On the 31st of December 2020, Sankei Biz reported on a global survey conducted by the European Patent Office. The survey concluded that in 2018 Japan ranked 2nd in the world in the number of patent applications in advanced IT-related fields, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI).
With a total of 6679 applications Japan ranked behind the United States that filed a total of 11927 applications. Meanwhile, as the number three, China had filed 6307 applications.
While the survey shows that Japan holds an edge in R&D in this highly competitive field, it also highlights that Japan has an issue converting this research into commercial services. After all, most of the world’s biggest international IT companies are from the US and China.
The survey examined IP applications that were filed in 2 or more countries between the year 2000 and 2018 in the fields of AI, 5G, big data and the internet of things. When comparing 2013 to 2018 we see that Japan has increased its filing number by about 1.9 times, whereas China increased its filings by 5.3 times.
Having a look at individual company applications, South Korea’s Samsung was the biggest applicant in the period between 2010 and 2018. US company Qualcomm ranked 3th and China’s Huawei was 5th. The highest Japanese entry was Sony at number 4.
Over the same period, cities and regions like Seoul, Tokyo, San Jose in Silicon Valley, Osaka, and Shenzhen ranked highest as areas where patent filings were concentrated.
