Patent applications continued a six-quarter consecutive slide in the third quarter of this year, a trend that an official at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Ministry of Economics said is a warning sign about the nation’s competitiveness.
The number of patent applications, including those for invention patents, utility model patents and design patents, was 19,218 in the third quarter, down 4.28 percent from the same period last year, according to data released by the office yesterday.
Invention patent applications made up more than half of the total in the third quarter at 11,444, down 4.51 percent from the same period last year. Utility patent applications recorded a year-on-year drop of 4.27 percent and design patent applications fell 2.95 percent year-on-year, according to the IPO data.
“The quarterly decline could possibly be related to a ‘quality-over-quantity’ trend,” an official at the agency said, requesting anonymity due to not being authorized to comment on the data.
“The application volume has continued to drop. It is a potential problem and a warning sign,” the official said, calling the number of patents a gauge for industrial innovation and competitiveness.
Analyzing the decline, the official said that the IPO found decreases in funding and changes to government subsidy policies have affected institutes’ willingness to apply for patents.
Other reasons include failures to turn patents into profitable commodities and an increase in businesses cutting down on research funds, or adjusting patent strategies to “attach more importance to quality over quantity,” the official said.
According to the statistics, Hon Hai Precision Industrial Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, submitted 190 invention patent applications in the third quarter of the year — the most by any local corporation.
However, the number was a slump of 70.72 percent from the same period last year and a decline of 17.03 percent from the previous quarter. In its press release, the IPO said it suspected the drops could be the result of shifts in Hon Hai’s corporate patent strategy.
Makers of display panels, semiconductors and computers were more active in acquiring invention patents than other manufacturing sectors, the office added.
The statistics showed flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) produced the second-highest number of invention patents, submitting 102 in the third quarter — up 10.9 percent from the same period last year — while Innolux Corp (群創光電), the nation’s top display maker, ranked third with 62 applications, which marks year-on-year growth of 107 percent.
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