Extreme endeavours – Invention continues despite the pandemic

The MaxVal Patent Publication Trends 2021  report has just been published and contains an absolute wealth of useful, interesting data on the world of patents.  In contrast to some “reports” which comprise a small kernel of facts / research surrounded by a lot of text promoting the authoring company’s products or services in a variety of guises, the MaxVal report provides a lengthy and information-packed read. While there are no real surprises, at Iprova we are data-driven, so we like to see the data to support our hunches.  The period covered was one where the Covid pandemic was having huge impacts worldwide.  There was a lot of working from home, many sectors saw their activity levels severely reduced and numerous companies had to adjust their business models and working practices significantly.

So, the fact that the top 4 countries for granted patents were China, the USA, Japan and South Korea will not be news to many.  Also, it is to be expected that the number of patent applications fell markedly in many sectors and dropped to a slightly lesser degree in some others. However, what was maybe not anticipated by many is that there were six sectors which saw their numbers of patent applications rise. The pandemic was probably behind the increases in medical devices and biotech, while adapting to climate change and improving energy efficiency was almost certainly the key factor in the rises in agriculture, automotive, energy and food & beverage. It will be interesting to see whether these trends have continued when the 2022 edition appears in early 2023.

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