A wafer is exposed to light during the manufacturing process; Source: Oregon Department of Transportation

The 2015 patent statistics released in February by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) suggest that semiconductor vendors have been very active in developing their patent strategies in both Taiwan and around the globe. Intel came out top for patents filed for the second time (the first was in 2012).

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC), one of Intel’s major competitors in its custom foundry business, ranked second, suggesting that semiconductor vendors are actively developing advanced processing technologies and protecting them with patents.    

Figure 1 Taiwan Patent Filing Statistics in 2015 among Key Players in Major Industries

Source: TIPO, 2016/02/02

There are three industry categories in Figure 1, including semiconductors, panels and mobile devices.  Taiwanese vendors have invested heavily in these industries and are key players in the global market. Figure 1 suggests that the volume of patents filed by both Taiwanese and international semiconductor vendors has increased from 2014 to 2015. The number of patents filed by Intel reached 956 in 2015, a 140% rise from 2014; Samsung’s filings increased by 32%, while TSMC’s rose by 16%.
In contrast, panel and mobile device patents filings dropped last year, suggesting that companies in these industries are cutting their patent budgets. Key players in the mobile device sector, Apple and HTC, both cut their patent investment budgets, with their patent filings in Taiwan falling 18% and 8% respectively. 

Compared to the semiconductor and mobile device sectors, the panel industry has faced a more serious downturn over last couple of years. As a result, some panel vendors have experienced losses for more than twelve consecutive quarters. Figure 1 suggests that panel giants including Samsung Display, LG Display and AUO cut the volume of patent filing by 30~50%. 

Why Taiwan is Important for the Semiconductor Market?

As mentioned above, international semiconductor vendors have been very active in filing Taiwan patents, Table 1 reinforces this idea. Table 1 lists the top 10 corporations/institutions that applied for patents in Taiwan in 2015. The table is divided into organizations that are resident and non- resident in Taiwan. As we can see from the table semiconductor vendors account for more than half of the non-Taiwan resident patent filers. Corporations and institutions including Intel, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials, Semiconductor Energy Lab., Nitto Denko, and Samsung Electronics are all semiconductor vendors, offering various semiconductor products. 

Table 1 Statistics of Taiwan Patent Applications 2015

Source: TIPO; ▇ Semiconductor Corporation

Alhough Taiwan does not have a large consumer electronics market, Taiwan has the largest base for IC design and wafer foundry services, so it is easy to explain why semiconductor corporations love to invest in Taiwanese patents. Although IC design services are emerging in mainland China, Taiwan still holds an important position in the worldwide semiconductor market.

Overall Situation

In 2015, overall applications dropped 5.6% from the previous year to 73,627. The overall applications in the invention, utility model and design categories were 44,415, 21,404 and 7,808 respectively. All were down from the previous year with inventions dropping by 1,963 applications (-4.2%) (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Trends in Taiwan Patent Applications 2013 - 2015

Source: TIPO

Overall applications (41,869 cases) by residents in 2015 saw a yearly decrease of 8.7%. Of these, invention and utility model applications totaled at 17,282 and 20,138, respectively. The number of invention patents dropped by 9.3%. This decline may be due to residents becoming more selective over the past few quarters when applying for patents, as well as changes in their portfolio strategies. As for non-residents, overall applications (31,758 cases) were slightly down with invention applications at 27,133. Foreign invention patent applications saw a yearly increase from 55.8% in 2013 to 61.1% in 2015; however, domestic applications fell from 44.2% to 38.9% during the same period.

Japanese applicants managed a slight growth over the preceding year and maintained its place at the top of the non-resident ranking with 13,495 applications overall. Applications filed by applicants from mainland China (2,019 cases) were the third largest in number (Fig. 3), and have outnumbered those filed by South Korean applicants (1,792 cases) three years running, since 2012. Japan also claimed the top spot among the five largest patent-filing countries (Fig. 4, 5) in the numbers of invention patent applications at 12,284 and in the number of design patent applications at 1,090.

Figure 3. Top 5 Taiwan Patent Filing Countries in 2015

Source: TIPO

Figure 4. Top 5 Taiwan Invention Patent Filing Countries in 2015

Source: TIPO

Figure 5. Top 5 Taiwan Design Patent Filing Countries in 2015

Source: TIPO

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