Huawei announced a batch of key inventions as part of its biennial “Top Ten Inventions” Awards at the “Broadening the Innovation Landscape 2022” forum held at its Shenzhen headquarters.
The award is designed to recognize inventions that could create new series of products, become important commercial features of existing products, or that generate considerable value for the company and the industry.
Today, major changes are unfolding around the world and the pandemic continues. These are creating opportunities for a new technological revolution, especially in digital innovation. A boom of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and metaverse is changing the way we work, live, and entertain ourselves.
According to WIPO’s ( World Intellectual Property Organization) report, In 2020, total intangible asset value rose to an all-time high of 65.7 trillion US dollars, representing 54% of overall listed global value. Over the past decade, the number of applications processed by WIPO has increased by at least 60%. These figures show that economies are investing more and more into innovation and creative industries, and are increasingly aware of using IP rights to protect their innovations.
“Businesses play a major role in innovation. It is now more important than ever for businesses to pursue innovation and globalized operations”, said by Liu Hua, Director, World Intellectual Property Office of China. Among global innovators, Huawei’s performance is especially impressive. In 2021, Huawei topped the list of PCT (PATENT COOPERATION TREATY) applications for the fifth year in a row with 6,952 applications, nearly 1,500 more than they filed in 2020. Huawei’s 98 Madrid applications placed it the fourth in the list of international trademark applications, once again ranking them in the top 5.
These achievements are a direct result of Huawei’s sustained investment in innovation. Innovation is at the heart of Huawei’s business strategy.
“For the past three years, the business environment has been challenging. But the harder things get, the more determined we are to invest in the future” said by Song Liuping, Chief Legal Officer of Huawei. In 2021, Huawei increased R&D investment to 142.7 billion yuan. That’s 22.4% of our total revenue. Both our R&D investment and percentage of revenue spent on R&D have reached a 10-year high. Song added that “This made Huawei the world’s second largest investor in R&D according to the 2021 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. Over the past few years, our annual investment in basic research has passed 20 billion yuan.”
Liu Hua highly appreciated Huawei during his speech said that, WIPO appreciates Huawei’s ongoing efforts in innovation, and we expect Huawei to continue to take part in high-level global competition with innovation at its core.
Huawei has focused on intellectual property protection for a long time. Huawei filed its first patent application in 1995 and was granted its first patent in 1998. By the end of 2021, Huawei had filed more than 200,000 patent applications worldwide, and been granted more than 110,000 patents, including over 60,000 PCT patents. Many people may consider this a miracle. Huawei is an uncommon role model in China’s intellectual property field. However, we must remember there is a reason behind this.
Song liuping said that Huawei has always focused on protecting intellectual property rights “We firmly believe that protecting IP is key to protecting innovation. Huawei has filed more than 10,000 patent applications annually for the past two years. This is a record high for us. We open up our innovations to the industry through patents. We are eager to license our patents and technologies to share our innovations with the world. This will help broaden the innovation landscape, drive our industry forward, and advance technology for everyone.”
Alan Fan, Head of Intellectual Property Rights Department of Huawei reported Huawei’s latest movement on protecting intellectual property.
For five straight years, Huawei has ranked No. 1 globally in terms of PCT applications. This number hit almost 7,000 last year. That’s the highest number in the history of PCT for a single applicant. The PCT system allows Huawei to file national patents within 30 months and use this precious time to plan for global filing of our future-oriented patents.
The number of Huawei’s patent applications in China continues to rise. They exceeded 10 thousand in 2020 and close to 12 thousand in 2021. Today, no other company has more granted patents than Huawei in China.
According to Alan Fan, Huawei’s annual patent applications in the United States have been around 4 thousand, with an average of 3 thousand new grantings. In 2021, Huawei ranked fifth in terms of new grantings, adding up to a total of 20 thousand patents in the United States.
According to the European Patent Office, Huawei was the largest patent applicant in Europe in 2019 and 2021. Europe is one of Huawei’s largest overseas markets.
Huawei disclosed that they have 20 research centers in Europe, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, and the list goes on. The number of patent applications by our local R&D teams has been on the rise every year.
The new Intellectual Property system should be anchored in innovation, from innovation to novation. So it should be anchored in the creations that society requests and that actually ameliorate the quality of life of human beings. The Intellectual Property system should assure that these are the creations that merit protection because these are the ones that brings actual value.
