Korea University: KU Leads Domestic Universities in European Patents

Korea University has been named first among domestic universities in European patent filings.

According to the Patent Index 2021, a report released by the European Patent Office (EPO) on April 5, Korea University was in 12th place among Korean organizations as a whole, and in 1st place among domestic universities.

The two universities that were among the top 15 organizations in Korea were Korea University and Seoul National University, and the rest were major companies. Samsung topped the list, followed by LG.

Korea University filed a total of 31 European patents in 2021, a significant achievement considering its lower performance before 2020.

Other universities which have been included in the top 20 are POSTECH (12th) and KAIST (18th) in 2014, and Hanyang University (10th) in 2018. Korea University (12th) is the first university in recent years to be ranked alongside major companies.

Korean organizations overall were collectively first in the category of digital communication (an 8.4% year-on-year increase). However, Korea fell to second spot in the category of electrical machinery, apparatus, and energy, a 4% year-on-year decrease which was largely driven by the focus on patent filings in clean energy technology in the previous year.

EPO, one of the largest public service organizations in Europe, was established to strengthen cooperation among European countries. Filers of European patents are offered protection in 44 contracting states which constitute a market of over 700 million people.