UMinho Engineering leads the way in patents in Portugal The University of Minho is the national institution with the most applications for ‘patent families’, according to the ‘Inventa Barometer 2024 – Patents Made in Portugal’, which has just been released by the consultancy Inventa International.
The academy’s 29 registrations include innovations in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, autonomous driving, manufacturing, production and construction, among others. The results reinforce UMinho’s role as one of the main drivers of innovation in Portugal, as well as its connection to the economic and social fabric.
In this ranking, which analysed the year 2022, the following stand out: the universities of Aveiro, Lisbon (both with 28 patent families) and Coimbra (25), Raiz – Forest and Paper Research Institute (23), the University of Porto (20) and Bosch (19), a company that has been collaborating intensively on R&D&I projects with UMinho for over a decade.
The fifth edition of the ‘Inventa Barometer’ monitored registrations submitted to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the European Patent Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the Chinese Patent Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and the Brazilian INPI. Only filed patent applications were considered, since most registrations are published after a secrecy period of 18 months. Thus, the year 2022 represents the most recent time interval for public analysis, and does not yet include the most up-to-date data for 2023.
The report also reveals that the majority of national patent applications were made by higher education institutions, 90% of which were linked to the North, Centre and Lisbon regions. Between 2012 and 2022, Portugal’s patent applications grew by 1.7 per cent a year, with international growth more than doubling during this period (from 420 to 1019 applications). The most dynamic areas include pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology and computer technology, with the USA, followed by Europe, China and Canada leading the target geographies.
On the European scene, Portugal has risen from 23rd to 18th place in the patent ranking in a decade, thanks to increased investment in R&D and technical and financial support from programmes such as Portugal 2020 and Compete. This progress has consolidated industrial property as a strategic pillar for the competitiveness and internationalisation of national organisations. However, as Inventa International points out, Portugal still faces the challenge of catching up with Europe’s leading economies, such as Germany and France.
+Info: inventa.com/pt/noticias/artigo/1067/barometro-inventa-2024-patentes-made-in-portugal
Source: GCI UMinho
