Seville, (EFE).- The number of patent applications in Andalusia grew by 2% last year, a percentage that breaks the decrease of more than 25% registered in 2021.
Andalusia recorded a total of 154 national patent applications in 2022, which represents a growth of 2% compared to the previous year, according to data from the Spanish Patent and Trademark Organization (OEPM) analyzed by the Ministry of University, Research and Innovation.
This positive figure contrasts with the decrease registered in 2021, when this type of request had a marked decrease of 25.2%. With 154 registrations, the region is currently in fourth position at the national level behind Madrid (245 registrations), the Valencian Community (179) and Catalonia (162).
National patents are, traditionally, the means of protection most used by entities, representing up to half of all patents.
From October 2022 to February 2023, the trend of this type of request has been clearly upward, increasing by 54.5% compared to the same months of 2021 and 2022.
Seville leads patents in Andalusia
The provinces in which the largest number of applications in this modality were submitted were Seville (50), Cádiz (23) and Málaga (22), followed by Granada (17), Almería and Jaén (10); Cordoba (14) and Huelva (8).
Regarding interannual growth, the provinces in which this indicator has grown the most in percentage terms have been Córdoba (40%), Granada (34.6%) and Jaén (33.3%).
Patents are legal titles that protect an invention, be it a new product or service, with industrial application.
It is a type of protection thanks to which exclusive exploitation rights are obtained for a maximum of 20 years, preventing its manufacture, sale or use by others without the consent of its owner.
The patent registration process can be carried out in three ways: national, European or international, and in all three cases the petitions can be submitted to the SPTO, which for European patents processes them with the European Patent Office (EPO) and, in the international ones, under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). EFE