According to the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office’s statistical rankings of patent applicants, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) remains the top applicant among all domestic and foreign applicants who filed Taiwan patent applications in 2021. For three consecutive years, TSMC filed more than 1,000 invention cases each year, and reached the highest filing number of 1,950 in 2021, with a growth rate of 78%. Foreign applicants including Qualcomm and other major technology companies also showed double-digit growth, especially Samsung Electronics, whose filing cases increased by 98%. Among Taiwan invention cases in 2021, there were 49,116 applications in total, including 12,335 applications from foreign top 100 applicants (accounting for 25%) with an increase of 5%. There were 9,179 applications from domestic top 100 applicants (accounting for 19%) with an increase of 17% and 11% by domestic enterprises and research institutions. The following tables are the relevant statistics from TIPO for reference.
Number of patent applications filed by top 100 applicants in 2021
| Type of Patent | Invention | Utility Model | Design | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic Applicant | Enterprise | 7,360（↑17%） | 1641（↑3%） | 571（↓5%） |
| School | 1,208（↓5%） | 701（↓20%） | 123（↑41%） | |
| Research Institution | 61（↑11%） | 15（↓70%） | 4（↑100%） | |
| Foreign Applicant（mainly enterprise） | 12,335（↑5%） | 148（↑3%） | 1,666（↑6%） | |
Domestic Applicants (with number of applications)
| Enterprises: TSMC (1,950), AU Optronics (471), Acer (462), Realtek Semiconductor (442), Nanya Tech. (290), MediaTek (261), Inventec (233), China Steel (211), Delta Electronics (205) |
| Schools: Utility Model - Taipei City University of Science & Technology (163), Far East University (76); Invention – National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University* (135), National Cheng Kung University (102), National Taiwan University (86), National Tsing Hua University (86) |
| Institutes: Industrial Technology Research Institute (404), Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (89), Institute of Nuclear Energy Research at Atomic Energy Council under Executive Yuan (47), Academia Sinica (45), Institute For Information Industry (45) (filed mostly invention applications) |
| Banks: Mega Bank (165), ChinaTrust Commercial Bank (155), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (144)（filed mostly utility models） |
| *National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University was established on February 1, 2021 through the merger of National Yang-Ming University and National Chiao Tung University. In 2020, National Yang-Ming University and National Chiao Tung University filed 22 and 86 invention applications, respectively. |
Foreign Applicants
| Invention applications (top ten applicants): Qualcomm (845), Applied Materials (758), Nitto Denko (529), Samsung Electronics (510), Tokyo Electron (463), Kioxia (457), Sumitomo Chemical (276), ASML (265), Fujifilm (262), Disco (225) |
| Design applications (top five applicants): Harry Winston (196), PSA automobiles (173), Ford Global Tech. (137), BMW (90), Apple (84) |
