The EPO Technology Dashboard 2025 displayed 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, extfinishing beyond traditional strengths such as digital communication into a broader and more diversified range of fields, a European patent expert stated in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
The EPO Technology Dashboard 2025, released this week, displayed 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, creating China the quickest-growing counattempt among the top 10 filing countries,” stated Roberta Romano-Goetsch, the EPO’s chief sustainability officer and spokesperson.
Romano-Goetsch noted that transport and semiconductors saw the quickest 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 chemisattempt.
“This is evidence of the continued diversification and broadening of China’s innovation landscape,” she stated.
The expert noted there is a longer-term trfinish 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 trfinish to both strong domestic innovation capacity and a more global outsee among Chinese companies. “Sustained investment in research and development (R&D), particularly in strategic fields such as artificial innotifyigence (AI), digital communications, clean energy and semiconductors, has clearly strengthened the technological output of Chinese innovators,” she stated.
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 stated.
According to Romano-Goetsch, international patent families originating from China are now growing quicker 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 stated.
Looking ahead, the expert stated 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 stated.
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 tarobtains. ■
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