TIPO Publishes Case Studies on IT Patent Examination - 2022.02.25

In order to protect innovation and establish clear standards for patent examination, TIPO has updated Part II, Chapter 12 of the Examination Guidelines for Computer Software-Related Inventions, in response to industry changes. The revisions came into effect on July 1, 2021.

TIPO also provides 20 case studies across the five major fields of IT – AI, IoT, blockchain, cloud applications, and big data – to help applicants better understand the basis on which patent applications are assessed and ensure that patent examiners utilize the same concepts during examination. The compendium of case studies, Case Studies on IT Patent Examination, is available to the public and includes both patentable and non-patentable requests to illustrate, step-by-step, how the patentability of each request is considered.

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TIPO Publishes Case Studies on IT Patent Examination

Top 100 Patent Applicants in 2021 - 2022.02.22

According to TIPO’s 2021 Statistical Rankings for Patent Applications and Grants, TSMC was the top domestic applicant for invention, utility model, and design patents, with 1,950 applications filed. The company has held on to its lead for the sixth consecutive year now. As for foreign applicants, Qualcomm claimed the top spot for the second year in a row, having filed a total of 845 applications. With respect to the number of patents granted for all three patent types, TSMC led the pack for domestic applications (1,053 patents granted), and Applied Materials was the most successful foreign applicant (492 patents granted). Invention patent applications by domestic corporations and research institutions of the top 100 went up by 17% and 11% respectively.

TSMC is top domestic applicant for the sixth year in a row

As regards domestic applicants, TSMC has consistently filed the most applications since 2016. In 2021, that number surged by 78% to 1,950 cases, followed by AU Optronics (471 cases). Realtek Semiconductor (442 cases) and Nanya Tech (290 cases) each filed their highest number of applications ever, coming in fourth and sixth, respectively. Delta Electronics moved back into top 10 with 205 applications (+18%) (Table 1).

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Top 100 Patent Applicants in 2021

TIPO Statistics Report: Patent and Trademark Applications in 2021 - 2022.02.22

In 2021, overall patent applications increased by 1% to 72,613 cases. Of these, invention patent applications (49,116 cases) grew by 5%, while utility model (15,796 cases) and design patent applications (7,701 cases) decreased by 10% and 4% respectively. For trademark applications, 95,917 cases were filed—the highest number recorded ever since TIPO was founded in 1999. As to examination efficiency, the average disposal pendency was 14.0 months for invention patent applications and decreased to 6.2 months for trademark applications.

Resident invention applications highest since 2014 with growth seen in industry and research institutes

Invention patent applications (19,547 cases) filed by residents hit their highest level since 2014. This was due to a 6% rise in the number of applications by corporations, with those filed by large enterprises alone increasing by 9%. Meanwhile, applications by research institutes also saw a growth of 2%. However, utility model (14,543 cases) and design applications (3,534 cases) went down by 12% and 10% respectively due to the decreases in the corporation and individual sectors (Table 1, Figure 2, Figure 3). As for non-residents, there was an overall increase in applications for invention (29,569 cases), utility model (1,253 cases), and design (4,167 cases) patents, seeing a growth of 7%, 13%, and 2% respectively (Table 1, Figure 2).

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TIPO Statistics Report: Patent and Trademark Applications in 2021

TIPO’s Q4 2021 IPR Statistics Report - 2022.02.18

In Q4 2021, TIPO received a total of 19,210 patent applications (including invention, utility model, and design patents), marking a less than 1% decrease from the same period last year, whereas trademark applications (24,839 cases) grew by 1%. As for invention patent applications, ITRI (252 cases) came out on top among resident applicants for the first time, and Applied Materials (234 cases) led non-resident applicants. Most trademark applications were filed under the agriculture industry. Uni-President (178 cases) and Cognosphere (56 cases) ranked at the top among resident and non-resident applicants, respectively.

Patent Applications

Among the three types of patent applications, there were 12,992 invention patent applications filed this year, a growth of 2% compared to the same period last year. This was mainly due to an increase in non-resident applications. On the other hand, the number of utility model and design patent applications dropped. All three types of patent applications filed by non-resident applicants saw growth anywhere from 6% to 20% (Table 1).

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TIPO’s Q4 2021 IPR Statistics Report