It turned out that the number of applications in Japan was second only to the United States for international patents such as AI = artificial intelligence and big data, which influence the competitiveness of industry.
The European Patent Office has compiled the results of a search on international patents in four fields: AI, big data, IoT that connects everything to the Internet, and the new communication standard 5G.
According to this, the number of patents filed by Japanese companies was 6679, second only to the United States.
China was third and South Korea was fourth.
The number of patent applications for the latest technology that influences industrial competitiveness shows that Japan is one of the world's leading countries.
However, in terms of the average rate of increase in the number of patent applications for the nine years leading up to the end of the year, China has shown the highest growth and is catching up with Japan and the United States.
Looking at the top 20 companies in terms of the number of applications by company for the past 9 years, Japanese companies accounted for 5 companies, including Sony in 4th place.
In the United States, there were 6 companies such as Qualcomm, the third-ranked semiconductor manufacturer, in South Korea, two companies such as Samsung Electronics, and in China, two companies, including Huawei, which was fifth.