Greece is a laggard in patents
The number of patent applications submitted to the European Patent Office (EPO) by inventors and companies from Greece is particularly low, according to the data of the European organization.
New applications from Greece for obtaining a European patent fell by 15.6% in 2023 compared to 2022, having reached 157. This performance puts Greece in 36th place among the 50 countries with the most applications. The first and second places are occupied by the US and Germany with 48,155 and approximately 25,000 applications, respectively.
“Greece’s record, with only 157 European applications or 15 applications per million inhabitants, is very low. The corresponding average of the European Office is 150 per million, while in some small, but technologically developed countries (Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands) it exceeds 500 applications per million inhabitants,” explains Dimitris Kouzelis, European patents consultant and chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee of the National Hellenic Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce.
In contrast to the patenting of inventions by the Industrial Property Organization (OBI), which ensures the protection of intellectual property only in Greece, obtaining a European patent carries much more weight, being a much more difficult task, according to experts.
“The most worrying thing is that in 2023 Greece showed a drop of 16% compared to 2022, but also 23% compared to 2021, when total applications reached 203. The icing on the cake is that the largest depositor was not even a Greek company, but the Greek subsidiary of the French Bic Violex, which has its research center in Attica. It is also worth noting that a significant percentage of applications come from private inventors – i.e. individuals,” emphasizes Kouzelis.
The number of applications from Greece lags by 90% compared to the European average, and compared to countries like Portugal the lag is even greater. “With 329 applications in 2023, Portugal has seen an increase of 5% per year and now exceeds us by 110%. In 2014, amid the economic crisis in both countries, Portugal filed around 100 applications, as many as Greece, while in 2004 Greece filed over twice as many applications as Portugal,” explains Kouzelis.
