Shanghai. February 9. INTERFAX-CHINA - Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer ZTE Corp. filed 5,719 patent applications in 2009, ranking first among Chinese patent applicants for the first time.
ZTE's domestic patent applications increased by over 20 percent year-on-year in 2009, while its number of international patent applications increased by over 200 percent to hit 1,164, according to the Feb. 8 announcement.
ZTE said over 90% of its 6,000 plus patent applications were invention patents, of which 30 percent were wireless patent applications.
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Hongfujin Precision Industry (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. ranked second and third in terms of domestic patents filed, with 2,868 and 2,306 applications respectively.
Huawei was granted the most patents in 2009 - obtaining 3,457 patents throughout the year, while ZTE and BYD Co. Ltd. followed with 1,620 and 1,116 patents granted respectively, according to a report released by State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) on Jan. 12.
Huawei became the first Chinese company to top the international patent application list in 2008, with 1,737 international patent applications filed, while ZTE ranked 38 at this time.
ZTE said that in order to strengthen its position in the global market, the company has followed a policy of investing 10% of revenues into research and development (R & D). ZTE has over 40,000 employees engaged in R & D and technical activities and has filed 25,000 patent applications to date.
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