The European Patent Office issued reports on its analysis of data regarding global patent filings for technologies serving the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR) in Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), 5G network, and big data on December 10, 2020. It tabulated published international patent families (IPFs) of 2000-2018 and found:
Worldwide…
– The 4IR technology IPF filings have grown by about 20% annually since 2010, almost 5 times as quickly as for other kinds of technology (over 11% of all IPFs in 2018).[10]
In Asia-Pacific…
– Korea’s Samsung is by far the largest applicant globally with over 12,000 applications in this time (5.2% share of global IPFs!). [p. 12]
– Korea’s 4IR innovative “cluster” in Seoul is dominated by two players, Samsung and LG to be specific (1st and 2nd globally in 2010-2018 for IPF numbers).Two Chinese corporations entered the top 20 for IPFs over that period, Huawei and ZTE.[p. 38, Table 4.1]
In Japan…
– Japan has two clusters, Tokyo and Osaka (2nd and 4th globally). Tokyo has a fairly diverse portfolio of types of fields served by these patents, and Osaka’s tend more toward 4IR technologies for safety and manufacturing applications.[pp. 13, 65-67]
– Overall, only 5 Japanese corporations were in the top 20 in 2010-2018 down from 9 in 2000-2009. These were Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and NEC.[p. 38, Table 4.1]
Each region has its characteristics, and much more can be found in the EPO’s report. Here, suffice it to say that Japan is strong but losing ground, and Korean 4IR innovation is strong but highly focused in a few companies, and China is increasing its influence. Will the world ever be satisfied with data and high-speed communication? Its appetite seems only whetted for now, and Asia is powerfully established as a region on track with Europe and the United States.
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Taro Yaguchi
Sources
European Patent Office. “Patents and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 2020.” http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/06E4D8F7A2D6C2E1C125863900517B88/$File/patents_and_the_fourth_industrial_revolution_study_2020_en.pdf December 10, 2020. Accessed December 17, 2020.
Header image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
