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.
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