The EPO Technology Dashboard 2025 showed that Chinese companies and researchers filed a record 22,031 patent applications with the EPO in 2025, with China becoming the office's third-largest source of patent applications for the first time.
BERLIN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- China's patent footprint in Europe is expanding at an accelerating pace, extending beyond traditional strengths such as digital communication into a broader and more diversified range of fields, a European patent expert said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
The EPO Technology Dashboard 2025, released this week, showed that Chinese companies and researchers filed a record 22,031 patent applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) in 2025, with China becoming the office's third-largest source of patent applications for the first time.
"The number of applications was up 9.7 percent year-on-year, making China the fastest-growing country among the top 10 filing countries," said Roberta Romano-Goetsch, the EPO's chief sustainability officer and spokesperson.
Romano-Goetsch noted that transport and semiconductors saw the fastest growth among the technology fields represented by Chinese applicants, both of which posted an increase of over 30 percent. China also recorded increased activity in other areas, including biotechnology and organic fine chemistry.
"This is evidence of the continued diversification and broadening of China's innovation landscape," she said.
The expert noted there is a longer-term trend of Chinese companies and innovators increasingly seeking patent protection in Europe. Over the past decade, applications from China have posted double-digit growth, tripling from more than 7,000 in 2016 to more than 22,000 in 2025.
Romano-Goetsch attributed the trend to both strong domestic innovation capacity and a more global outlook among Chinese companies. "Sustained investment in research and development (R&D), particularly in strategic fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), digital communications, clean energy and semiconductors, has clearly strengthened the technological output of Chinese innovators," she said.
Overall, the EPO received a record number of over 200,000 patent applications in 2025 and the top five applicants were the United States, Germany, China, Japan and South Korea.
In terms of company rankings, Chinese tech giant Huawei and Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd (CATL) placed second and 10th, respectively, the first time that two Chinese companies entered the EPO's top 10. Four other Chinese companies -- Xiaomi, ZTE, OPPO and Tencent -- also ranked among the top 50.
"The internationalization of Chinese patents, including the fact that Chinese applicants increasingly seek and obtain European patents, points to the growing global relevance of Chinese innovation as well as to the attractiveness of the European technology market," she said.
According to Romano-Goetsch, international patent families originating from China are now growing faster in key sectors than domestic-only filings. "This suggests that Chinese innovators are increasingly orienting their activities towards global markets and building portfolios with an international dimension, underlining China's rising importance as a global innovation hub," she said.
Looking ahead, the expert said that computer technology is expected to remain a key focus of global innovation in the coming years. She noted that the field was the top area for patent applications at the EPO in 2025, boosted by an increase in patent applications for AI-related technologies.
"The future of computing is crucial to economic competitiveness and technological sovereignty, providing an indispensable basis for countries and regions to develop their own critical technologies," she said.
She added that patent applications related to clean energy technologies and other means of generating, transmitting and storing electricity are also expected to continue rising, as innovators respond to the energy transition and the race to meet climate targets. ■
