Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, was the No. 1 Taiwanese firm in invention patent applications in the nation for the first half of the year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Intellectual Property Office said on Thursday last week.
US-based smartphone chip designer Qualcomm Inc took top spot among foreign firms for invention patent applications in Taiwan, the office said.
According to Taiwan’s patent law, patents are categorized into three groups: invention patents, utility model patents and design patents, with invention patents being the most important in terms of the creation of technical ideas.
Data compiled by the office showed that TSMC filed 345 invention patent applications in the past six months, up 5 percent from a year earlier.
Flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) was second, filing 244 invention patent applications, up 89 percent from a year earlier, ahead of IC designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科, 177, up 7 percent), PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁, 163, up 20 percent) and iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密, 138, down 36 percent).
Hon Hai was the only Taiwanese firm in the top 10 to record a year-on-year decline in patent applications, the office said.
Pegatron Corp (和碩), another iPhone assembler, was the No. 6 Taiwanese invention patent applicant, filing 100 applications in the six-month period, up 156 percent from a year earlier, followed by smartphone brand HTC Corp (宏達電, 96, up 146 percent), the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院, 88, up 11 percent), IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp (瑞昱半導體, 77, up 45 percent) and telecom services provider Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信, 67, up 72 percent).
Among foreign firms, Qualcomm filed 585 invention patent applications in Taiwan in the first half of the year, up 120 percent from last year, followed by US-based semiconductor production equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc (299, down 3 percent).
Alibaba Group Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), took third place, filing 123 patents, down 57 percent from last year, ahead of Japanese semiconductor firm Tokyo Electron Ltd (193, up 12 percent) and Japanese electronics component maker Nitto Denko Corp (156, up 23 percent).
In the first half of the year, the office received 8,408 invention patent applications, up 4 percent from a year earlier, it said.
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