 1999, according to a new Eurostat survey. Germany has the highest number of patents in total and per capita in the European Union. Over 43 per cent of all Community patents filed in 1999 originated in Germany. It also has 493 patents per million of population, the biggest total, beating Sweden (478) and Finland (455) into second and third places respectively. The lowest levels were Spain (42), Greece (15) and Portugal (6). But Portugal heads the list of fastest growth of patent applications in the period from 1990 to 1998, with an average annual increase of over 20 per cent, followed by Spain (over 14 per cent) and Finland (13 per cent). The lowest levels of average annual increase during this period were from the UK (3 per cent), France (3.7 per cent), Italy and Germany (5 per cent). The European region with the highest number of patents in 1999 was the Île de France, which filed 2,813 patents, beating the German region of Oberbayern (Bavaria) into second place with 2,538 applications. Oberbayern did however file for the highest number of high tech applications, with 825 compared to the Île de France's 630. The increase in applications from the 15 European Union countries totals 40 per cent over the period 1990 to 1999. The average increase year on year was 5.3 per cent, while the comparable figure for the USA was 5.6 per cent. In Japan the figure was just 1.8 per cent. The data in the survey is drawn from applications made at the European Patent office in Munich, so it is to be expected that more European applications would be received.