According to newly released government statistics in Taiwan, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) has been ranked No. 1 in residents’ patent applications with 944 cases, for three straight years since 2016, and No.1 in residents’ patent grants with 430 patents for the first time in 2018. As for non-residents’ patent activities, Qualcomm Inc took the first place with 1,011 applications and SEL (Semiconductor Energy Labor) with 474 grants.
On January 28, 2019, TIPO (Taiwan Intellectual Property Office) released its IPR Statistics Report 2018 in which new applications for all three types of patents slightly dropped by 1 percent to 73,421 cases. 78 percent of the patent applications were filed for inventions, a 3 percent increase from 2017. Besides, 18,365 cases of these invention applications were filed by residents and 29,064 cases by non-residents, with a 1 percent and a 4 percent growth respectively.
Among local applicants, TSMC has filed 944 (invention) applications, earned 430 patent grants in 2018, and continues to be the highest-ranked. AU Optronics Corp came in second with 586 filings, followed by Acer with 476 filings. IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp cracked the top ten for the first time with 195 applicants, a 60 percent increase from the previous year. In addition, HTC returned to the ninth places for the third time with 185 applications, a notable 78 percent yearly growth.
Among foreign applicants, Qualcomm overtook Alibaba Group with 1,011 applications and a 67 percent yearly growth, the largest increase within the top ten non-resident applicants. The Chinese e-commerce giant slipped to the second place with 599 applications, a 27 percent drop from a year earlier. DISCO with 285 filings and Corning with 272 filings have both made the top ten for the first year.
There are 25 universities and 6 research institutes named in the top 100 rankings. The total numbers of new invention and utility model filings by these 25 universities rose by 5 percent to 1,054 cases and 26 percent to 789 cases, respectively. The filings for design patents dropped by 2 percent, with a slower decline, to 53 cases. The only university included in the top ten rankings is Far-East University with 184 applications, mostly (159) for utility models. Of the applications for inventions, the best performer was National Cheng Kung University with 92 cases, followed by National Tsing Hua University and National Chiao Tung University, both with 85 cases.
New applications for inventions filed by the 6 research institutes saw a 5 percent decline in 2018. ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) remains in the top five with 441 cases at the fifth place. Following is NCSIST (National Chung-Shan Institute of Science & Technology) with 112 cases at the 23rd place.
