Patent Applications in Europe
The online edition of the Financial Times reported on March 7 that Samsung Electronics applied for more patents in Europe than any other smartphone manufacturers for a second consecutive year.
The number amounted to approximately 2,800 last year, more than 10 times that of Apple. Apple had ranked 50th in 2012, but slid to the 66th in 2013. The Financial Times added that Samsung Electronics applied for that many patents amid its court battle against Apple, and the patents will be approved in three to five years.
In the meantime, Google had close to 2,000 patents approved in the United States in 2013, which is double the number of patents it had obtained until the previous year.
In 2013, Samsung Electronics applied for 638 patents in the field of computer technology, a key business of its arch-rival, which is over five times the number of those by Apple. In this field, Samsung Electronics’ patent applications outnumbered Apple’s by a factor of two. In addition, about 9 percent of the applications were on technologies Apple was not associated with.