About half of these patents belong to the US while Japan, South Korea and Taiwan possess the next ranks. A sum total of 2,970 nanotechnology patents have been published in European Patent Office (EPO) in 2015.
USPTO and EPO are known as two important patent offices in the world.
Statistics obtained from Orbit Database showed that 19,544 nanotechnology
patents have been published in USPTO in 2015, among which 8,588 are granted
patents and 10,956 are published patent applications.
According to the new definition of StatNano based on ISO/TS 18110,
nanotechnology patents should either have at least one claim related to
nanotechnology or have a classification code related to nanotechnology such as
B82 according to the International Patent Classification (IPC). Based on this
definition, a number of 2,970 patents have been published in the field of
nanotechnology in EPO in 2015, about 15% of the total number of nanotechnology
patents published in USPTO. A number of 1,415 patents are granted while 1,555
are published patent applications.
Table 1 shows top 10 countries in granted
nanotechnology patents in USPTO and EPO in 2015. The countries have been ranked
according to the number of USPTO granted patents due to the importance of this
office.
Table 1: Top 10 Countries in Nanotechnology
Granted Patents in USPTO in 2015
|
Rank |
Country |
No. Granted Patents in USPTO |
No. Granted Patents in EPO |
Ratio of USPTO to EPO Patents |
Change in 2014 Ranking |
Growth in USPTO Patents comparing to 2014 (%) |
Growth in EPO Patents comparing to 2014 (%) |
|
1 |
4365 |
421 |
10.37 |
- |
7.70 |
16.62 |
|
|
2 |
902 |
131 |
6.89 |
- |
20.59 |
-7.09 |
|
|
3 |
839 |
52 |
16.13 |
- |
41.25 |
-28.77 |
|
|
4 |
500 |
12 |
41.67 |
- |
-7.92 |
50.00 |
|
|
5 |
393 |
28 |
14.04 |
- |
14.58 |
100 |
|
|
6 |
307 |
229 |
1.34 |
- |
5.86 |
11.17 |
|
|
7 |
242 |
152 |
1.59 |
- |
16.91 |
8.57 |
|
|
8 |
156 |
43 |
3.63 |
- |
33.33 |
13.16 |
|
|
9 |
109 |
45 |
2.42 |
+1 |
9.00 |
0 |
|
|
9 |
109 |
14 |
7.79 |
- |
-3.54 |
0 |
|
|
10 |
65 |
2 |
10.37 |
+3 |
51.16 |
-75.00 |
The United States possesses the first rank by having a share of 51% of all
nanotechnology granted patents in USPTO. Japan and South Korea possess the
second and third ranks with a big distance from the United States.
Table 2 lists the number of published nanotechnology patent applications for
top 10 countries. The United States, South Korea and Japan possess the three
first ranks. The statistics suggest that South Korea will have higher number of
granted patents in the field of nanotechnology than Japan in the future.
Table 2: Top 10 Countries in Published
Nanotechnology Patent Applications in USPTO in 2015
|
Rank |
Country |
No. Published Patents in USPTO |
No. Published Patents in EPO |
Ratio of USPTO to EPO Patents |
Change in 2014 Ranking |
Growth in USPTO Patents comparing to 2014 (%) |
Growth in EPO Patents comparing to 2014 (%) |
|
1 |
5321 |
266 |
20.00 |
- |
-6.24 |
2.70 |
|
|
2 |
1253 |
201 |
6.23 |
- |
10.11 |
3.61 |
|
|
3 |
873 |
288 |
3.03 |
- |
10.65 |
8.27 |
|
|
4 |
688 |
30 |
22.93 |
- |
-0.43 |
3.45 |
|
|
5 |
554 |
95 |
5.83 |
- |
16.39 |
13.10 |
|
|
6 |
454 |
190 |
2.39 |
- |
23.37 |
18.75 |
|
|
7 |
326 |
125 |
2.61 |
- |
27.84 |
22.55 |
|
|
8 |
212 |
33 |
6.42 |
- |
13.98 |
13.79 |
|
|
9 |
191 |
11 |
17.36 |
- |
29.05 |
22.22 |
|
|
10 |
166 |
30 |
5.53 |
+1 |
52.29 |
36.36 |
The number of granted patents and published patent applications in USPTO in the
field of nanotechnology in 2015 has a growth of 8.8% in comparison with 2014.
The growth of this indicator in 2015 in comparison with 2014 is 7.88% in EPO.
