Philips filed 1 733 patent applications at the European Patent Office in 2017. This puts the Dutch company in the 6th position worldwide, after Huawei, Siemens, LG, Samsung, and Qualcomm. In 2016 Philips held first place worldwide, with 2 568 patent applications.
These statistics were published in the European Patent Office’s 2017 annual report. In 2016, the former electronics conglomerate spun-off the lighting branch with an IPO. It now focuses solely on healthcare technology. Philips Lighting patents were still included for that year in the annual report for Philips, however, since 2017 Philips has offloaded most of its shares from the newly founded company. Philips Lighting filed 700 patents last year. Together the two companies averaged around 2 500 patents.
Philips, headquartered in Amsterdam, retains its main research facilities in High Tech Campus Eindhoven. According to IPwatchdog, with its patent position, Philps is the top applicant in the field of medical technology, ahead of the American Johnson & Johnson.
Other companies of the Brainport region with strong patent filing positions include DSM, NXP and ASML.
Written by Manolis
