In 2006 about 207.300 patent applications were submitted to the European Patent Office (EPA) which correspondends to a 5% increase as compared to the year 2005 and is a new record high. With 24.900 applications (18.4% of total number of applications) Germany was once again at the top, followed by France with 8010 applications (5.9%) and the Netherlands with 7400 applications (5.0%). Particularly sharply rose the number of applications submitted by Germany (+1078) compared to 2005, while the number for the Netherlands fell by 472 applications.
With regard to applications from non-European countries there were particularly many applications from the USA (34.800, +2060) and Canada (1950, +170). The number of applications from Asia also increased with figures for Japan (22.140, +680), Korea (4595, +742) and China (720, +181) rising most strongly. In total the EPA in 2006 granted 62.780 patents (+17.9%). Most of these went to the USA (14.834, +14%), Germany (14.274, +14.3%) and Japan (12.044, +26.1%).
The one hundred most important companies applying for patents in 2006 to the EPA are listed in the table at the bottom of the German version of this article. It becomes clear that in particular communications and informations technology companies are represented in the list of patent applicants. Among the top ten there were also in 2006 four European companies, two from Korea and Japan and one from the USA.
Particularly many applications related to the field of medical engineering (+6.8%), telecommunications engineering (+3.8%) and electrical parts (components, semiconductors, chips; +5.9%). Strong increases were also registered in the fields of organic chemistry and macromolecular compounds (e.g. synthetic materials, colorimeters and flavouring agents; +10.6%) while there were drops in terms of applications in the field of biotechnology and machine parts (-5.3%).
Additional figures and facts can be gathered from the EPA annual report 2006. 