A total of 73,791 patent applications were filed with the Republic of China (Taiwan) Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) in 2017, up 2 percent from the year before and reversing a decline that had persisted since 2013, according to statistics recently released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The latest TIPO statistics show invention patents comprised 62.5 percent of the total applications, followed by utility model patents at 26.5 percent and design patents at 11 percent.

Of the filings, 40,835 were made by Taiwan nationals and enterprises, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. topping the list of local firms for the second year in a row with a record high of 937 requests.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. moved up one place to second with 485 applications, while state-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute ranked third with 451. At 205 entries, Far East University in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City remained in eighth place and the only tertiary institution to make the top 10.
 
With regard to foreign applicants, mainland China’s Alibaba Group Services Ltd. headed the list for the first time with 762 cases. U.S. multinational Qualcomm Inc. came in second with 604 applications, followed by California-based Applied Materials Inc. with 493 requests.

Japan continued to be the largest foreign source of patent applications with 13,850 submissions, followed by the U.S. and mainland China with 7,312 and 2,674 filings, respectively.

As for trademarks, submissions were up 5.7 percent to 83,802, the highest in five years, with 73 percent filed by Taiwan nationals and companies. Among overseas countries and territories, mainland China remained the leader with 4,830 requests, followed by Japan at 3,892 and the U.S. at 3,684.
 
TIPO said the average processing time for patent applications was down to 15.5 months, the fastest in five years, thanks to continuous efforts by the agency in streamlining the review procedure and the signing of Patent Prosecution Highway agreements with foreign agencies. (SFC-E)