Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, took the top spot among patent applicants in the country for the seventh consecutive year in 2022, according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Last year, TSMC filed 1,534 patent applications, down 21 percent from a year earlier, but remained the top applicant in Taiwan, the office said. All of TSMC’s patent applications were invention patents, according to the office.
Under Taiwan law, patents are categorized into three groups — invention, utility model and design — with invention patents being the most important in terms of the creation of new technical ideas.
TSMC, which has a more than 50 percent share of the global pure wafer foundry business, is keen to develop high-tech processes to cement the company’s technological lead over its peers with the invention patent category a focus of patent applications.
The chipmaker started mass production of chips made using its most advanced 3 nanometer process at the end of last year, and is developing the more sophisticated 2nm process, which is scheduled to begin commercial production in 2025.
On the foreign applicant front, U.S.-based semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc. was the largest patent applicant in Taiwan in 2022 after filing 881 applications which were comprised of 847 invention patents, two utility model patents and 32 design patents, the office said.
While Applied Materials had fewer patent applications than TSMC, the U.S. company replaced Qualcomm Inc., an American smartphone IC designer, as the largest foreign patent applicant in Taiwan, the office said. Qualcomm fell one notch to second place in 2022, with 763 patent applications, down 10 percent from a year earlier, the office added.
After TSMC, PC brand Acer Inc. was second among local patent applicants in 2022 with 530 patent applications, up 15 percent from a year earlier, ahead of flat panel maker AUO Corp. (505, up 7 percent), smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc. (412, up 58 percent) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip maker Nanya Technology Corp. (371, up 28 percent).
Rounding out the top 10 local patent application companies were flat panel supplier Innolux Corp. (336, up 2,700 percent), followed by communication network IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (332, down 25 percent), the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (331, down 18 percent), contract notebook computer maker Inventec Corp. (289, up 24 percent) and China Steel Corp., the largest steel maker in Taiwan, (249, up 18 percent).
Hong Shu-min (???), director of the office, said applications from Nanya Technology and Innolux hit 10-year highs, adding that the impressive growth for Innolux resulted from a relatively low comparison base a year earlier as well as its efforts to develop Micro LED devices and precision medical equipment.
Commenting on the failure of iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. to make it into the top 10 patent applicants in Taiwan for the second consecutive year in 2022, Hong said the company has clearly changed its research and development strategies by assigning more of its efforts overseas.
According to Hong, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn globally, focuses its R&D efforts in the United States and Japan, with each account for about 30 percent, while China and Taiwan made up 20 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
After Applied Materials and Qualcomm, South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. took third spot among foreign patent applicants in Taiwan in 2022 by filing 675 patents, up 30 percent from a year earlier, ahead of Japan-based semiconductor supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd. (487, up 2 percent) and Japanese electrical product maker Nitto Denko Corp. (445, down 16 percent), the office said.
Japanese memory chip supplier Kioxia Holdings Corp. came in sixth with 436 applications in 2022, down 5 percent from a year earlier, followed by Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC, formerly known as Facebook (293, up 281 percent), Japan’s Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (275, up 35 percent), Japan’s Fujifim Corp. (270, up 3 percent) and Japanese precision processing tool supplier Disco Corp. (266, 18 percent), the office added.
According to the office, it was the first time Meta and Shin-Etsu Chemical have ranked in the top 10 foreign patent applicants in Taiwan, adding that Meta benefited from its efforts to develop technologies related to the “metaverse,” a digital world where people can move between devices and communicate in a virtual environment.
The office said the top 10 foreign patent applicants were largely from the semiconductor, information technology and chemical industries.
In 2022, a total of 72,059 patent applications were filed in Taiwan, down 0.8 percent, but invention patent applications bucked the downturn, rising 2 percent to a 10-year high of 50,242, the office said.
Among foreign applications, Japan was the largest applicant with 13,128 applications, ahead of the U.S. (8,517) and China (4,424), the office added.
According to the office, Japan was the largest invention and design patent applicant, with China the largest utility model patent applicant, in 2022.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel