Reuters, Tuesday January 27 2009

GENEVA, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies, China's largest telecoms equipment maker, was the world's top international patent seeker last year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.
It was the first time a Chinese company topped the list of applicants for World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) patent protection, which the Netherlands' Philips Electronics had dominated for about a decade.
Philips slipped to third spot behind Japan's Panasonic Corp. in 2008, a year in which WIPO received a record 164,000 applications in spite of the global financial and economic turmoil that bled markets and pinched corporate budgets.
Other top applicants included Japan's Toyota and Fujitsu, Germany's Robert Bosch and Siemens, Finland's Nokia, South Korea's LG Electronics and Sweden's Ericsson.
China was the sixth-largest patent filer by country, behind the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and France.
International patent filings are lagging economic indicators, because companies seek them after having invested in and developed inventions that may have commercial value abroad. They also generally first apply for patents in their home countries.
In the wake of previous downturns, the number of patent filings dropped sharply before rebounding.
WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said the world's current economic woes should not cause as dramatic a decrease as seen in the Depression era, when patent applications dropped 30 percent from 1929 to 1933 and did not rebound until the 1950s.
"We are not expecting that," he told a news briefing in Geneva, where WIPO has its headquarters.
"It is a much more technologically driven society now and the economy is more dependent on technology. Some companies will look to innovation as a way out of difficulty," he said.
WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PERCENT) system lets companies seek patent protections for their inventions in a number of countries at once, using the same application.
The PERCENT filings represent a small portion of the worldwide patent applications lodged every year, most of which are for one country only. That total was estimated at 1.7 million in 2006. (Reporting by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Andrew Macdonald)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8328943

One of the most valuable private companies in the world. if listed, it's market cap would be greater than Nortel (already bankrupt), Lucent, Alcatel, Motorla combined.

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http://www.domain-b.com/technology/2008/20080225_world_patent_filings.html


PCT international applications by residence of first applicant Country of origin 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 (estimate) Growth %
USA 41,030 43,350 46,804 50,941 52,280 2.63
Japan 17,414 20,264 24,869 27,033 27,731 2.58
Germany 14,662 15,214 15,984 16,732 18,134 8.38
Rep. of Korea 2,949 3,558 4,688 5,944 7,061 18.79
France 5,171 5,184 5,748 6,242 6,370 2.05
UK 5,206 5,027 5,084 5,090 5,553 9.10
China 1,295 1,706 2,503 3,951 5,456 38.09
Netherlands 4,479 4,284 4,500 4,529 4,186 -7.57
Switzerland 2,861 2,898 3,290 3,577 3,674 2.71
Sweden 2,612 2,851 2,883 3,316 3,553 7.15
Italy 2,163 2,189 2,349 2,716 2,927 7.77
Canada 2,271 2,104 2,318 2,566 2,707 5.49
Australia 1,680 1,837 1,996 2,001 2,054 2.65
Finland 1,557 1,672 1,893 1,845 1,952 5.80
Israel 1,129 1,227 1,454 1,589 1,683 5.92
Denmark 1,036 1,049 1,121 1,157 1,154 -0.26
Spain 785 823 1,125 1,198 1,143 -4.59
Belgium 776 832 1,076 1,034 1,060 2.51
Austria 644 709 851 916 976 6.55
India 764 724 679 831 686 -17.45
Source: WIPO

Top 50 PCT applicants in 2007 2007 rank Applicant Country of origin PCT applications published in 2007 Change from 2006
1 Matsu****a Electric Industrial Japan 2,100 -244
2 Philips Electronics Netherlands 2,041 -454
3 Siemens Germany 1,644 164
4 Huawei Technologies China 1,365 790
5 Robert Bosch Germany 1,146 184
6 Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Japan 997 293
7 Qualcomm USA 974 366
8 Microsoft USA 845 603
9 Motorola USA 824 187
10 Nokia Finland 822 -214
11 BASF Germany 810 94
12 3M Innovative Properties USA 769 42
13 LG Electronics Korea 719 152
14 Fujitsu Japan 708 137
15 Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Japan 702 206
16 NEC Japan 626 253
17 Intel USA 623 -67
18 Pioneer Japan 611 117
19 IBM USA 606 241
20 Samsung Electronics Korea 598 93
Source: WIPO


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