TSMC top patent applicant in Taiwan for 9th straight year

Taipei, Feb. 15 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) applied for the most patents of any companies in Taiwan for the ninth consecutive year in 2024, data released by the Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed Saturday.

In a statement, the office said TSMC filed 1,412 invention patent applications in 2024, down 28 percent from a year earlier but the number still hit the highest level among all of the patent applicants in Taiwan.

The office said the drop in TSMC's filings largely reflected the contract chipmaker's patent development strategies.

Under Taiwanese law, patents are categorized into three groups -- invention, utility model and design -- with invention patents considered the most important for new technologies.

TSMC has invested heavily in research and development to maintain a technology lead over its rivals.

It was the first chipmaker in the world to mass produce chips made with the advanced 3-nanometer process and is developing the more sophisticated 2nm process, which is expected to begin commercial production in Hsinchu in 2025.

Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip supplier Nanya Technology Corp. came in second after filling 466 invention patents in 2024, up 25 percent from a year earlier.

Rounding out the top 10 Taiwanese invention patent applicants were flat panel maker AUO Corp. (425, down 5 percent), the Industrial Technology Research Institute (356, up 15 percent), flat screen producer Innolux Corp. (328, up 1 percent), AI server maker Inventec Corp. (321, up 6 percent), communication network IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (309, up 14 percent), PC brand Acer Inc. (277, down 5 percent), iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (259, up 93 percent), and smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc. (239, down 56 percent).

According to the Intellectual Property Office, iPhone assembler and AI server maker Hon Hai enjoyed the highest growth in invention patent applications in Taiwan last year.

Among foreign companies in Taiwan, American semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc. ranked the largest invention patent applicants in 2024 after filing 950 applications, up 29 percent from a year earlier.

The growth enjoyed by Applied Materials helped the company replace South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., which filed 894 invention patents in 2024, down 8 percent from a year earlier, to become the top foreign applicant, the office said.

South Korea's e-commerce operator Coupang Corp. came in third after filing 698 invention patents in 2024, up 54 percent from a year earlier ahead of Japan's semiconductor and display production equipment supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd. (661, up 21 percent), and American smartphone IC designer Qualcomm Inc. (660, up 3 percent), the data showed.

Rounding out the top 10 foreign applicants were Japanese electrical product maker Nitto Denko Corp. (417, down 13 percent), Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding N.V. (344, up 11 percent), Japan-based semiconductor silicon provider Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. (279, up 22 percent), U.S. wafer-fabrication equipment supplier Lam Research Corp. (276, up 12 percent), and Japan's semiconductor equipment supplier SCREEN Holdings Co. (253, down 2 percent).

The office said China-based telecom equipment brand Huawei Technologies Co. ranked as the 17th largest invention patent applicant in Taiwan with a record high of 184 in 2024, up 28 percent from a year earlier.

Huawei's patent applications in Taiwan grew year by year during 2020-2024, indicating the company's ambitions to facilitate its patent development plan in Taiwan, according to the office.