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Hon Hai leads way in patents

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) outperformed its Taiwanese peers last year by being granted the most patents after submitting the highest number of patent applications for five consecutive years, an executive of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said yesterday.

Hon Hai topped the list with 2,424 applications last year, accounting for 4.9 percent of the nation's applications. Next was Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) and Inventec Electronics Corp (英業達), with 886 and 797, respectively.

The total number of patent applications reached 81,820 last year -- a slight increase from 80,988 applications a year earlier, making it the third consecutive year that the number remained above 80,000, the IPO's latest report showed.

slowing growth

However, despite the slight 1 percent to 2 percent increase in applications over the last two years, the growth rate has significantly slowed down compared to the more than 10 percent increase in 2004 and 2005.

"The decrease in the number of applications in the last two years is mainly due to the emerging Chinese market, which attracts business people to apply for their patents in China," Wang Mei-hua (王美花), director general of IPO, said yesterday at a press briefing.

Furthermore, Wang said the impact of the emerging Chinese market has spread to Japan as well.

"What Taiwan can do now is to enhance our competitiveness by upgrading our patent quality rather than quantity," she said.

In terms of applications approved, Hon Hai was listed first with 1,117, while ITRI and AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) had 535 and 349 respectively.

foreign companies

Among locally based foreign companies, Sony Corp surpassed Philips last year by topping the list with 652 patent applications. Qualcomm Inc climbed to second place with 642 applications, while Philips, which had been listed first for four consecutive years prior to last year, dropped to third place with 498.

But Seiko Epson Corp gained the highest number of patent approvals with 351, followed by Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd with 347 and 334 respectively.

Applications for trademarks last year dropped approximately 4 percent to 76,332, marking the first decline in five years.

Optical, semiconductor and microelectronics manufacturers as well as mobile communications makers are frequent applicants for patents, the IPO's latest report said.

"The decrease in trademark applications is also an indication of the nation's economic transformation, as there have been less stores opened by small and medium-sized enterprises compared to major chains and franchises," Wang said.
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