The European Patent Office (EPO) has revealed that Philips filed the third largest number of patent applications in Europe in 2013.
According to the organisation, Philips filed 1,839 patent applications, up 59 per cent compared to 2012 when it was ranked as the twelfth largest patent applicant. The ranking includes any global company that has filed a patent in Europe.
The European Patent Office HQ in Munich
More than 30 per cent of Philips’ patent applications were for lighting while 40 per cent of the filings were in the healthcare sector. The company has 64,000 patent rights, 93,000 design rights, 46,000 trademarks and 4,700 domain names.
Other companies with a lighting division that appear in the top 25 included General Electric, Samsung and LG, although it is not clear what percentages of the patents they filed were for lighting.
Philips isn’t without criticism for the way it enforces its intellectual property.Earlier this month, Lighting received a letter from a French OEM alleging that the Dutch company’s approach to IP enforcement was ‘aggressive’. The company in question claimed that it had received a letter from Philips warning it that a number of its products infringed Philips’ intellectual property before inviting it to join the Philips Licensing program.
The managing director of the company, who did not wish to be named, said: “We are being approached in a very aggressive manner by Philips who claim that our LED products (in fact most LED products on the market) are probably infringing on their patents.Their royalty system requests somewhere around 5 per cent on all sales.”
When Lighting contacted Philips for a response, Bjrn Teuwsen, director of communications from Philips Intellectual Property & Standards said: “We regret this feeling and observation, since Philips always approaches companies in a friendly manner and seeks to discuss the topic to determine in a cooperative way the extent our patents are applicable to the products sold by that company.
“Our licensing program covers approximately 220 inventions resulting in over 1,400 patents and patent applications worldwide, recognized by over 380 licensed companies to date. We never claim that all LED products require a license and therefore we always want to liaise and reach a consensus with the company, since royalties only apply on products made or sold in a country where Philips has a patent granted covering a feature of that product.
“Through the program, Philips is helping to promote and create an open environment. Over the years, Philips has built a reputation of not only developing and selling technology, but also sharing its IP with other industry players. Finally, we strongly encourage companies to jointly meet with us, hear their possible concerns and clarify and explain our licensing program to them,” he said.
During a press conference on the EPO’s annual results held in Brussels, Benot Battistelli, President of the EPO, presented the key patenting trends and statistics for 2013 as well as the rankings of top patent filing companies and countries, showing an all-time record of patents filed at the EPO.
