Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd (阿里巴巴) filed a total of 372 patent applications in Taiwan in the first quarter of the year, overtaking Intel Corp’s long-held position as the foreign company with the most local patent filings, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Wednesday.
It was the first time Alibaba topped the local ranking for patent filings by foreign companies. The number of its application jumped 879 percent from the same period last year, the ministry’s data showed.
Intel secured second place with 159 patent filings for last quarter, followed by Qualcomm Inc’s 144, the data showed.
“It reflects Alibaba’s aggressive efforts to bolster its presence in the Taiwanese market,” Intellectual Property Office Director-General Hong Shu-min (洪淑敏) told a news conference.
Alibaba’s patent applications centered on technologies that involve Internet transactions, such as identification recognition, image and voice recognition, data processing and storage, and protection from cyberattacks, Hong said.
Taiwan’s Allpay Electronics Co (歐付寶) only filed two applications last quarter, while PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), the nation’s largest online shopping Web site operator, did not file any last quarter, the ministry’s data showed.
“Taiwanese e-commerce operators are less aggressive in terms of building patent walls,” Hong said, adding that it also suggests the pace of Taiwanese operators’ technological development is slower than Alibaba’s.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) beat out Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) as the top Taiwanese company with the most patent applications in the quarter for a second consecutive quarter, the data showed.
TSMC’s 132 applications were followed by MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) 83 and Hon Hai’s 78, the data showed.
Hon Hai’s patent filings used to center on electronics components, but last quarter there was a wide range of technologies in various fields, such as smart home appliances, camera lenses, stylus, robots and artificial intelligence, Hong said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last