The latest study by the European Patent Office (EPO) Observatory on Patents and Technology reveals that patent applications from public research organisations (PROs) nearly doubled between 2001 and 2020. European PROs generated almost 63,000 European patent applications during this period, while the number of annual European patent applications increased from around 2,000 to over 3,500 by 2020.
The study identified 250 PROs that had each filed at least 20 academic patent applications with the EPO between 2001 and 2020. Over two-thirds of all PRO filings came from the top 16 organisations alone. Two French PROs are leading the ranking, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), followed by Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Europe’s research hospitals increased their patenting activity by almost 50% between 2001 and 2020, filing around 17,400 European patent applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical technologies and diagnostics. France’s Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) was the most active research hospital.