Nokia filed 579 international patents in 2019 with WIPO

Nowadays, continuous innovation is necessary so that technology can penetrate the markets faster and offer a better connection. Though patenting those innovations may not prove that much sustainable in general, but at some point it becomes necessary for the companies to keep them upright in this competitive business environment to protect their innovation or license them for more income.

WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organization, in its press release revealed that Nokia Technologies Oy filed for 579 international patents as per the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty System), in 2019 compared to 551 in 2018. Nokia was at the 36th place in the list based on the number of patent applications. The list also has other companies like Ericsson, LG, Sony, Microsoft, Siemens, Google, etc. and many universities (institutions).

This year, China with 58990 patents filed the most number of international patent applications dethroning the US with 57840 patents. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said that Asia-based applicants now account for 52.4% of all PCT applications. As expected, Huawei Technologies is the top filer with 4411 patents in 2019 for the third consecutive year, followed by Mitsubishi (2661), Samsung (2334), Qualcomm (2127), etc. Surprisingly, Oppo and Vivo are also there in the list with 1927 and 603 patents respectively.

Till now, Nokia has declared over 3000 5G patent families including the regionally-registered patents with an investment of €129bn into research and development (R&D) over the past two decades, and about €4.4bn in 2019. And if we consider the IEEE Spectrum Patent Power rating, then Nokia has more valuable 5G patents than Huawei and Ericsson.