Patent applications submitted by Spanish universities and the CSIC

By national or international processes in 2017

One of the main tasks of the Statistics and Studies Service of the SPTO is the annual monitoring of the IP rights application and granting. This article is focused on those patent applications linked to academic and research centres, specifically to the Spanish universities and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), submitted by national or international processes in 2017.

Regarding universities, nationally processed applications which had these entities as holder or coholder with other bodies or companies reached 433, universities appear as main holders in 366 of them. In addition, 2 files entered the national phase coming from PCT international applications. At international level, universities submitted 213 PCT applications, being main holders in 168 of them and sharing the titularity with other universities, bodies or companies in the rest.

In relation to the CSIC, nationally processed applications which had this entity as holder or coholder with other bodies or companies were 65, the CSIC appears as the main holder in 44 of them. At international level, the CSIC submitted 55 PCT applications, being the main holder in 42 of them and sharing the titularity with universities, bodies and companies in the rest. Moreover, the CSIC submitted 24 European Patent applications, which means a huge rise with respect to the previous year (85%). The CSIC was the main holder in 18 of them and shared titularity with universities, bodies and companies in the rest.

These figures should be increased by those PCT or European Patent applications submitted directly at the corresponding international offices (WIPO International Bureau and European Patent Office, respectively) by these entities, since they are not subject of this article.

Given these data, we can assert that the use of the national and international industrial protection systems by Spanish academic and research centres is gaining relevance, which provides greatest soundness to the research and innovation task. All the data from these entities can be consulted at the following links of our website:

• National patent applications submitted or participated by Spanish universities at the SPTO 2005-2017
• PCT patent applications submitted at the SPTO by Spanish universities between 2005-2017
• National, PCT and European Patent applications submitted or participated by the CSIC between 2012-2017