The European Patent Office (EPO) has published the Patent Index 2002 providing the latest figures on the development of patent applications filed with the EPO in 2022. In total, the EPO recorded the filing of 193,460 patent applications. This represents an increase of 2.5% compared to 2021. However, as already in previous years the number of grants by the EPO decreased. In 2022 the total number of grants fell by 24.9% to a total of 81,754 grants.

Most applications in 2022 were filed by US based applicants, with a share of 24.9% of the total applications filed. The number of applications filed by German applicants fell by 4.7% compared to 2021 to a total of 24,684 applications. This puts Germany in second place behind the US in terms of total patent applications filed with the EPO. Among the EPC member states, Germany ranks first. Other major applicants in 2022 were Japan with a share of 11.2% and China with a share 9.8% of the total applications filed.

An increase in patent applications was noted in particular in the field of "Digital communication", with the number of new applications in this field increasing by 11.2%. This is also reflected in the top 5 applicants, which, starting with the most applications in descending order, are formed by the mobile communications and electronics corporations Huawei, LG, Qualcomm, Samsung and Ericsson. Other major fields in which numerous applications were filed are "Medical technology" and "Computer technology".