Portugal among the EU countries with the most academic patents
Portugal is one of the European countries where universities have a greater share in the development and registration of patents, representing one-third of the approximately 800 patents registered since 2000, concludes the European Patent Office (EPO).
In a study released on Tuesday, October 22, the EPO concludes that patent applications for inventions from universities have increased slightly in two decades, representing in 2020 about 10% of all patent applications registered by European applicants (compared to 6% registered in 2000).
With regard to Portugal, 818 patents were registered that have some direct or indirect connection to universities, which represents one third (34.2%) of all European patent applications submitted by Portuguese applicants to the EPO.
The report, which is the first comprehensive analysis on the subject, is based on data from 1,200 European universities that submitted patent applications to the EPO between 2000 and 2020.
In addition to patent applications filed directly by universities in their own name, the study also analyses “indirect” applications filed by other entities, but which were designated as being registered by academics and researchers linked to universities as inventors.
The share of universities applying for Portuguese patents is among the highest in Europe, behind only Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Estonia.
It is also above average, which in 2020 stood at 8.7%.
On the other hand, 5% of the universities covered by the study (such as the Technical University of Munich, the University of Oxford or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) account for half of all academic patent applications.
In the case of Portugal, there are 39 institutions that have filed at least one European patent application of academic origin with the EPO in the last 20 years. The University of Porto holds the highest number of academic patent applications (207) among Portuguese universities. It is followed by the Nova de Lisboa, the University of Lisbon, the University of Minho and the Instituto Superior Técnico.
