Based on the Technology Board 2025 Report (previously known as the Patent Index) released by the European Patent Office (EPO) on March 24, the EPO received 22,031 patent applications from China in 2025, an increase of 9.7% year-on-year. China's total number of patent applications rose to 3rd place for the first time, and China recorded the fastest growth rate among the top 10 patent-filing countries.

Overall, a total of 201,974 patent applications from around the world were filed at the EPO in 2025, up 1.4% year-on-year, reaching an all-time high. The top 5 countries by number of patent applications were, in order, the United States, Germany, China, Japan, and South Korea.

The report shows that patent applications from China accounted for 10.9% of all applications filed at the EPO in 2025. Digital communication was the field with the highest number of patent applications from China. Moreover, transportation and semiconductors were the fastest-growing fields for Chinese filings, each posting year-on-year growth of over 30%.

In terms of company ranking, among all companies that filed patent applications at the EPO in 2025, China's Huawei ranked second, with 4,744 patent applications. China's CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited) ranked tenth with 1,305 patent applications, marking the first time two Chinese companies have broken into the top 10. In addition to Huawei and CATL, four other Chinese companies—Xiaomi, ZTE, OPPO, and Tencent—ranked among the top 50.

In terms of technical field, computer technology was the filed with the most patent applications at the EPO in 2025, with a total of 17,844 applications, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%. According to the report, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) was the main driver of growth in this field. Digital communication field has the largest increase in the number of patent applications, rising 11.4% year-on-year to 17,802 applications.

From xinhuanet

March 24th, 2026