Switzerland has the second most patents per capita in Europe

With 772 academic patents per 1 million inhabitants, Switzerland has the second highest number of academic inventions. Denmark is ahead with 800 patents. Together with Sweden and Denmark, Switzerland is also among the top 3 in terms of the highest number of academic patents per full-time equivalent.

In absolute terms, Germany, France, the UK and Italy registered the most academic inventions between 2015 and 2019. However, smaller countries such as Sweden, Switzerland and others have the highest average number of patents per university. Switzerland ranks 6th in Europe, accounting for 5.7 percent of all academic patents in Europe.

These are data from a study by the European Patent Office. The results "clearly show that university research benefits local ecosystems in all European regions, small and large companies alike". This is how António Campinos, President of the European Patent Office, summarizes in his foreword this first comprehensive analysis that his office has now published with regard to academic patent applications.

According to the report, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich(ETH) is the leader in terms of the number of start-ups, namely 101, which registered patents from research in the period between 2000 and 2020. The top 25 universities on the continent also include the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne(EPFL) in fifth place with a total of 83 start-ups. The University of Zurich(UZH) is in 12th place with 60 start-ups. 2219 patents were registered by ETH in this period, 1697 by EPFL and 930 by UZH. The University of Basel accounted for 470 patents and the University of Lausannefor 363.

Start-ups were responsible for 12 percent of all academic patents. Overall, companies filed 80 percent of all indirect academic patent applications, with SMEs accounting for a third of these. In terms of the number of applications filed per start-up, France is slightly ahead of Germany (2.8) with an average of 3.1 European patent applications. This is comparable with the United Kingdom (3.0), Sweden (2.83) and Switzerland (2.39), but is well ahead of Italy (1.7). ce/mm