Europe is increasingly losing touch in chip research

Between 2000 and 2021, Japan accounted for a third of all semiconductor patents (35%), followed by the USA (18%) and South Korea (15%). The EU countries account for a total of around 10% of all semiconductor patents. "At the beginning of the 2000s, the EU was still ahead of Taiwan and China in semiconductor research. However, the Asian countries have made significant gains since then, while patent applications in Europe have declined," says ifo researcher Oliver Falck.

With 5.6% of patents, Germany is behind Taiwan (9%) and China (7%). Overall, 99% of global semiconductor research is concentrated in 20 countries. "The EU Chips Act was intended to strengthen Europe's sovereignty and competitiveness. However, very little funding has gone into semiconductor research so far," says Falck. "In order not to fall behind in semiconductor research, Europe must also significantly expand international cooperation, especially with Asia."

Largest growth in China and South Korea

China and South Korea show the largest increases over the period under review. In a comparison of the earliest three-year period (2001 to 2003) with the most recent data (2019 to 2021), South Korea tripled the number of semiconductor patents. Starting from a low level, China increased the number 39-fold: from 0.8% (2001 to 2003) to 17.6% (2019 to 2021). Conversely, the European countries lost ground. Their share of semiconductor patents fell from 13.3% to 8.3% in the three-year periods under review before 2003 and after 2019. Despite this positive development in Asia, Europe's cooperation with Asian countries is disproportionately low when looking at patents shared by several countries.

The study is based on information on over 2.5 million patent applications from the PATSTAT database of the European Patent Office (EPO). The data set examined comprises worldwide patent applications between 2000 and 2021 that were assigned to the field of semiconductor technology. This area includes patents that relate directly to semiconductors or computer chips as well as patents for production processes or materials.