Huawei has ranked first in patent applications for the second year with 3 898 applications. It is followed by Qualcomm with 2 442 applications and ZTE with 2 155 applications.
The number of international patent applications submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) reached 218 000 last year, setting a new record, according to a statement from WIPO. In terms of countries filing patents, the US remained the largest, while China saw the fastest growth.
In 2015, the US submitted a total of about 57 400 applications, followed by Japan and China with about 44 200 and 29 800 applications filed, respectively.
According to WIPO, China, South Korea and Israel saw the biggest growth in patent applications last year, with respective increase rates of 16,8%, 11,5% and 7,4%.
According to the 2015 annual report of the European Patent Office (EPO), Huawei ranks ninth in Europe with 498 granted applications, and remains among the top 10 in Europe with this number.
In the 2015 European Patent Application rankings, Huawei was fourth with 1 953 patent applications, and first with 1,197 patent applications in the digital communications field in terms of differentiation techniques. At present, Huawei is growing steadily with an annual increase of 1 300 patent applications globally.